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| Margot Kidder 1948-2018 |
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The famed 'Superman' actress died on May 13 at the age of 69.
By Clark Collis in Entertainment Weekly
he superhero movie genre lost a genuine icon on May 13 with the passing of Margot Kidder, who died in her sleep at the age of 69. Cast as journalist Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent in Richard Donner's 1978 blockbuster Superman, Kidder's no-nonsense portrayal remains, for many, the definitive onscreen version of the scribe, a role she would reprise in three sequels. At a time when special effects had barely achieved takeoff, she helped convince audiences that a man -- and his love -- could indeed fly.
But Kidder's intensity and rat-a-tat way with dialogue weren't limited to just superhero films. The Canadian-born actress starred in more than 130 big- and small-screen projects, including many horror movies, such as 1974's Black Christmas and 1979's The Amityville Horror, a supposedly true tale whose based-on-real evens bona fides Kidder would later dismiss with typical straightforwardness as "hogwash." She also appeared in Brian De Palma's 1974 psychological thriller Sisters and 1975's Robert Redford-starring The Great Waldo Pepper.
"She was a lioness. And lionesses, as you know, are the leaders, not the lion," The Red Maple Leaf director Frank D'Angelo says of Kidder. In 1996, she suffered a much-publicized manic episode and wold subsequently by diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Following the incident, she rapidly returned to work for two more decades of films and TV shows. These included Rob Zombie's 2009 slasher sequel Halloween II and the superhero series Smallville, one of the countless projects to benefit from the ever-growing interest in a genre Kidder had done so much to foster with her depiction of Lois Lane. 
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The Canadian-American actress soared in more than 100 projects, with Superman and horror films headlining her arc. by Katie Hasty
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| Alice Cooper's Brush With Death |
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The shock rocker is known for his onstage antics. One night 30 years
ago, while performing his famous gallows stunt, it almost killed him.
By Alice Cooper as told to Dan Reilly in Entertainment Weekly
learned how to do [the stunt] from the Amazing Randi, who's a magician. They put the noose around your neck, and there's a piano wire that comes down behind the back of the noose that connects onto a harness that you're wearing under your costume. The wire is an inch shorter than the rope, so when the bottom drops out, the wire catches you before the rope does.
That worked every night for two years. But everything has its stress limit, and after doing so many shows I never thought about changing the wire. [One night in 1988 in London] the wire snaps. In an instant I flipped my head back so that the rope went over my chin rather than catching my chin. That must've been a fraction of a second, because if it had caught my chin it would have been a different result. But it went over, and it gave me a pretty good burn on my neck. I went down to the floor and pretty much blacked out.
The next wire was, like, three times the strength of that one. But you don't know to do that until something like that happens. It worked perfectly for 100 shows, and then all of a sudden it didn't.
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