"WHITE PLAINS, New York -- Christopher Reeve's widow announced yesterday that she's facing a battle with lung cancer and is looking to her husband "as the ultimate example of defying the odds with strength, courage and hope."

"I hope before too long to be sharing news of my good health and recovery," said Dana Reeve, who won worldwide admiration for the steadfast support of her husband during his nine years as a quadriplegic.

Superman star Christopher Reeve died last year.

Dana Reeve, the 44-year-old actress and chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, was a non-smoker, said foundation spokesman Maggie Goldberg."

Maybe we should all start wearing those builder's dust masks....

A news report last night about Mrs. Reeve also speculated that lung cancer can occur in nonsmokers for a variety of reasons... one being secondhand smoke, of course... a past lung-related disease such as pneumonia which scarred the lungs... or pollution.

Besides claiming Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Jennings and also afflicting Mrs. Reeve, I just heard this today too....

Barbara Bel Geddes, the genteel stage and screen actress best known as Miss Ellie, the forbearing matriarch on the 1970s and '80s television series "Dallas," died Monday at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine.

The cause of death was lung cancer, according to her second cousin, Lewis Bennett, of San Francisco. She was 82.