Meg Bennett Dies, ‘Star Trek’ Actress Still Cancer-Free After 20 Years and More

Soap opera actress, Meg Bennett, died of cancer.

Meg Bennett, who is known for her writing and acting on “The Young and the Restless,” “General Hospital” and “Santa Barbara” died of cancer, according to a family statement. She was 75 years old.

“Helen Margaret Bennett, known throughout her professional career on stage and screen as ‘Meg,’ lost her battle with cancer,” the announcement said. “Until nearly the end, she was devotedly working with children, writing and engaging with her far-flung family and friends.”

“The Young and the Restless” spoke of Bennett’s death with USA TODAY. It said, “All of us at ‘The Young and the Restless’ mourn the loss of Meg Bennett who graced [‘The Young and the Restless’] with her talents both on and off screen, beginning in 1980 as Julia Newman, and then as a member of the [‘Young and the Restless’] writing staff for many years.”

The "Star Trek" actress shared the time she received her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

“Star Trek” star reflects on her 20-year survival after pancreatic cancer.

Kitty Swink, an actress from “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” reflected on her experience with pancreatic cancer and how her survival rate was 4% at the time, she told PEOPLE.

When she quickly lost weight and experienced chronic back pain in 2004, her husband, fellow “Star Trek” franchise actor Armin Shimerman, urged her to see a doctor, because she had previously had breast cancer.

A day after the doctor’s visit, Swink recalled to PEOPLE that her urine had turned brown. That day, she received an urgent call from the doctor, stating that her kidneys and liver were shutting down.

“By the time I got to the emergency room, I was turning yellow with jaundice,” she said. “Seventeen days later, I came out of the Cedars-Sinai with half my stomach, half my pancreas, my gallbladder gone, two feet of my intestines removed out, 28 lymph nodes removed and a 4% chance of surviving five years.”

The CT scan and a biopsy revealed pancreatic cancer to the 49-year-old at the time.

Twenty years later, Swink is still cancer-free and looks forward to turning 70 years old next year, she said to PEOPLE.

A breast cancer survivor ran a marathon topless to raise money and awareness.

Louise Butcher, from North Devon, England, recently ran the London Marathon topless to raise awareness and decrease stigma around mastectomy scars. The 50-year-old showed off her own scars during the event, as, in 2022, she underwent flat closure surgery after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

“There are so many reasons I had to do it, and I thought ‘I really hope people get behind this, because it’s going to empower so many women and so many people,’” Butcher said, according to itv.com. “People have been amazing and I’m really thankful that people have jumped on board.”

Additionally, the cancer survivor is raising money for the Fern Centre at North Devon District Hospital, which, according to itv.com, specializes in cancer and wellbeing and helped Butcher throughout her cancer experience.

Acclaimed British music conductor died of leukemia.

British music director and conductor Andrew Davis died of leukemia at age 80, his manager said. For one and a half to two years, Davis had been managing the disease until it became acute in early February, after his birthday.

In December 2023, Davis conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the U.S. premiere of his orchestration of Handel’s “Messiah.”

“A consummate musician, incredibly versatile and a phenomenal colleague, as well,” wrote soprano singer Renée Fleming in an email to The Associated Press. “It takes a special kind of command to be a great conductor, the power to make close to a hundred musicians (each one, at heart, a diva or divo) hang on your tiniest gesture. So it is remarkable that even with that strength, Andrew's primary quality was his innate happiness. He was gifted with an infectious joy that somehow came through in every bar of music he made."

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