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No kidding

Margot Kidder played Lois Lane and Kathy Lutz in The Amityville Horror, but a nervous breakdown really put her in the spotlight, she tells Chris Roberts

Saturday April 9, 2005
The Guardian

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At 56, Margot's own story trumps any movie mythology for drama, and it's a relief to hear that despite her 1990s hell, it resolves itself with our leading lady as "a grandmother with my dogs and nice friends here in the Rocky mountains. Ever see the movie A River Runs Through It? That's where I live. It's beautiful, no two ways about it. I never watch television. Well, I watch the BBC News and Nip/Tuck. That's it." She's been up, she's been down. "What happened to me - the biggest nervous breakdown in history, bar possibly Vivien Leigh's - is not so uncommon. I've had thousands of supportive letters from all over the world. It's just that mine was public. If you're gonna fall apart, do it in your own bedroom."

Born in Yellowknife in the Canadian north, Kidder recalls: "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. I knew I had to go far away. I was clueless, but I did OK." She went to 11 schools in 12 years; her first suicide attempt occurred in her teens.

She moved to Hollywood, bagging film roles. In the 1970s her California beach house, shared with actress Jennifer Salt, regularly hosted parties of kindred spirits. Fixture guests included Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma and Susan Sarandon. Kidder became involved with De Palma and played the lead in his 1973 film Sisters. "They're remaking that, too. This is my year of the remake. Go for it, see what you can do, guys, why not?

"It was a wonderful time to be young. The 1960s didn't end until about 1976. We all believed in Make Love Not War - we were idealistic innocents, darling, despite the drugs and sex. We were sweet lovely people who wanted to throw out all the staid institutions who placed money and wars above all else. When you're young you think that's how life works. None of us were famous, we were broke. We didn't think they'd be writing books about us in 30 years. We were just kids doing the right thing."

After films like The Great Waldo Pepper and 92 In The Shade (the director Thomas McGuane became her first husband, of one year, and father of her daughter Maggie) she landed those two plum roles - Kathy Lutz, and Lois in Richard Donner's Superman franchise - which made her an 1980s icon.

"It was exciting, but for a while being typecast as Lois made my vanity and narcissism scream. Hadn't people seen my other work? But now my grandkids watch it, and think I was Superman's friend, so that's a thrill." Does she judge subsequent Loises: Teri Hatcher, Kate Bosworth? "I don't have any emotional attachment to it. I think the little girl in Smallville is terrific, but I only watched it once. What I do remember is I was supposed to go to the Superman premiere in London and meet the Queen, but Amityville couldn't release me because the flies they were breeding to crawl over Rod Steiger's face were hatching that day. I was briefly bitter."

Kidder was married to actor John Heard for just six days in 1979; her third marriage, mid-1980s, lasted a year. Perhaps her most high-profile relationship (she also dated the "very clever" singer Nick Lowe) was with Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau. "He was a wonderful lover and friend, and his death left a big hole in my heart. We got ridiculous media attention. The thing about being famous is, first of all, it's weird. The only people who get how weird it is are other famous people. So there's this unspoken club where you go, and say to each other: 'Oh God, if they only knew how ordinary I was, they wouldn't be interested.' That includes movie stars and politicians. So it was a natural pairing. I was very active in the peace movement, still am, and he was a great man."

The 1990s sucked for Margot. Here's what happened. In 1990 a serious car crash meant she couldn't work for two years, and she went bankrupt. In 2002 another road accident broke her pelvis. Between these bookends came 1996. As Kidder wrote her autobiography, her computer crashed, and manic depression took hold. Paranoid, convinced her first husband was out to kill her, she ran away and lived rough. To avoid being recognised she hacked her hair off and pulled out some teeth to alter her dental records. Homeless, confused, she acquired a stalker and narrowly avoided a rape attack. She was found shivering under a family's porch near the studios where Superman was shot. Police intervention saved her, and she got back on track. She's since done much work for mental wellness campaigns and charities, and is currently writing a one-woman-show "about insanity and war". She still appears on TV in Canada and America, and toured for two years with The Vagina Monologues. "Acting's fun, but life's more important."

"I guess I came to terms with my demons", she muses. "Or else I'd be in big trouble, wouldn't I? Horrifying as it was to crack up in the public eye, it made me look at myself and fix it. People were exploitative; that's human nature. I'll tell you, being pretty crazy while being chased by the National Enquirer is not good. The British tabloids were the worst. But you take the cards you're dealt, and I got better. I'm now ferociously healthy in body and mind. You couldn't pay me to go near a psychiatrist again. Stopping seeing them was my first step to getting well.

"And the truth about those car smashes is - stone cold sober - I'm simply the worst driver on the planet. I remember saying to the medics after the last one, 'Please make sure the press know I'm not on drugs or alcohol! I'm just a terrible driver!' In fact I banged my car again and didn't bother to get it fixed - I'd only hit something else."

Persecuted by the holier-than-thou media for too long, Margot's emerged from her car-crash decade with curses laid to rest. "My grandson sees me as Lois on TV every Christmas, and that scores me points. And my pro-choice activism keeps me busy." All is rosy. Isn't it? "God, George Bush makes me want to slash my wrists. He's so embarrassing I have to leave the room when he's on the news. What a monkey."