The actresses Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow in New York 2009
Photo: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images
It must have been a big shock for Blythe Danner: In 2018 the actress was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer.
It was the same one from which her husband had died 16 years earlier.
The 79-year-old now told the »People« magazine.
"Everyone has had some history with cancer," Danner says in the interview, "but it's very unusual for a couple to get the same type of cancer."
The Emmy winner says she suddenly felt weak while filming in London in 2018 and kept forgetting everything.
"And then I felt a lump on the back of my neck, right where Bruce found his."
She hid the diagnosis from her children for a long time
When she was diagnosed with oral cancer, she looked up at the sky and said to her late husband, "Are you lonely up there?" He died in 2002, three years after his diagnosis.
Danner says she hid the diagnosis from her children, Gwyneth and Jake Paltrow, for a long time.
She didn't want them to worry.
Daughter Gwyneth Paltrow tells the magazine she was shocked when she finally found out.
"It was scary," she says.
It felt scary because it was so similar to her father's diagnosis.
In the two years after diagnosis, Danner underwent three surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy and alternative treatments - and is now in remission, as she reports in the interview.
"She went through it all with so much dignity," says daughter Gwyneth Paltrow.
“I was struck by how strong she was.” Danner herself says her perspective on dying changed after her husband's death.
You're not afraid of it.
"It's a sneaky disease," Danner says.
"But I'm fine now and I'm very lucky to be alive." Her favorite things to do now are spending time with her family, especially her grandchildren.
"Nothing makes me happier than children," she says.
In addition, she has been campaigning for years with her Oral Cancer Foundation to fight against oral cavity cancer.
This type of cancer can be caused, among other things, by HPV, a mostly unnoticed viral infection against which one can now be vaccinated in childhood.
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