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William Shatner has revealed that he was dealing with stage 4 cancer at the same time as his daughter, Melanie Shatner Gretsch.
The 95-year-old Canadian actor told People in an interview published Wednesday that Gretsch, 61, was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in 2022 after finding a lump in her breast.
Shatner revealed that about a year later, in June 2023, he was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, a serious form of skin cancer, that had spread to his lungs and brain.
“I remember vividly thinking, ‘I don’t have the strength to take care of myself and lose my father at the same time,’” Gretsch, the youngest daughter of Shatner and first wife Gloria Rand, told the outlet.
The father-daughter duo were both declared cancer-free by late 2024.
Shatner said: “We got the perfect doctors for her cancer and my cancer.”
In the year and a half after her diagnosis, Gretsch — who has two children with husband Joel Gretsch— said she underwent multiple rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and 30 radiation therapy treatments.
Gretsch said her father offered to help her financially during her treatment, saying: “I do not want you to worry. Just send me the bills.”
“Then you made me laugh so hard when I was still going to the doctor a year later,” she said to the Star Trek actor, according to People. “You said, ‘You’ve got to get well. We’re going to be in the poorhouse!’”
However, when she was nearly done with her treatments, her father found a lump in his cheek that turned out to be a tumor. He had surgery to remove it and underwent two years of immunotherapy to fight the cancer.
Shatner previously opened up about the fear he felt when he was diagnosed. During a 2024 keynote presentation at the American Academy of Dermatology Annual Meeting, he recalled: “I said, ‘Stage 4?’ And someone in the room said, ‘Sorry.’ I said, ‘What are you sorry about?’ It was like, ‘Better pack your things.’ That person who said ‘sorry,’ that was very sad, like you are going to die. And I was. They said if this [treatment] they used did not work, I had about 5 months.”
The two-time Emmy winner told People that his cancer diagnosis made him more grateful for the little things in his life.
“It’s easy for us in this lovely home to say, ‘Make your life meaningful.’ It’s much more difficult to be poverty-stricken and wonder how you’re going to get through it. I’ve been there,” Shatner told the outlet.
“But it’s also possible to endure that and be aware of the beauty around you,” he said.
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