Ben Affleck's mom's final wish was granted just days before she died aged 83
Ben Affleck's mom, Chris Anne Affleck, achieved her final wish before she passed away at age 83.
Today (July 24), it was announced by her family in an obituary in The Boston Globe that the mom-of-two had passed away. According to People, she received a pancreatic cancer diagnosis and was given six months to live in December 2025.
Born in New York City in 1942 as Christopher Anne Boldt, the 83-year-old went on to receive an 'elite education' at Nightingale-Bamford School, later teaching literacy classes in Mississippi as a public school teacher before her retirement in 2008.
"One of the first Radcliffe women to receive a Harvard diploma," the obituary read. "She eschewed a world of higher-paying careers to spend 35 years as a public school teacher.
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"Every student, whether just arrived from Haiti or Cambridge upper crust, was a cherished citizen of her classroom republic, equal to each other and to herself."
Through her son Ben, she had three grandchildren, Violet, Fin, and Sam, and through her other son, Caleb Casey, she had two other grandchildren, Indiana and Atticus.
According to her obituary, Chris's final wish was to 'live to see her grandson graduate high school', which she was able to achieve.
"She did so, attending with her family on May 31, 2026. She died peacefully, in her sleep, two days later," it continued.
Influenced by her stepfather, Chris became a huge activist for civil rights and also protested against the Vietnam War. In 1972, she and her ex-husband, Timothy, welcomed their first son Ben, and three years later, Casey followed in 1975.
In 2012, the Daredevil star spoke about his parents' early life, telling The Hollywood Reporter: "My mother taught public school, went to Harvard and then got her master’s there and taught fifth and sixth grade in a public school.
"My dad had a more working-class lifestyle. He didn’t go to college. He was an auto mechanic and a bartender and a janitor at Harvard."
In fact, it was his mother's Harvard connections that helped her son's acting career, as she put him in touch with casting director Patty Collins, who was also her former roommate.
"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," the Pearl Harbour star 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."
Meanwhile, Casey told The Boston Magazine last year that she was 'really supportive' of their acting careers. In 1998, she attended the Oscars with Ben, alongside Matt Damon and his mother, for his nominations for Good Will Hunting, for which he won Best Original Screenplay.
The Gone Girl star recalled the moment to Vanity Fair in 2023, saying: "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."
Topics: Celebrity, Ben Affleck
Charlotte Dorans