Margot Kidder

Margot Kidder
Born	Margaret Ruth Kidder October 17, 1948 (1948-10-17) (age 63) Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1968–present
Spouse	Thomas McGuane (1975–1976) (divorced), 1 child John Heard (1979) (divorced) Philippe de Broca (1983–1984) (divorced)

Margaret Ruth "Margot" Kidder (born October 17, 1948) is a Canadian-born American actress. She is perhaps best known for playing Lois Lane in the four Superman movies opposite Christopher Reeve, a role that brought her to widespread recognition.

Early life

Kidder, one of five children, was born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, the daughter of Jill (née Wilson), a history teacher, and Kendall Kidder, an explosives expert and mining engineer.^[1][2][3] She was born in Yellowknife because of her father's job, which required the family to live in remote locations.^[4] She has a sister, Annie, and three brothers, John, Michael and Peter. Kidder's niece, Janet Kidder, is also an actress.

Career

Early roles

In the late 1960s, Kidder was based in Toronto. She appeared in a number of TV drama series for the CBC, including guest appearances on Wojeck, Adventures in Rainbow Country, and a semi-regular role as a young reporter on McQueen. During the 1971-72 season, she co-starred as barmaid Ruth in Nichols, a James Garner western, which aired 22 episodes on NBC. She appeared in "Such Dust As Dreams Are Made On", which was the first pilot for Harry O and aired in March, 1973. She was also a guest star in a 1972 episode of the George Peppard detective series Banacek. She appeared in a number of low-budget Canadian movies in the late 1960s (The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar being her first feature), and the early 1970s.

The 1970s and The Superman film series

In 1970, Kidder co-starred as Zazel Pierce opposite Gene Wilder in Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx. The Brian DePalma cult classic Sisters (1973) gained notoriety for both director and leading lady Kidder, who portrayed conjoined twins. She starred in the classic horror film Black Christmas in 1974 and The Great Waldo Pepper opposite Robert Redford in 1975. She received positive reviews for 92 in the Shade (1975) with Peter Fonda, famously marrying the film's director Thomas McGuane.

A nude pictorial of Kidder, photographed by Douglas Kirkland, was published in the March 1975 issue of Playboy. The accompanying article was written by her as a condition of appearing; she said, "I don't want someone writing, 'Margot Kidder has more curves than the Santa Monica Freeway' under my picture."

Kidder is perhaps best known for her role as Lois Lane in the 1978 film Superman: The Movie and its sequels. She won the Saturn Award for Best Actress for Superman: The Movie. She publicly disagreed with the decision of producers Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind to replace Richard Donner as director of 1980's Superman II^{[citation needed]}. And it was reported that as a result, Kidder's role in 1983's Superman III consisted of less than five minutes of footage, though the producers have denied this in DVD commentaries. Her role in 1987's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was more substantial.

In 2004, Kidder briefly returned to the Superman franchise in two episodes of the television program Smallville, as Dr. Bridgette Crosby, an emissary of Dr. Swann (played by her Superman co-star, Christopher Reeve). (Many other actors from the Christopher Reeve Superman films have had small roles on Smallville.)

Her turn as Kathy Lutz in the much-anticipated 1979 summer release of The Amityville Horror further cemented her status as one of Hollywood's leading ladies. In 1979, she hosted season 4, episode 15 of the American sketch comedy TV show Saturday Night Live.

Other film and television roles

Other high profile parts included Paul Mazursky's Willie & Phil, Some Kind of Hero with Superman III co-star Richard Pryor and The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Her performance in 1981's Heartaches generated critical acclaim and Oscar buzz. As court stenographer-cum-private eye Mickey Raymond, the PG rating that 1983's Trenchcoat received led Disney to launch Touchstone Pictures. She appeared opposite James Garner in controversial Hollywood crime drama The Glitter Dome (1984). In 1985, she toplined Little Treasure for Columbia Tri-Star with co-stars Ted Danson and Burt Lancaster, where she played a distraught stripper looking for her bank robber-father's buried fortune.

