Hollywood actor Sam Neill spent his final weeks battling serious health complications after years of intensive cancer treatment, according to his former partner, Australian journalist Laura Tingle.
According to Deadline, Tingle spoke about the late Jurassic Park star during ABC’s Sydney Mornings radio programme on 14 July. The pair were in a relationship from 2018 to 2021. She said Neill had fought several forms of cancer for at least five years and that the treatment had taken a severe toll on his body.
“He’d had a lot of chemo and a lot of immunotherapy,” Tingle said. Although the treatment had cleared his blood cancer, she explained that it left his immune system badly weakened. “He’s been pretty sick for the last couple of weeks,” she said, adding that those close to him had hoped he would recover once more, but “it was just a bit too much”.
During the interview, the programme also revisited Neill’s 2023 appearance on Australian Story, where he said he was not afraid of dying but would be “annoyed” because he still had more work he wanted to do.
Tingle said that outlook remained unchanged in his final days. “He loved to work. He was largely defined by being on a movie set,” she said, adding that Neill often described himself as “addicted to working”.
Neill, best known for playing Dr Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park franchise, died on Monday aged 78. His family confirmed the news in a statement shared on his Instagram account. They did not disclose the cause of death. Neill had been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer in 2022 and revealed in April this year that he was cancer-free.
In the family’s statement, they said Neill died surrounded by loved ones “with the dignity that has characterised his whole life”. They described his passing as sudden and unexpected, thanked the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their care, and asked for privacy as they grieved.
Neill first gained recognition with Sleeping Dogs (1977) before starring in films including Attack Force Z (1982), Dead Calm (1989), The Piano (1993), In the Mouth of Madness (1994) and Event Horizon (1997). He achieved worldwide fame as Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park (1993), returning to the role in Jurassic Park III (2001) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022).
