Margot Kidder dead: Lois Lane actor dies at 69

Margot Kidder, the actor best known for playing Lois Lane in the ’70s and ’80s Superman movies alongside Christopher Reeve, died on Sunday. She was 69 years old.

The cause of her death is unknown, though her representative confirmed she passed away “peacefully” in her sleep. A spokesperson at Franzen-Davis Funeral Home in Livingston, Mont. also confirmed Kidder’s death.

“We’re sad,” said a clearly devastated Annie Kidder to Global News. “We and her family are all shocked, we just found out. It happened yesterday afternoon. We’re sad and surprised.”

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She’d been living in Montana for at least 25 years, along with her daughter Maggie and her grandchildren. She became a U.S. citizen in 2005.

Kidder was born in Yellowknife, N.W.T. on Oct. 17, 1948, one of five children. (Her sister, Annie Kidder, resides in Toronto and works for Canadian registered charity People for Education. A brother, Michael Kidder, lives in Vancouver.) She travelled a lot as a child because of her father’s job, and spent a few years as a child in Labrador City, Newfoundland and Labrador. She went to multiple schools and eventually graduated from Toronto’s Havergal College in 1966.

She got a taste of showbiz when her mother took her to New York when she was 12. It was a sign for the impressionable Kidder.

“We didn’t have movies in this little mining town. When I was 12 my mom took me to New York and I saw Bye Bye Birdie, with people singing and dancing, and that was it,” she said to The Guardian in 2005. I knew I had to go far away. I was clueless, but I [have done] OK.”

She catapulted to fame for her performance as a journalist and Superman’s love interest, Lois Lane, in 1978’s Superman. She went on to star in Superman II, III and IV.

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Kidder became an advocate for mental health issues after speaking out about living with bipolar disorder.

She also became a political activist in recent years and was among a group of environmentalists to be arrested outside the White House in 2011 during a protest against TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.

Kidder had settled in Montana to live in a “culture-free zone” away from the spotlight.

Hollywood personalities took to Twitter to share their condolences at her passing.

Superman was a superhero blockbuster two decades before comic book movies became the norm at the top of the box office.

Both Kidder and co-star Reeve, who played Superman, were relative unknowns when they got their leading parts, and neither saw many major roles afterward. Reeve died in 2004 after becoming paralyzed in a horse accident.

Kidder also appeared in 1975’s The Great Waldo Pepper with Robert Redford and 1978’s The Amityville Horror.

Annie said that Kidder’s health had not been great recently, but any problems were mostly due to aging. An autopsy is scheduled to be performed. As of this writing, there is no additional funeral information.

— With files from The Canadian Press