The death of Christopher Reeve on Sunday, nine years after a horse riding accident left him paralysed from the neck down, was mourned by papers on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday. The actor, best known for playing Superman, died before fulfilling his wish of being able to walk again.

"On screen he was superhuman," said Jeremy Laurance in the Independent , "but it was off-screen, arguably, where he displayed his real strength." Reeve "devoted his life, and a considerable part of his fortune, to trying to repair his body and campaigning for more research into spinal-cord injury", Laurance continued. "He was the ambassador every charity dreams of finding."

In an age when debates about medical research are so often dominated by political wrangling, it was "refreshing" to hear "the authentic voice of a patient like Reeve", wrote Colin Blakemore, the head of the British Medical Research Council, in the Daily Mail.

The actor was "a beacon of optimism", added the Times, but was "criticised by some for encouraging expectation beyond science's ability to deliver". Still, his memory "forces US politicians of all stripes to find enough common ground on stem cell research", said the paper.

The medical use of stem cells is a "hot topic" in the US presidential campaign, observed the New York Post. George Bush "initiated federal funding of research on stem cells, but with substantial limits, which John Kerry promises to lift". But Reeve's memory "will be done a disservice if it is exploited for partisan gain", it argued.

The Los Angeles Times was among those in the US to highlight the wider import of Reeve's campaigns. It noted that the actor used his fame "to push for better insurance cover for those unable to pay for nurses, aides and top doctors like the ones he had". It was just a shame, added the Philadelphia Inquirer, that it seemed to require the voice of "some stricken celebrity" to "put a medical condition on the map".

"Reeve made me uncomfortable", admitted the Washington Post's Richard Cohen. "There was no way to see him and not remember what he had been. The tendency is to want to turn away. But Reeve would not permit that... He insisted that we face reality, even if he really could not."