Best known for her portrayal of strong-willed reporter "Lois Lane" in the 1978 hit film Superman: The Movie, actress Margot Kidder has died at the age of 69.
PEOPLE Magazine reports Kidder passed away on Sunday at her home in Livingston, Montana, of unknown causes.
Although she began her career in the 1960s, Kidder saw her star skyrocket after her turn as "Lois Lane" in Superman: The Movie opposite Christopher Reeve.
Who among us wouldn't have wanted to take a ride in the sky with hunky Christopher Reeve's "Superman?" She would go on to reprise the part of the intrepid reporter in three film sequels.
Other credits include 1974's Black Christmas, 1979's The Amityville Horror and Heartaches in 1981, as well as On the Other Hand, Death (2008) and Never Met Picasso (1995) in which she played openly-lesbian characters.
She served as producer and starred as "Eliza Doolittle" in a 1983 adaptation of Pygmalion opposite Peter O’Toole for Showtime.
She also appeared onstage, most notably in the 2002 Broadway production of The Vagina Monologues.
However, amid all that success, Kidder quietly waged war with mental health demons that eventually left her homeless.
In 1996, police checked her into Olive View-UCLA Medical Center after she had been reported missing for days.
“The woman we saw was in obvious mental distress,” Officer Rick Young of the Glendale police told PEOPLE at the time. “She didn’t think one person was following her. She thought a whole group of people were after her.”
Kidder eventually shared in 1996 that she had been diagnosed with manic depression eight years earlier but refused to take the recommended prescription of lithium for the disorder.
“It’s very hard to convince a manic person that there is anything wrong with them,” said Kidder at the time. “You have no desire to sleep. You are full of ideas.”
Watch and remember the famous "Can You Read My Mind" flying sequence from Superman: The Movie below.
RIP Margot Kidder.
