Superman actress Margot Kidder, dead aged 69

Superman’s original golden girl, Margot Kidder, has died aged 69.

Kidder’s publicist confirmed to Variety that the actress died in her sleep at her home in Livingston, Montana on Sunday.

Kidder shot to fame in the 1970s playing Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve’s Superman. The pair starred in four films together between 1978 and 1987.

Despite her huge success at the beginning of her career, Kidder’s life soon spiralled out of control and she faced homelessness and mental illness.

According to People, she was reported missing for days in 1996, and when police finally found her, they took her away in handcuffs to Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.

Kidder later told the magazine she was living with manic depression, which brought on “mood swings that could knock over a building”, and had run into trouble after refusing to take her lithium prescription.

Despite her troubles, Kidder enjoyed career success again and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2015 for her role on the children’s TV show R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour. She also had a small role in Superman TV series Smallville, as well as Brothers & Sisters, and “he L Word in the 2000s. Kidder also acted on stage, including Broadway’s 2002 production of The Vagina Monologues.

The Canadian-born actress was married and divorced three times. Her first marriage was to Thomas McGuane in 1975. The pair had a daughter, Maggie, in 1976. In 1979, she wed actor John Heard, but they were divorced just six days later. Her third marriage was to French director Philippe de Broca from 1983 to 1984.

She was politically active in her later years and was arrested outside the White House in 2011, where she was protesting the Iraq War.

After Reeve’s death in 2004, Kidder spoke about their “brother and sister” relationship and how they would bicker on set like siblings. She told HeyUGuys in 2016, that the pair were the lowest paid actors on the set of the first Superman film and that she had to negotiate on their behalf for the second film as Reeve was “too nervous” to ask for more money.

She is survived by her daughter, Maggie McGuane.

Do you remember Margot Kidder? Were you a fan of the original Superman movies with her and Christopher Reeve?