Gwyneth Paltrow’s Mom Blythe Danner Battled Same Cancer That Killed Husband Bruce Paltrow: ‘I’m Lucky to Be Alive’

usmagazine.com:

A heartbreaking diagnosis. Gwyneth Paltrow‘s mother, Blythe Danner, revealed that she was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2018 — the same disease that killed her late husband, Bruce Paltrow.“Everyone is touched by cancer in some way, but it’s unusual for a couple to have the same cancer,” the Will & Grace alum, 79, told People in an interview published on Monday, November 21, adding that when she was first diagnosed she “looked up at heaven and said to Bruce, ‘Are you lonely up there?’ It’s a sneaky disease.

But I’m fine and dandy now. And I’m lucky to be alive.”Danner was working in London in March 2018 when she was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a relatively rare form of the disease that develops in the salivary glands, 11 years after Bruce got his own diagnosis.

The producer and director died in October 2002 at the age of 58.As a result of losing her husband to the same illness, the Meet the Parents star was hesitant to share the news with daughter Gwyneth, 50, and son Jake Paltrow. “I kept it from my kids for a long time,” she said. “I wanted to forge ahead as a mother, and I didn’t want them to worry.”The Goop founder, for her part, confessed that she was “shocked” when she learned that her mother had cancer. “It was scary.

And it felt really eerie because it was so similar [to my dad’s],” Gwyneth explained. “[But] she went through [treatment] with so much grace.