Everyone matures a little when they learn that tragic heartbreaks don’t happen just in the movies, but in real life, too. It often takes people a personal incident to realize the gravity of a broken heart, and Christopher Reeve’s ex-girlfriend Jane Seymour knows this all too well. Deeply and madly in love with the late actor, her world came crashing down when he left her for his ex, Gae Exton.
We can’t really blame Christopher Reeve, though. After all, he had just learned that Gae Exton was pregnant with their first child. As the actor decided to take her hand and stand by her, Jane Seymour was left behind with an ache in her chest, and anyone who had ever been heartbroken before would feel for her.
The Tragic Love Story of Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve
The two began their love story secretly while on the set of the 1980 romance classic, Somewhere in Time. While they tried to keep their relationship under the covers during filming, people they worked with had their suspicions about them. If you see the film, you’ll know why. With such great chemistry on-screen, anyone will refuse to believe that something wasn’t going on between the lead actors when the director yells “Cut!”
Talking to Entertainment Weekly at the TCM Classic Film Festival in 2022, Jane Seymour opened up about her feelings for Christopher Reeve and how they “literally fell madly in love.” As she got emotional about how the universe played a cruel joke on them, Seymour got totally candid about the late actor and the love they had for each other. Until everything changed.
When she walked onto the set of Somewhere in Time to film an important scene, little did she know that she’d have to act with a broken heart. Reeve called her over and confessed that he was going to have a baby with his ex, Gae Exton.
We were madly in love, and life was wonderful. We were both single; it was a fantastic, amazing experience. And then one day I came in to work [to film] one of the biggest scenes in the movie… Just before that, Chris had had an earlier call and I came in about half an hour later, and they said, ‘Chris needs to talk to you about something.’ I thought, ‘That’s really odd, we’ve had a long time to talk about things, so what could it be?’
She continued,
It was that he was about to have a baby, and that his ex-girlfriend hadn’t told him, and that she’d just announced it to the world.
Reeve and Exton had been in a relationship for ten years before breaking up just before he started filming with Seymour for Somewhere in Time. He and Exton got back together when he learned about her pregnancy, which gave them their firstborn, Matthew Exton Reeve. The couple went on to have a daughter four years later, Alexandra Reeve Givens.
Four years after Alexandra’s birth, Exton and Reeve ended up separating with joint custody of their children.
He then went on to tie the knot with Dana Morosini despite his fears of marriage. They had their only child, William Elliot Reeve, and remained together till Reeve’s death.
Jane Seymour is the Epitome of Professionalism
After hearing the news that shattered her world momentarily, Seymour was brave enough to go in and film an intimate scene with Reeve. We can only imagine what must have gone through her mind and heart while filming the scene where their characters, Richard and Elise, make love for the first time.
While she was able to put up a strong front when the cameras were rolling, she revealed that she still feels emotional whenever the scene comes up.
I then had to put my big-girl pants on. When I watch that scene, I can literally see the tears coming halfway up my eyeballs. And I just kept saying, ‘You can’t cry, you can’t cry, you can’t cry, you’re happy. Elise is really, really happy right now.’
Despite the tragic end to their love story, Reeve and Seymour remained good friends until the day he died. She is still holding on to hope that someday, somewhere, the two will meet again. It’s too early to be crying over a stranger’s unfulfilled love story!
Somewhere in Time is available to rent/buy from Prime Video.
