CHRISTOPHER REEVE

Distilled from published or televised sources, this biography of Reeve from troubled childhood to triumphant re-emergence into public life focuses more on what he’s done than who he is. As a precis of his acting career and post-accident involvement in medical and social causes, this outdoes its nearest competitor, Libby Hughes’s Christopher Reeve (1997, not reviewed) in small—and sometimes insignificant—details while carrying his story forward to early 1998 (ending before he took on the remake of Rear Window last year, and lacking any mention of his autobiography, Still Me). A mix of posed full-color and black-and- white shots, show Reeve in school, on the stage, in his films, with his family, and appearing at public events; endnotes, plus a generous list of articles and books, will launch readers searching for insight into his career, if not his person. Utilitarian and coherent. (index) (Biography. 11-13)