excellent reviews but performed poorly at the box office, possibly because Cannon Films had failed to properly advertise it. 1987–1989 After the filming of Superman IV in February 1987, Reeve and Exton separated and Reeve returned to New York. In June, he appeared in the British television special charity event The Grand Knockout Tournament. In a depression without his children, aged seven and three, he decided doing a comedy might be good for him. He was given a lead in Switching Channels. Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner had a feud during filming, which made the time even more unbearable for Reeve. Reeve later stated he made a fool of himself in the film and most of his time was spent refereeing between Reynolds and Turner. The film did poorly, and Reeve believed it marked the end of his movie star career. He spent the next years mostly doing plays. He auditioned for the Richard Gere role in Pretty Woman but walked out on the audition because they had a half-hearted casting director fill in for Julia Roberts. In the late 1980s, Reeve became more active. He was taking horse-riding lessons and trained five to six days a week for competition in combined training events. He built a sailboat, The Sea Angel, and sailed from the Chesapeake to Nova Scotia. 1990–1995 In 1990, Reeve starred in the American Civil War film The Rose and the Jackal, in which he played Allan Pinkerton, the head of President Lincoln's new Secret Service. In October, Reeve was offered the part of Lewis in The Remains of the Day. The script was one of the best he had read, and he unhesitatingly took the part. The film was deemed an instant classic and was nominated for eight Academy Awards. In 1992, Reeve played a lead role in the movie comedy Noises Off, in which he played a character named Frederick Dallas. In the early 1990s, Reeve was in three roles for television in which he was cast as a villain. The most notable of these was Bump in the Night, in which Reeve played a child molester who abducts a young boy in New York City. The movie received fair to positive reviews. Reeve felt it was important for parents of young children to see the film. In another television movie, Mortal Sins (1992), Reeve for the second time played a Catholic priest, this time