Biography

April 8, 1943 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

6′ 6″ (1.98 m)

I wasn't pleased at all. Lester was never rude to me, but I didn't like his attitude toward filmmaking. Lester had his way of making movies, God bless him, but to me, he was nowhere near as professional as Donner. Donner was a pro who knew his job and did his homework. Superman II is a great movie, but it would have been better if they went with the Donner version. [on the dismissal of Superman director Richard Donner and subsequent hiring of Richard Lester during production of Superman II]

I didn't really like Christopher Reeve, we didn't really get on. I thought he was a bit of an asshole. But, when he got hurt, my heart went out to him and I've seen the courage he gave people. And that was magic. So he did do something with his life that was kind of good and for that, I give him a lot of credit. I can't be a hypocrite, I'm not going to say we were best friends and all that shit, because we weren't.

Christopher was all right. But he wasn't one of my favorite people. He was a 170 pound skinny kid and I gave David Prowse, a good guy, some suggestions on how to build him up. But after he built him up, Christopher started walking around like a 'serious guy'. We had a couple of confrontations. He was a 28 year old with a 16 year old brain. Christopher was rude to a lot of people, but he didn't dare act that way with me. I had him against the wall one day because of something that he said. Dick(Richard Donner)came running up. "Please, Jack. Don't hit him in the face!" Christopher and I sorted it out. I told him "If you talk about me again, you put 'Mister' in front of my name, sonny. And don't even say "Hello" to me unless I tell you to! We never had another problem, but then I never really rapped with him after that. I didn't care for him. I'm not trying to knock a dead guy, and I empathize with what he went through after the accident. I give him credit from the time that he got hurt, though he did many things that helped many people. That was magic and he conducted himself brilliantly. For that I give him five stars. I applaud him for how he helped people. They asked me to come when he got his star on Hollywood Boulevard, but what could I say? I'm not going to be a hypocrite. We weren't the best of friends - some people liked him, some didn't.

[on the long-held belief that the supervillains were killed at the end of 'Superman II']: We shot an ending where they bring us out and put us in a police car and take us off to jail. The beauty of 'Superman' and 'Superman II' is the fact that Superman wasn't flying around killing villains, he was putting them in jail - there was an American way of law and order about it. That's what's wrong with the movies they did afterwards: they got darker and darker and darker. Those first two films still stand up all these years later, you know?

Farewell, My Lovely (1975) - $3,000 a week