ALTHOUGH Dana Reeve had her own career as an actress, singer and writer, she will be best remembered for the inspirational support she gave to her husband, the Superman actor, Christopher Reeve, when he became paralysed after a fall from a horse in 1995. Reeve himself always said that his wife’s support had kept him from choosing death over living on a respirator.

But Dana Reeve’s support was more than merely personal. Her example, and the therapeutic work and stem cell research she supported via the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center, and the Reeve Foundation, became an inspiration and a focus of hope for other families similarly afflicted.

She was born Dana Morosini in Scarsdale, New York, in 1961. She graduated from Middlebury College and attended the California Institute of the Arts. Training as an actress, she first appeared on stage in regional theatres and in New York, both on Broadway and off-Broadway. She also appeared in the television shows Law & Order, Oz and All My Children.

She was on the board of the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts when she first met Reeve in June 1987. She was performing in a late night cabaret. He was sitting at a front table and introduced himself to her after the show. They became an item soon afterwards, and were married in Williamstown in April 1992.

Reeve, who starred in four Superman films from 1978 to 1987, had a fall from a horse on May 27, 1995, while participating in an equestrian competition, near Charlottesville, Virginia. He broke his neck and was paralysed from the neck down. He was to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair on life support.

But he and his wife were able to rise above the immediate effects of the personal catastrophe to become determined activists for disabled rights. She put her own career on the back burner to nurse him, and to establish and finance with him a family foundation to promote research into spinal cord injuries and stem cell research.

While he strove to recover some partial movement in fingers and toes, she became an inspirational speaker on behalf of the severely disabled. She was performing in California, in the Broadway-destined play Brooklyn Boy, when in October 2004 she had to rush home to reach her husband’s bedside as his condition suddenly deteriorated. He died of heart failure at the Northern Westchester Hospital, Mount Kisco, New York, on October 10, 2004.

She gave up her Brooklyn Boy role for the play’s New York run. But she returned to acting later. “I am an actress, and I do have to make a living.”

Dana Reeve, who was a non-smoker, announced last August that lung cancer had been diagnosed. Determined to the end, she continued to sing in public.

She is survived by her and Christopher’s son and two stepchildren.

Dana Reeve, actress, singer and activist for the disabled, was born on February 19, 1961. She died of lung cancer on March 6, 2006, aged 45.