Margot Kidder

Acting

Margot Kidder

Born 1948-10-17 · Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada

Margaret Ruth "Margot" Kidder (October 17, 1948 – May 13, 2018) was a Canadian-American actress, director, and activist whose career spanned over five decades. Her accolades include three Canadian Screen Awards and one Daytime Emmy Award. Though she appeared in an array of films and television, Kidder is most widely known for her performance as Lois Lane in the Superman film series, appearing in the first four films. Born in Yellowknife to a Canadian mother and an American father, Kidder was raised in the Northwest Territories as well as several other Canadian provinces. She began her acting career in the 1960s appearing in low-budget Canadian films and television series, before landing a lead role in Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (1970). She then played twins in Brian De Palma's cult thriller Sisters (1973), a sorority student in the slasher film Black Christmas (1974) and the titular character's girlfriend in the drama The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), opposite Robert Redford. In 1977, she was cast as Lois Lane in Richard Donner's Superman (1978), a role which established her as a mainstream actress. Her performance as Kathy Lutz in the blockbuster horror film The Amityville Horror (1979) gained her further mainstream exposure, after which she went on to reprise her role as Lois Lane in Superman II, III, and IV (1980–1987). The 1990s were marked by significant health problems for Kidder: In 1990, she sustained serious injuries in a car accident that left her temporarily paralyzed, and she later had a highly publicized manic episode and nervous breakdown in 1996 stemming from bipolar disorder. By the 2000s, she maintained steady work in independent films and television, with guest-starring roles on Smallville, Brothers & Sisters and The L Word, and appeared in a 2002 Off-Broadway production of The Vagina Monologues. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance on the children's television series R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour. Margot passed away at her home in Livingston, Montana, at the age of 69. Her death was ruled a suicide due to a self-inflicted drug and alcohol overdose.

Acting credits

Superman poster
7.2

Mild-mannered Clark Kent works as a reporter at the Daily Planet alongside his crush, Lois Lane. Clark must summon his superhero alter-ego when the nefarious Lex Luthor launches a plan to take over the world.

Superman

1978

Superman II poster
6.8

Three Kryptonian criminals led by General Zod team up with Lex Luthor to conquer Earth, forcing a depowered Superman to regain his strength and stop them.

Superman II

1980

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace poster
4.6

With global superpowers engaged in an increasingly hostile arms race, Superman leads a crusade to rid the world of nuclear weapons. But Lex Luthor, recently sprung from jail, is declaring war on the Man of Steel and his quest to save the planet. Using a strand of Superman's hair, Luthor synthesizes a powerful ally known as Nuclear Man and ignites an epic battle spanning Earth and space.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

1987

Superman III poster
5.5

Aiming to defeat the Man of Steel, wealthy executive Ross Webster hires bumbling but brilliant Gus Gorman to develop synthetic kryptonite, which yields some unexpected psychological effects. Between rekindling romance with his high school sweetheart and saving himself, Superman must contend with a powerful supercomputer.

Superman III

1983

Halloween II poster
5.3

Laurie Strode struggles to come to terms with her brother Michael's deadly return to Haddonfield, Illinois. Meanwhile, Michael prepares for another reunion with his sister.

Halloween II

2009

Maverick poster
6.9

Bret Maverick is a gambler who would rather con someone than fight them, and needs an additional $3k in order to enter a winner-takes-all poker game beginning in a few days. He joins forces with a woman with a marvelous Southern accent, and the two try and enter the game.

Maverick

1994

The Amityville Horror poster
6.3

George Lutz, his wife Kathy, and their three children have just moved into a beautiful, and improbably cheap, Victorian mansion nestled in the sleepy coastal town of Amityville, Long Island. However, their dream home is concealing a horrific past and soon each member of the Lutz family is plagued with increasingly strange and violent visions and impulses.

The Amityville Horror

1979

Once Upon a Time: The Super Heroes poster
6.9

The historical saga of American superheroes. Born in the period between the Great Depression and the World War II to combat the hobgoblins of the modern world, these mutant human beings with superhuman powers colonized the funny papers, radio dramas, television and films, to become a truly national industry in the United States: they gave expression to the fears and obsessions of the twentieth century and bolstered American ideals.

Once Upon a Time: The Super Heroes

2001

Black Christmas poster
7.0

As the residents of the Pi Kappa Sigma sorority house prepare for the festive season, a stranger begins to harass them with a series of obscene phone calls.

