Sir John Hurt has said he’s overjoyed and thrilled after being given the all-clear by doctors less than four months after he disclosed that he had pancreatic cancer.
The 75-year-old actor, known for his roles in The Elephant Man, Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Harry Potter films, revealed he had overcome the disease to an audience at the Man Booker prize ceremony in London.
“I had a final scan and it’s all gone brilliantly,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. “I had the final scan yesterday [Monday] and I saw my oncologist this morning.
“I am overjoyed, I am thrilled. It all looks great for the future, it’s fantastic.”
Hurt had first revealed his cancer diagnosis in June, but said at the time he was “more than optimistic” about his future and kept working during his chemotherapy treatment, playing the lead in BBC Radio 4’s adaptation of Jeffrey Barnard Is Unwell.
The double Oscar nominee said at the time: “I have recently been diagnosed with early-stage pancreatic cancer. I am undergoing treatment and am more than optimistic about a satisfactory outcome, as indeed is the medical team.”
Speaking about his illness to the Radio Times in August, he said: “I can’t say I worry about mortality, but it’s impossible to get to my age and not have a little contemplation of it. We’re all just passing time, and occupy our chair very briefly. But my treatment is going terrifically well, so I’m optimistic.”
Hurt, who was knighted in July after being named on the New Year’s honours list, enjoyed a big hit with the sci-fi horror film Alien in 1979.
Among his notable roles he played Caligula in the BBC drama I, Claudius, wand merchant Mr Ollivander in the Harry Potter films, and Stephen Ward, a key figure in the Profumo affair, in Scandal. In 2009, he reprised his Naked Civil Servant role of Quentin Crisp in an Englishman in New York.
Most recently, he has reprised his role as the War Doctor from 2013’s Doctor Who 50th anniversary special in three audio plays due out as a box set in December.
