Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve by Christopher Andersen

time when they desper- ately needed it, and for that we shall always be grateful to him.” Chris insisted this was “not Superman to the rescue . . . If you know me as Superman, fine. But we have to remember that Su-
    perman is light entertainment. This was real life.”
    Dana “could not have been prouder of Chris” when he re- turned to Williamstown. “Chris is just a profoundly passionate, committed guy,” she said. “He’s the complete opposite of super- ficial, but some people don’t take him seriously because he is just so damned good-looking. If they only knew, he’s even better on the inside .”
    That Christmas of 1987, Exton dropped both Matthew and Alexandra off with Chris to spend the holidays in Williamstown.
    Again, Chris worried about how Alexandra, who like Matthew sounded very British despite their dual citizenship, was going to react to seeing Daddy in bed with someone other than Mummy. Reeve’s fears proved unfounded. In addition to his posh accent and blond hair, “Al” shared her brother’s mischievous streak. Every morning at dawn, they tiptoed in, then gleefully leapt on the bed. For the next half hour, “it was nothing but tickles and gig- gles,” Reeve said. “Dana seemed to enjoy it as much as they did.” Once they were back in New York, both Chris and Dana once again had to scramble for work. That January of 1988, Chris flew to Los Angeles to star on stage as the womanizing John Buchanan in Tennessee Williams’s southern Gothic psychodrama Summer
    and Smoke .
    After a few weeks, Dana called up one of Chris’s pals with her plan to pay him a surprise visit. “I thought it would be fun to fly out there,” she said. “Think of the expression on his face when I just show up.”
    All too familiar with Chris’s tendency to stray, the friend was less than enthusiastic about Dana’s plan. “Umm, gee . . . ,” he said, screwing up his face and shaking his head, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Don’t surprise him. Surprises aren’t good.”
    “Why not?” It took a few seconds for Dana to get the not- so-subtle message. “Oh. Well,” she said with a shrug, “if I’m go- ing to go out there and find him with someone else, it might as well be now.”
    When she called the theater and checked with the manager’s of- fice, she was told that Chris was throwing a party for the entire cast and crew at a popular Thai restaurant called Tommy Tang’s. Dana drove up alone in a cab and found her way to the private room
    where Chris’s Summer and Smoke party was being held. Chris was easy to spot in any room—he towered over nearly everyone—and when she saw him, drink in hand, completely engrossed in con- versation with someone she couldn’t see at the far end of the room, her heart sank for an instant. She took a deep breath and made her way through the crowd toward Chris. She found him engaged in a heartfelt conversation with a burly electrician.
    “Dana!” Chris yelled, wrapping her up in his arms and lifting her off the floor.
    “So, I expected to find you with a gorgeous blonde,” she half- joked.
    “Hey,” Chris shot back, motioning to the surfer-blond elec- trician, “do you want to hurt Jim’s feelings?”
    They had been together for a solid six months, and neither was certain that their relationship could withstand a lengthy separa- tion. Now that they had their answer, the relief in their voices and on their faces was unmistakable.
    “I missed you,” Chris said as he plucked two glasses of cham- pagne off a passing silver tray.
    “I missed you too,” Dana answered, holding her glass up to toast the moment.
    They stood in the same spot and talked for more than an hour, and as on the night they first met, everything and everyone else just seemed to vanish.

“Dana is my life force.”
    —Chris

“I didn’t fall in love with Superman.
I fell in love with a super man.”
    —Dana

    3
    -

    I

    t had been an idyllic few months in L.A. during the limited