Long before he played Superman, I’d seen Reeve on the soap opera Love of Life. It was never one of the most popular soaps, but I liked it. It was only 25 minutes long (a newscast filled the rest of the half-hour), so it moved faster than most; but it was still produced live-on-tape, so it lacked the frenetic cutaway editing seen on most of today’s hour-long soaps. Jennifer Aniston’s daddy was a cast member, as were the guy who later played the Twin Peaks killer dad and the guy who played Bogart in Play It Again Sam.

Anyhoo, Reeve was energetic and somehow sympathetic in the role of a slick, two-timing swindler on the show. I could tell he had a big career ahead of him.