Margot Kidder, Lois Lane of 'Superman' Films, Dead at 69
Courtesy of https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/margot-kidder-superman-actress-dead-at-69-w520293
Actress also
starred in 'Sisters,' 'The Amityville Horror' and 'Black Christmas'
Margot Kidder, the actress who portrayed Lois
Lane in four Superman films, died Sunday at her home in Livingston, Montana at
the age of 69.
The Franzen-Davis Funeral Home & Crematory first announced Kidder's
death, which was later confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter by the
actress' representative. No cause of death was provided.
During the Seventies and Eighties, Kidder's
most prolific decades, the actress starred in films like Brian De Palma's Sisters, The Amityville Horror, The Great Waldo Pepperwith Robert Redford, the slasher classic Black Christmas and, between 1978
and 1987, four Superman films: Superman, Superman II, Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
However, the actress' popularity waned in the Nineties after she suffered a
public breakdown; Kidder was later diagnosed with bipolar disease and became an
activist for mental health.
Kidder was born in 1948 in Yellowknife, Northwest
Territories and lived in remote areas throughout her childhood. "We didn't
have movies in this little mining town. When I was 12 my mom took me to New
York and I saw Bye Bye Birdie,
with people singing and dancing, and that was it," Kidder told The Guardian in 2005. "I
knew I had to go far away. I was clueless, but I did OK."
Kidder first started acting in Canadian television and
film productions before making her American feature-film debut with a role in
1969's Gaily, Gaily. The
following year, Kidder moved to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career,
leading to roles in the Gene Wilder-starring Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx and the TV
Western series Nichols.
In 1973, Kidder broke out with her dual role of separated
conjoined twins in director Brian de Palma's psychological thriller Sisters. After starring alongside
Robert Redford in 1975's The
Great Waldo Pepper, Kidder scored the role she's best remembered
for: Playing the Daily Planet's star journalist and Clark Kent's love
interest Lois Lane in the Christopher Reeve-starring film series about the DC
Comics superhero. Kidder landed the Lois Lane role despite having little
knowledge of the Man of Steel beforehand.
"I had a very fierce English teacher mother who felt
that children should not read comic books. So I didn't know anything about
it," Kidder told Superman
Homepage in 2005. "I read one comic before my screen test
and it was about the Daily Planet having a bowling tournament with those
terrible women's libbers. And I thought of myself as a feminist so I read this
and went 'What is this?' So I based my interpretation on the script."
Following two years of filming Superman, Kidder capped off the
Seventies by playing Kathy Lutz in the 1979 hit horror film The Amityville Horror; Superman became
the highest-grossing film of 1979, while The Amityville Horror finished in the Top Five at the
year-end box office.
Over the next decade, in addition to three Superman sequels, Kidder starred
in films like Heartaches, Miss Right and the Richard Pryor
vehicle Some Kind of Hero;
Kidder and Pryor would also appear together in 1987's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
However, Kidder's career severely stalled in the
Nineties: In 1990, she suffered a serious car crash that prevented her from
acting for two years and forced her into bankruptcy. Six years later, Kidder suffered
a manic episode that became a source of tabloid fodder. As the actress later
explained, her meltdown – sparked by the loss of the computer containing her
in-the-works memoir – involved her believing her first husband was going
to murder her, so she fled her home, cut her hair and pulled her teeth out to
avoid identification. Police ultimately found her on a porch near the studios
where Superman was
filmed.
"I guess I came to terms with my demons,"
Kidder told The Guardian.
"Horrifying as it was to crack up in the public eye, it made me look at
myself and fix it. People were exploitative; that's human nature. I'll tell
you, being pretty crazy while being chased by the National Enquirer is not good. The British tabloids were
the worst. But you take the cards you're dealt, and I got better. I'm now
ferociously healthy in body and mind."
Kidder remained active in film and television until her
death, including guest roles on Law
& Order: SVU, The L
Word and the Superman-inspired TV series Smallville in a non-Lois Lane
role.
Kidder's last television role, a guest appearance on a
2014 episode of R.L. Stine's The
Haunting Hour, earned the actress a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding
Performer in Children's Programming.
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