Christopher Reeve’s wife’s cause of death confirmed

Born on March 17, 1960, in Teaneck, New Jersey, Dana Charles Reeve was an actress, singer, and the devoted partner of the late great Christopher Reeve who stayed with the ailing star until the very end.

Christopher Reeve was, of course, iconic in the role of Clark Kent, aka Superman, whom he played in four movies between 1978 and 1987. However, he also appeared in films like Deathtrap (1982), The Remains of the Day (1993), and Village of the Damned (1995), as well as television shows as wide-ranging as The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live, Tales from the Crypt, Frasier, Sesame Street, and Smallville (as per IMDb).

Reeve tragically died at the age of 52 on Oct. 10, 2004, from a cardiac arrest (which his wife believed was caused by an adverse reaction to a drug). Still, he’d endured years of health issues before that — mainly due to a horse riding incident that left him paralyzed from the neck down in 1995.

Dana remained by her husband’s side until his death, but it’s worth noting that her career was a success in its own right. Her acting credits included the likes of the 1995 television movie Above Suspicion, the legal drama Law & Order, the prison drama series Oz, the soap opera All My Children, her husband’s 2004 movie The Brooke Ellison Story, and voice work in the 2006 animated sports movie Everyone’s Hero. She also co-hosted the live daily talk show Lifetime Live (as per IMDb).

Following her husband’s death, she succeeded him in chairing the Christopher Reeve Foundation (now known as the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation), which is a charity dedicated to finding treatments and cures for people paralyzed by spinal cord injuries and other neurological disorders.

Tragically, on March 6, 2006, just 18 months after her husband’s death, Dana Reeve passed away. But how did that happen?

How did Dana Reeve die?

As per The New York Times, Dana Reeve died from lung cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Although she had never smoked, she had regularly sung in bars and hotel lobbies with exposure to secondhand smoke during her early performing career, which may have contributed to her getting the horrible disease.

She had announced her diagnosis in August 2005. In January 2006, during her final public appearance at Madison Square Garden, she told the world her tumor had responded well to treatment and was shrinking. However, it began growing again soon after, and treatment no longer worked.

Dana Reeve was a great woman and a doting wife and mother — her 2005 “Mother of the Year Award” from the American Cancer Society is a testament to her legacy — and she’s greatly missed.

May Dana Reeve rest in eternal peace alongside her beloved husband, to whom she was married for 12 years.