Chris Anne Affleck, the mother of actors Ben (53) and Casey Affleck (50), has died at the age of 83. She passed away on June 2, as the family has now announced. According to the "Hollywood Reporter", she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

In December 2025, she received a prognosis of approximately six months to live. Her greatest wish after that was to witness her grandson Atticus's graduation, as stated in the obituary in the "Boston Globe". On May 31, she attended the ceremony, and two days later she died in her sleep. In addition to her sons, she leaves behind five grandchildren.

Chris Anne Affleck was born in 1942 in New York City. After attending the Nightingale-Bamford School, she went to Radcliffe College and was among the first women from the college to receive a Harvard degree. Instead of a higher-paying career, she chose teaching and taught at public schools for 35 years until she retired in 2008.

She became politically active early on. During Freedom Summer, she taught literacy classes in Mississippi, and later demonstrated against the Vietnam War. She remained active even after the end of her professional career. She helped in Barack Obama's campaign, traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2009, and subsequently worked for the organization Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine. In her hometown of Truro in Massachusetts, she was among the founding members of the environmental project Sustainable Cape.

Help getting started in the film business

The marriage to Timothy Affleck produced two sons; Ben was born in 1972, Casey in 1975. Around this time, the family moved to Massachusetts, where the mother continued teaching. Ben Affleck was still a child when his parents divorced.

"My mother taught at a public school, went to Harvard, got her master's there and then taught fifth and sixth grade at a public school", Ben Affleck told the "Hollywood Reporter" in 2012. His father, on the other hand, worked as an auto mechanic, bartender, and janitor at Harvard.

She paved the way for her son's entry into the film business through a contact from her student days. Through her close friend, casting director Patty Collinge, Ben Affleck got his first auditions for commercials and television movies.

Companion at the Oscars

In 1998, she sat next to her son in the audience at the Academy Awards when he was honored along with Matt Damon for the screenplay for "Good Will Hunting". Damon had also brought his mother. "We sat next to our mothers, and we won, and we kind of hugged our mothers", Ben Affleck later recalled in conversation with "Vanity Fair". Everyone made a big deal out of it: "Why is it strange that we bring our mothers? Who else should we bring?"

Ben Affleck received his second Oscar as producer of the best picture "Argo". Casey Affleck was honored in 2017 as best leading actor for "Manchester by the Sea".