Superman Hits A Snag

Superman star Christopher Reeve isn't expecting to walk again as soon as he'd hoped. He revised his timetable while in Britain, CBS News' Pamela McCall reports.

Christopher Reeve hasn't given up his superhuman efforts to walk again; he just says it's going to take a little longer than he expected.

"I hoped that by my fiftieth birthday, I'd be able to stand and thank everbody," Reeve, 47, said on BBC Television Sunday. "That probably won't happen that quickly, but within the next to four to five years I shall begin to start the process of recovery."

Last year Reeve took his first tentative steps since his accident. He has also made an award-winning television comeback in a remake of the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller Rear Window and wrote his autobiography.

Reeve's trip to Britain is his first outside the United States since the 1995 horse-riding accident which left him unable to use his arms or legs and reliant on a machine to help him breathe.

Reeve, who shot to fame in 1978 when he first starred as Superman, has been a high-profile campaigner and fund-raiser for research into his condition. Reeve, says full recovery is not only possible, it's probable, according to scientists.

"I met with one of the leading researchers from Switzerland the other day and he's going to be doing human trials in 18 months," he said.

Reeve, who speaks with difficulty, said his collaboration with researchers involved two to three hours of work a day.

"I'm trying to get rid of this breathing hose. I'm now on a program where if I work very, very hard, I may be able to get off this hose within a year," he said. "That would be a gift because, you know, this is not a very nice necktie."