Three years ago, in private and surrounded by family, Stanley Tucci fought back — and won — against cancer.
The 60-year-old actor revealed in a new interview that he had been diagnosed with a tumor at the base of his tongue that was too big to operate on, and instead required high-dose radiation and chemo.
“I’d vowed I’d never do anything like that, because my first wife died of cancer, and to watch her go through those treatments for years was horrible,” Tucci told Vera magazine.
His first wife, Kate Spath-Tucci, died of breast cancer in 2009 at the age of 47.
Most of the time, Tucci said, his family was by his side constantly, including wife Felicity Blunt, twins Isabel and Nicolo, 20, and Camilla, 18, from his first marriage and 5-year-old Matteo and 2-year-old Emilia, who he shares with Blunt.
For six months, he was on a feeding tube.
“The kids were great, but it was hard for them,” he told the magazine. “I could barely make it to the twins’ high school graduation.”
Now, the New York native said, the cancer is unlikely to return, but its effects are permanent.
“(Cancer) makes you more afraid and less afraid at the same time,” he said. “I feel much older than I did before I was sick. But you still want to get ahead and get things done.”
