‘Superman’ actress Valerie Perrine dies

Valerie Perrine
Valerie Perrine BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 23: Actress Valerie Perrine arrives at the 2013 Genesis Awards Benefit Gala at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 23, 2013, in Beverly Hills, California. She died on March 23. She was 82 years old. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

The woman who played Lex Luthor’s girlfriend in the 1978 “Superman” film has died.

Valerie Perrine was 82 years old.

Deadline reported that she died at her home on March 23 after a 15-year battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Her death was announced by Stacey Souther, who set up a GoFundMe to pay for Perrine’s funeral costs.

Perrine was born in 1943 in Galveston, Texas, but in 1968, she moved to Las Vegas to entertain as a showgirl.

Her big break came as Montana Wildhack in “Slaughterhouse-Five.”

“That’s how I became an actress,” she said in 2025.

She also was in the PBS showing of “Steambath,” in 1973.

While many of her roles focused on sex appeal, Perrine used it as Lenny Bruce’s wife, Honey Bruce, opposite Dustin Hoffman in the film “Lenny.” It was a Cannes-winning and Oscar-nominated role for Perrine.

Her most famous role, however, was Eve Teschmacher, Lex Luthor’s girlfriend in the first two Christopher Reeve “Superman” movies opposite Gene Hackman, who played the supervillain, according to Deadline.

Through the years since she appeared in the nearly career-ending “Can’t Stop the Music” from the Village People, she appeared several times on television, including “Homicide: Life on the Street,” as an ex-girlfriend of Richard Belzer’s Detective John Munch.

Perrine was also the focus of the 2020 short documentary “Valerie,” chronicling her career and her Parkinson’s diagnosis.

The Hollywood Reporter said the disease took away most of her ability to eat and speak.

She leaves behind a brother who has also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Deadline reported.

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