Actor Reeve highlights Democrats ' first night .
CHICAGO 1996-08-26
The highlights of the first day of the Democratic convention on Monday were expected to feature a mix of party leaders and people who have overcome adversity .
Among the latter were gun control advocate Sarah Brady and actor Christopher Reeve and the politicians included Rep .
Richard Gephardt and Sen .
Thomas Daschle .
Here are thumbnail profiles of the convention 's key Monday speakers .
Sarah Brady -- The nation 's toughest gun control law is named after Ronald Reagan 's press secretary James Brady but it was his wife who was the major force behind its passage .
As head of Handgun Control Inc. , Sarah Brady , 54 , campaigned nonstop for tough gun control in the years following the shooting of her husband and then President Reagan in 1981 .
Her reward was the passage in 1993 of the " Brady Bill " which requires a mandatory five-day waiting period for purchase of handguns and also mandates background checks for would-be gun purchasers .
Reagan recovered fully from his wounds but Brady , who was close to death after being shot by John Hinckley Jr .
, suffered serious brain damage .
Sarah was Brady 's second wife and they have a son , James Scott Brady Jr .
Before the assassination attempt , she had worked for Republican congressmen and for the Republican Party .
Christopher Reeve -- Reeve was best known for playing the comic book hero Superman in four movies but his greatest heroics came in real life .
Reeve , an accomplished rider who owned several horses , suffered multiple injuries including two shattered neck vertebrae when he was thrown from his horse at an equestrian event in Culpepper , Virginia , on May 27 , 1995 .
Almost entirely paralyzed , Reeve underwent extensive surgery to fuse the vertebrae to the base of the skull and prevent any further damage to his spine .
That allowed him to be moved to a semi-upright position .
Over time he regained the power of speech , so much so that he was asked to address the opening night of the Democratic National Convention .
Reeve , 43 , was classically trained as an actor but became the prototypical handsome leading man .
He performed in summer stock and soap operas before being plucked as an almost unknown to play the lead in " Superman " and three sequels .
Richard Gephardt -- Gephardt , House Democratic leader , is a politician with a " Mr Clean " reputation who sought the presidency eight years ago and is widely believed to still have ambitions for the job .
Gephardt , 55 , the son of a milkman from a working class district of St. Louis , is a consummate congressional insider , sufficiently skilled in compromise and the ways of the legislature to manage the often-unruly House Democrats .
A former lawyer , he was in the front line of President Bill Clinton 's battle with the Republican-led Congress over the budget but has opposed the president 's decision to sign the Republican-written welfare reform bill .
He advocated tough action against foreign countries to cut U.S. trade deficits but sometimes been out of step with the party 's liberal wing .
He was an opponent of abortion until 1986 and voted for President Ronald Reagan 's big tax cut bill .
Gephardt , a red-haired square-jawed man , is a less than fiery orator .
His 1988 bid for the Democratic nomination only took off after he recreated himself as a firebreathing reformer of the establishment , standing up for blue collar workers and farmers .
Tom Daschle -- Daschle , 48 , was largely unknown outside Washington and his state of South Dakota when he surprisingly beat more prominent rivals to become Senate Democratic leader after the party lost its majority to the Republicans in 1994 .
A mild-mannered and youthful man who rose rapidly after entering the Senate in 1987 , he presented himself as a Midwest moderate , as a Democratic winner in a Republican state able to unite Senate factions .
Concern that he might be steamrollered by the vastly more experienced Republican leader Bob Dole was dispelled when he showed a tough edge , outmaneuvering Dole in a wrangle over scrapping a gas tax and raising the federal minimum wage .
In his early Senate years he was seen as a " prairie populist " , working on legislation protecting farmers ' prices and also on compensating veterans sickened by Agent Orange defoliant spraying in the Vietnam War .
Daschle was a key player in President Bill Clinton 's failed attempt at sweeping healthcare changes but when he became minority leader he declared he would be no water-carrier for the White House .
He has made clear he opposed Clinton 's signing of the Republican-initiated welfare reform bill .
He has spent his adult life in politics , coming to Congress as an aide in 1972 after three years in the Air Force and then being elected to the House of Representatives himself in 1978 .