William Shatner and his daughter reveal they battled stage 4 cancer at the same time
Thomas Bamford
Featured Image Credit: Barry King/WireImage
William Shatner and his daughter Melanie Shatner Gretsch have revealed they were both fighting stage 4 cancer at the same time, battling separate diagnoses just months apart while leaning on each other to get through it.
Melanie, 61, was in the middle of chemotherapy for stage 4 breast cancer in 2022 when she called her father in the middle of the night in distress.
'I was having a moment and was hysterical,' she recalled in a joint interview with her and her dad, per People. 'I called you and said, 'I think I'm dying.''
Shatner, now 95, was at her driveway within 15 minutes, telling her, "This is going to be a blip in your life. You're going to get through this, and it'll be a memory."
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Just as Melanie neared the end of her treatment, the Star Trek actor was dealt his own diagnosis in June 2023, discovering he had stage 4 malignant melanoma that had spread to his lungs and brain.
"I remember vividly thinking, 'I don't have the strength to take care of myself and lose my father at the same time,'" Melanie said. Both are now thankfully, cancer-free.
Melanie found the lump by accident in July 2022, despite having had a clear mammogram just five months earlier. "I woke up in the middle of the night, and my finger moved up right beneath my breast. I felt a little bump and thought, 'It's just a bug bite,'" she said.
A technician initially found nothing alarming during a follow-up scan, but something prompted her to request a secondary check, and that's when they found the lump.
Testing confirmed HER2-positive breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes.
Over the following year and a half, Melanie underwent multiple rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and 30 rounds of radiation.
When she worried aloud about the cost of treatment, Shatner refused to let her carry the burden. "You said to me, 'I do not want you to worry. Just send me the bills,'" she said.
A lump on Shatner's cheek was initially dismissed by a family doctor as a blocked salivary gland.
It was only when a plastic surgeon friend examined it while the pair were out riding horses that the alarm was raised.
"He placed his hands on my cheeks, and he said with love in his voice, 'You better get this out,'" Shatner said. He underwent surgery followed by two years of immunotherapy targeting tumors in his lungs and brain.
Dr. Omid Hamid of The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute, who helped develop the immunotherapy drugs used in Shatner's treatment, told People the outlook for his diagnosis was once grim.
"Twenty years ago, the average survival rate for those with his diagnosis was six to eight months," he said, adding that modern combination therapies are 'very tolerable in older patients.'
By late 2024, both Shatner and Melanie had been declared cancer-free.
The pair are now launching a joint podcast series, No Time but Now, premiering July 29, on which they will interview health experts and fellow survivors.
Reflecting on the ordeal, Shatner said the experience has sharpened his appreciation for everyday life. "I'm thinking of the miracle of a hummingbird, and of my dog taking a ball, and my children," he said.
"I'm aware of the magic of it all."