Ben and Casey Affleck’s Mother Chris Dies at 83 Following Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis

The former teacher died on June 2, two days after she fulfilled her final wish to see her grandson, Atticus, graduate high school, per her obituary

NEED TO KNOW

• Ben and Casey Affleck’s mother, Chris Affleck, has died at the age of 83
• Chris died on June 2 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December
• Her final wish was to see her grandson Atticus graduate high school, which she fulfilled two days before her death

Chris Anne Affleck, the mother of actors Ben Affleck and Casey Affleck, has died. She was 83.

She died on June 2 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Per an obituary shared by the outlet, Chris was given six months to live following her diagnosis.

Chris was born Christopher Anne Boldt in New York City in December 1942. A Harvard graduate, she spent 35 years as a public school teacher before retiring in 2008.

Influenced by her stepfather, Sam, she was also a committed civil rights activist throughout her life, and taught literacy classes in Mississippi as part of the Freedom Summer campaign in 1964, per her obituary.

She was married to Timothy Affleck and they welcomed their sons, Ben, 53, and Casey, 50, in 1972 and 1975 respectively. They divorced when Ben was about 12 years old.

Chris was a keen supporter of her sons‘ acting careers, even helping Ben get started by putting him in touch with casting director Patty Collins, whom she roomed with at Harvard.

“I got into acting as a young child on account of a sort of arbitrary thing. A friend of my mom’s was a casting director so, really as kind of a lark,” Ben told Parade in 2007. “I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I wanted to. I followed through with it.”

And speaking to Boston Magazine the year before, Casey described their mom as “really supportive” of their fledgling acting careers.

She attended the 1998 Oscars alongside Ben and Matt Damon, who also brought his mom along, after the pair were nominated for Good Will Hunting.

“We were sitting next to our moms and we won, and we kind of hugged our moms. I remember how everyone had made such a big thing out of it as if this was such a novelty,” Ben recalled to Vanity Fair in 2023.

“There was nobody else that was going to go,” he explained. “That was it. Of course, our moms were gonna go. That was really innocent and not faked.”

Casey also went on to win an Oscar, scoring the Best Actor statue in 2017 for his role as Lee Chandler in Manchester by the Sea. Ben won a second Academy Award in 2013 when Argo, which he produced, won Best Picture.

Between both sons, she had five grandchildren: Indiana, 22, Violet, 20, Atticus, 18, Fin, 17, and Sam, 12. Per her obituary, her most important wish after her diagnosis was to see Atticus graduate high school, and she did so, attending the ceremony on May 31 with her family two days before she died.

Chris, who continued her activism after retirement, also supported her granddaughter’s student activist group and attended all of their workshops and took notes, per her obituary She also campaigned for Barack Obama, became an organizer with the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine and sat on the board of the Sustainable Cape project in her home of Truro, Mass.

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“Chris was suitably proud of her descendants’ achievements,” the obituary read, “But she was delighted when they questioned, defied, or cleverly engaged authority.”

PEOPLE reached out to representatives for Ben Affleck and Casey Affleck but did not immediately hear back.

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