Actress Jane Seymour has opened up about how she maintained a relationship with her former flame Christopher Reeve long after their spark was gone.
The pair had fallen “madly in love” on the set of their film Somewhere in Time, where Reeve took on the role of a playwright who becomes obsessed with a photograph of a young woman – played by Seymour – who wishes himself back in time to 1912 and finds love with her.
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“Chris and I, when we made the film, we literally fell madly in love,” Seymour said during an interview for TCM.
“When you see this film, you will see the real thing. But we didn’t let anyone know. So a few of the people who worked on the show kind of sussed it out, but we were as subtle as we could be about it.”
She said they were “madly in love and life was wonderful.”
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But a sudden phone call from Reeve’s ex, modelling executive Gae Exton, put the brakes on his and Seymour’s burgeoning love story – Exton was pregnant with his child.
Seymour was left heartbroken as she struggled to complete the film, while Reeve went back to Exton and had his first two children with her, Matthew in 1979 and Alexandra in 1983.
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His relationship with Exton ended another 10 years on and both parties moved on, with Reeve going on to marry his wife, actress Dana Morosini, and Seymour going on to marry businessman David Flynn in 1981 and actor James Keach in 1993.
All the while, she remained in Reeve’s life as a close friend, joining Reeve at fundraisers and events for his advocacy work into research for injuries such as his.
She also attended his Star Ceremony on the Hollywood Walk of Fame alongside his wife Dana and son Matthew in 1997.
Now she shares that she and his wife would “tag-team” caring for him after the horse riding accident in 1995 left him paralysed from the neck down.
“We were very close, and remained very close, but especially after he had the injury,” the 73-year-old told People.
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“Dana and I would do tag team, sometimes: when she couldn’t be there, she’d ask me if I had come and run interference,” Seymour explained.
“Chris never lost his sense of humor, ever. Ever. I mean, he was funny. He was so much fun.
“And I think of anyone in the world was my greatest inspiration, because he took a challenge that is inconceivable to have to live that way.”
Reeve passed away in 2004 after suffering cardiac arrest while being treated for an infected pressure ulcer that was causing sepsis, a common complication of his condition.
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Less than a year after her husband’s death, Dana discovered she had lung cancer and died in 2006.
Seymour is now dating musician John Zambetti, with the couple going ‘Instagram official’ in 2023.
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