Additionally, she has made uncredited cameo appearances in Maverick (1994) and Delirious (1991).

In 1979, she hosted season 4, episode 15 of the American sketch comedy TV show Saturday Night Live. A 1982 stage performance of Bus Stop starring Kidder as Cherie and Tim Matheson as Bo, was broadcast on HBO. In 1983, she produced and starred as Eliza Doolittle in a version of Pygmalion with Peter O'Toole for Showtime.^[5]. She also produced and starred in the period miniseries Louisiana. Body of Evidence (1988), a CBS Movie of the Week, cast Margot as nurse who is suspicious that her Medical Pathologist second- husband is a serial killer.

In 2000, Kidder played Eileen Canboro in Apocalypse III: Tribulation, a Christian film dealing with Christian eschatology and the Rapture. Kidder stated afterwards that she did not realize until she was on the set that the movie was serious.^[6]

In 2001, she played a guest role as the abusive mother of a serial killer in "Pique", an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Also in 2001, she was featured in the Family Guy episode "Mr. Saturday Knight". In a flashback of previous dinner guests, she is shown sitting down eating dinner with Peter and Lois Griffin. Lois compliments her on her performance as Lois Lane in the Superman movies; Kidder promptly screams, tears up the house and jumps through the window, a reference to her manic episode in 1996. She is shown twice more in a manic state, on the second occasion coming back because she forgot her purse.

In 2002, she appeared alongside Crispin Glover and Vanessa Redgrave in the film adaptation, Crime and Punishment.

In 2004, Kidder made an appearance on Robson Arms, a Canadian sitcom set in an apartment block in Vancouver's west end. She played a quirky neighbor of the main cast members. She also had a cameo in Rich Hall's Election Special on BBC Four. In 2006, Kidder played a guest role as Jenny Schecter's mother Sandy Ziskin on The L Word. In 2007, Kidder began appearing on the television series Brothers and Sisters, playing Emily Craft. She also appeared on season four of Smallville, a television show which follows the adventures of Clark Kent during the years before he becomes Superman. Kidder played Dr. Virgil Swann's emissary assistant, Bridgette Crosby. Dr. Swann was played by fellow Superman co-star, Christopher Reeve. Smallville was Reeve's final on-air appearance.

She played Barbara Collier, Laurie Strode's therapist, in the sequel to Halloween (2007) titled, Halloween II, released in 2009.^[7] She played Sally Cima, the mother of protagonist Greg Cima, a high school football player, in the film Windrunner: A Spirited Journey. It aired on the Disney Channel. She took a prominent role as an embattled guidance counselor in the 2008 gay-themed mystery film On the Other Hand, Death.

Other appearances

In 1994, Kidder played the bartender at the Broken Skull Tavern in Under a Killing Moon, an IBM PC adventure game.

She has also done extensive stage work, including The Vagina Monologues.

Personal life

In the past, Kidder dated former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and director Brian De Palma. She has been married and divorced three times: American novelist Thomas McGuane, with whom she had her only child, daughter Maggie (born October 28, 1976); actor John Heard and to French film director Philippe de Broca. None of the marriages lasted longer than a year. Since her divorce from De Broca, she has said that she prefers the companionship of her dogs. She has two grandchildren, Mazie and Charlie Kirn, from her daughter's marriage to the novelist Walter Kirn.

Kidder actively supported Jesse Jackson's bid for the Democratic nomination in 1984.

In the early 1990s, during the first Gulf War, Kidder was criticized for remarks she had made that questioned the war.^[8]

As of November 2009, Kidder was the Montana State Coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America. The organization's website carried her article "Ax Max", in which Max Baucus, Montana's moderate Democratic Senator, was the target of criticism.^[9]

Kidder was involved in a serious car crash in 1990, after which she was unable to work for two years, causing her serious financial problems.

