• Faith: Atheist
• Career: Actress
• Birthday:  October 17, 1948
• Date of Death:  May 13, 2018

Margaret Kidder, known professionally as Margot Kidder, was an actress whose career spanned 50 years. Her accolades include one Daytime Emmy Award and three Canadian Screen Awards. Though she appeared in an array of television and film roles, Kidder was best known for her role as Lois Lane in the “Superman” film series, appearing in all four original movies. Born to an American father and a Canadian mother, Kidder was raised in the Northwest Territories as well as several Canadian provinces. She started her acting career in the 1960s, appearing in low-budget Canadian TV series and films before landing a lead role in “Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx.”

She then played twins in Brian De Palma’s “Sisters, a sorority student in “Black Christmas,” and the titular character’s girlfriend in “The Great Waldo Pepper,” opposite Robert Redford. In 1977, she was cast as Lois Lane in “Superman,” a role that established her as a mainstream actress. Her performance as Kathy Lutz in “The Amityville Horror” gained her further mainstream exposure, after which she went on to reprise her role as Lois Lane in “Superman II,” “Superman III, and “Superman IV.” Significant health issues marked the 1990s 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 television and independent films, with guest starring roles in “Smallville,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” and “The L Word.”

She also appeared in a 2002 off-Broadway production of “The Vagina Monologues.” Kidder won a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in “R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Horror” in 2015. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005, was an outspoken anti-war, environmental, and political activist, and continued to participate in political and activist causes until her death. Kidder died on May 13, 2018, at her home in Livingston, Montana, at 69 years old, in what was later ruled a suicide by drug and alcohol overdose. Kidder, one of five children, was born in 1948 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, the daughter of Jocelyn and Kendall Kidder. She had mental health problems from a young age, which stemmed from undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Kidder recalled, “I knew I was different, had these mind fights that other people didn’t seem to have.” However, she found an outlet in acting as she felt she could “let my real self out, and no one would know it was me.”

What religion was Margot Kidder?

Margot Kidder identified as an atheist. In one interview, Kidder said that, in addition to suffering from emotional distress, her manic episodes led her to experience significant financial woes. She said, “I went through millions of dollars—I have no idea how much. I'd buy things for friends or take people to Paris. Once, I stayed up for three weeks in a row because I felt like I was called upon to write a new religion for women. I was reading all these books, including the Bible—and I'm an atheist.”