Chris Anne Affleck, mother of Oscar winners Ben Affleck and Casey Affleck, died June 2, her family said. She was 83 and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December.
Christine Ann Boldt was born in New York in December 1942. She graduated from Harvard University and worked as a public school teacher for 35 years. She retired in 2008 and was an outspoken civil rights advocate throughout her life, being one of the first Freedom Riders to travel to the Deep South in the 1960s.
Chris and her ex-husband Timothy Affleck welcomed their first child, Ben, in 1972. Ben’s brother, Casey, was born in 1975, around the time the family moved to Massachusetts, where she continued her teaching career.
“My mother taught public school, went to Harvard and then got her master’s degree there and taught fifth and sixth grade in public school,” Ben said. Hollywood Reporter in 2012. “My father led a more working-class lifestyle. He didn’t go to college. He was an auto mechanic, a bartender and a janitor at Harvard.”
When Ben turned 12, his parents divorced. As his passion for entertainment grew during his teenage years, Chris played a role in his early endeavors in the industry by connecting her son with her former Harvard roommate, casting director Patty Collins, who helped him get auditions for commercials and TV movies.
From left to right: Chris Affleck, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and his mother Nancy Carlson-Page at the 70th Academy Awards.
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She was a strong supporter of her sons’ acting careers and attended the 1998 Oscars with Ben and Matt Damon, who also took his mother as a date, after the couple were nominated for best original screenplay for the film. Good Will Hunting – a film in which the duo also starred alongside Casey. Ben and Damon won an Oscar and the film became a classic.
“We were sitting next to our moms and we won, and we were kind of hugging our moms. I remember everyone making a big deal about it, like it was such a new thing,” Ben said. Vanity Fair moment. “I remember being hesitant and thinking, ‘Why? Why is it weird that we take our mothers with us?” Who else do you think we could take with us?”
Casey Affleck and his mother attended the premiere of Betrayed in April 2000.
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Ben would go on to win his second Oscar for Best Picture. Argo in 2012. Casey will win the Oscar for Best Actor in 2017 for his role in the film directed by Kenneth Lonergan. Manchester by the sea.
Chris was given six months to live in December, and her biggest wish after the diagnosis was to see grandson Atticus graduate from high school, her family said. She attended the event with her family on May 31 and passed away peacefully in her sleep two days later.
In addition to her sons, survivors include her five grandchildren: Casey’s children with actress Summer Phoenix, Atticus and Indiana, and Ben’s children with actress Jennifer Garner, Violet, Fin and Sam.