Kidder has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which led to a widely-publicized manic episode in 1996; she was found cowering naked in undergrowth by Los Angeles police in a distressed state and the caps on her teeth having fallen out, and was later placed in psychiatric care.^[10]

In 2007, Kidder said that she had not had a manic episode in 11 years thanks to Abram Hoffer and his Natural Medicine.^[11]

On August 23, 2011, Kidder, Tantoo Cardinal, and dozens of others were arrested while protesting the proposed extension of the Keystone Pipeline.^[12]

Citizenship

Kidder became a United States citizen on August 17, 2005, in Butte, Montana; she lives in Paradise Valley, near Livingston.^[13][14] She said the reason for her decision to become an American citizen is to participate in the voting process, to continue her protests against US intervention in Iraq, and at the same time to be free of worries about being deported.^[15]

References

1. ^ "Who Do You Think You Are? | Stories | Margot Kidder". Cbc.ca. 1919-01-07. http://www.cbc.ca/whodoyouthinkyouare/stories/ext_margot.php. Retrieved 2010-06-17. 
2. ^ "Margot Kidder Biography (1948-)". Filmreference.com. 1948-10-17. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/Margot-Kidder.html. Retrieved 2010-06-17. 
3. ^ "Superman2 Media". Supermancinema.co.uk. 1981-08-24. http://www.supermancinema.co.uk/superman2/general/media/s2media_kidderfired_from3_peoplemag_Aug81.htm. Retrieved 2010-06-17. 
4. ^ Hobson, John Allan; Leonard, Jonathan A. (2001). Out of Its Mind: Psychiatry in Crisis. Basic Books. p. 161. ISBN 0738202517. http://books.google.com/books?id=3bTz0ifs5cQC&dq=%22MARGOT+KIDDER%22+FATHER. 
5. ^ "Margot Kidder Leaves Superman for Shaw". Mount Airy News. July 14, 1983. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Qos_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=h1UMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5333,5225414&dq=margot+kidder+pygmalion&hl=en. 
6. ^ Spencer, Scott (10 September 2001). "Lights! Camera! Rapture!". The New Yorker: p. 108. 
7. ^ Blog entry^{[dead link]}
8. ^ Applebome, Peter (4 March 1991). "National Mood; War Heals Wounds at Home, but Not All". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEEDC1031F937A35750C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 17 June 2010. 
9. ^ Kidder, Margot (November 26, 2009). "Ax Max". Progressive Democrats of America. http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-26-01-08-11-news.php. Retrieved 2009-11-26. 
10. ^ By J.D. Reed (September 23, 1996). "Starting Over". People. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20142326,00.html. Retrieved 2010-06-17. 
11. ^ Kidder, Margot (September 16, 2010). "Larry Hobbs". Larry Hobbs @ Fatnews.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLWJhj4Mmy8. Retrieved 2010-12-09. 
12. ^ "Margot Kidder arrested at White House oil protest". CBC News. 23 August 2011. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2011/08/23/edm-keystone-xl-oilsands-protest-kidder-arrested.html. Retrieved 23 August 2011. 
13. ^ "Margot Kidder Biography (1948-)". Film Reference. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/Margot-Kidder.html. Retrieved August 30, 2011. 
14. ^ Wilkinson, Todd. "To Find Russell Chatham, Look Homeward". Wildlife Art Journal. http://www.wildlifeartjournal.com/articles/wildlife-art-journal-premium-content/summer-2011/179/to-find-russell-chatham-look-homeward.html. Retrieved August 30, 2011. 
15. ^ "Superman actress among 19 who gain U.S. citizenship in Butte". The Montana Standard. 2005-08-18. http://www.montanastandard.com/articles/2005/08/18/newsbutte/hjjejbibjjebif.txt. Retrieved June 21, 2006. 

External links

• Official website
• Margot Kidder at the Internet Movie Database
• Article: From paranoid delusions to orthomolecular medicine
• Canadian Film Encyclopedia
• The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar

Persondata
Name	Kidder, Margot
Alternative names
Short description	Actress
Date of birth	1948-10-17
Place of birth	Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada
Date of death
Place of death