Black Christmas

1974

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut poster
7.4

Superman agrees to sacrifice his powers to start a relationship with Lois Lane, unaware that three Kryptonian criminals he inadvertently released are conquering Earth.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

2006

Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman poster
7.6

The history of the comic book superhero, Superman, in his various media incarnations.

Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman

2006

Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary Special poster
6.9

A TV special celebrating the 25th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. Before a celebrity audience, many of the former cast members and guest hosts return to perform their signature monologues and present a look back at some of the best comedy skits and musical numbers of the past two and a half decades.

Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary Special

1999

Beanstalk poster
5.2

A young boy finds a crate of green beans. When they're planted, they grow a beanstalk to the clouds, where a castle of giants are habited.

Beanstalk

1994

Sisters poster
6.7

Inquisitive journalist Grace Collier is horrified when she witnesses her neighbor, fashion model Danielle Breton, violently murder a man. Panicking, she calls the police. But when the detective arrives at the scene and finds nothing amiss, Grace is forced to take matters into her own hands. Her first move is to recruit private investigator Joseph Larch, who helps her to uncover a secret about Danielle's past that has them both seeing double.

Sisters

1973

Delirious poster
5.7

A soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character in his own show.

Delirious

1991

Tribulation poster
4.6

Police detective Tom Canboro hails from a Christian family. One night, his eccentric brother-in-law Jason seemingly goes insane and tries to kill his wife, calling her a "hater". Canboro realizes this may be a conspiracy going as far as devil worship, but gets in a car crash. Waking in a strange hospital, years have passed and people all over the world are wearing the mark of 666 on their right hands, and those who don't are killed. Franco Macalusso, the believer in global peace, now controls the world, and is trying to bring the world together as it was at the Tower of Babel.

Tribulation

2000

Angel Blade poster
3.7

An emotionally damaged cop investigating a spree of prostitute killings discovers that the dark side of Las Vegas is decidedly more grim than he ever suspected in director David Heavener's gruesome thriller. When a series of teenaged prostitutes fall to the blade of a murderous madman and authorities are left scratching their heads, Detective Bradley Cooper (Heavener) hits the streets in hopes of taking the killer down. Detective Cooper has problems of his own, though, and upon uncovering what he believes to be the truth behind the ruthless killings, he soon realizes just how deadly knowledge can be.

Angel Blade

2002

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood poster
7.1

The chronicle of the mind-blowing journey that was Hollywood during the seventies; the true and gripping story of the last golden age of American cinema, an exalted celebration of creativity and experimentation; but also of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll: a turbulent and dark tale of ambition, envy, betrayal, hatred and self-destruction.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood

2003

Gaily, Gaily poster
4.3

After runaway Ben Young is robbed and left on his own, he is taken in by Lil, the head of a Chicago brothel. Acting as a surrogate mother for Ben, who thinks she runs a boardinghouse, Lil gets him a job with Francis Sullivan at the local newspaper. As Ben is exposed to the workings of the big city, he realizes the extent of government corruption and sets out on the daunting task of reforming Chicago politics, finding several allies along the way.

Gaily, Gaily

1969

Real Gangsters poster
2.8

Real Gangsters tells the story of the Lo Giacamo family, one of the most successful crime syndicates in New York City. Run by cousins Vincent Lo Giacamo and Jack Lo Giacamo, Real Gangsters shows how these two men maintain control of their dangerous extended family and volatile business ventures by very different means.

Real Gangsters

2013

Louisiana poster
4.7

Virginia Tregan returns to her home in the U.S. Deep South from a sojourn in Paris only to discover that her family plantation and its holdings have been lost. She determines to recoup her family's fortune.

Louisiana

1984

Mr. Mike's Mondo Video poster
5.3

Mike O'Donoghue's parody of "Mondo Cane" showcases curious performers, strange musicians, celebrity mutations and unusual short films, including Thomas Alva Edison's "Elephant Electrocution". In the tradition of films like Groove Tube (1974), The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), and Saturday Night Live.

Mr. Mike's Mondo Video

1979

On the Other Hand, Death: A Donald Strachey Mystery poster
5.4

When the residents of a neighborhood are offered huge sums of money to sell their homes to a developer, the only ones to refuse are an elderly lesbian couple. Soon after, the couple's home is besieged by anti-gay vandalism, but Don suspects that the attack is motivated by big-business rather than homophobia.

On the Other Hand, Death: A Donald Strachey Mystery

2008

Some Kind of Hero poster
5.6

A Vietnam vet returns home from a prisoner of war camp and is greeted as a hero, but is quickly forgotten and soon discovers how tough survival is in his own country.

Some Kind of Hero

1982