@RobBex2
Margot Kidder (1948-2018)
Acting’s fun, but life’s more important…
-Margot Kidder
In 1978, Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve made us believe that a man could fly. Their ground-breaking movie still lifts and inspires us to this day. Hell, Kevin Feige revealed that before they make any MCU film, they re-watch the film that started all this superhero and comic-book film madness: the classic, SUPERMAN.
Today, we lost our Lois Lane, Margot Kidder. Yes, we have had many other Lois Lanes, but they all looked up to Kidder. Kidder’s performance revealed what we love about the character. She was beauty and grace, hard-nosed and forthright and didn’t let a little thing like a crashing helicopter stop her from reporting the news. Kidder’s Lois was a woman in a man’s world, but she couldn’t have cared less; this was the late Seventies and, dammit, no reporter — ESPECIALLY one from Smallville, Kansas — would take her headline. She made Lois a woman little girls could look up to and who could go toe-to-toe with the Man of Steel.
Superman: I’m here to fight for truth, justice, and the American way.
Lois Lane: You’re gonna end up fighting every elected official in this country!
In reality, Margot Kidder was born Margaret Ruth Kidder in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada and began her career in 1968. She would accumulate over 130 credits to her name, including The Amityville Horror, Maverick and, later in her career, Smallville. While playing a heroine on the silver screen, she was not without her own demons. In the late Nineties, she succumbed further into her bipolar disorder, and we almost lost her then; but like the badass reporter she’d portrayed, she was able to get help and she started her mental wellness campaign and gave us another 22 years. Sometimes art imitates life.
Growing up with strong women in my life, I have always held a special place in my geeky heart for Lois Lane. Margot Kidder WAS our Lois Lane. Growing up, in some apartment in the Bronx, having a man in red and blue be one of our first memories, we believed a man could fly because we watched you believe it first.
Goodbye, Miss Lane; and Godspeed Ms. Kidder.
-Robert Bexar