Five Stars Who Have Survived Cancer

Christina Applegate, Michael C. Hall, more provide inspiring examples for Michael Douglas

By Joal Ryan Aug 19, 2010 1:20 PMTags
Michael DouglasPhoto by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

Michael Douglas is "optimistic;" his doctors, he says, expect a full recovery.

If the statement proves prophetic, the throat-cancer-stricken Oscar winner will join the following stars on the road back to health:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1. Christina Applegate: In 2008, the prime-time star was diagnosed with a malignancy in the left breast. After testing positive for the so-called "breast-cancer gene," Applegate, whose own mother battled the disease, opted for a double mastectomy. Within weeks, she was able to declare herself "100 percent clear" of cancer. Today, she's newly married and expecting her first child. Other celebrity breast-cancer survivors include Sheryl Crow, Olivia Newton-John and Shaft icon Richard Roundtree (yes, men can get the disease, too).

 

 

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2. Michael C. Hall: Figuring his red-carpet headwear would lead to questions, the Dexter star opened up about his Hodgkin's lymphoma battle just before last January's Golden Globes. Hall ended up winning the Globe, and, four months later, wife/costar Jennifer Carpenter said he'd won back his health, too, enthusing her husband was "fully recovered."

 

 

 

 

 

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3. Ewan McGregor: After a scrape with skin cancer in 2008, the Jedi knight from the Star Wars prequels said he was "fine," and he proved himself so when he smartly answered a stupid question about whether he'd been scared: "It was great fun having skin cancer, it was great, I really enjoyed it." Senator John McCain and Elizabeth Taylor are among the long-term celebrity skin-cancer survivors.

 

 

 

 

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4. Sharon Osbourne: In 2002, all was great with The Osbournes when its pioneering celeb-reality mom got blindsided with f---in' colon cancer, as one of her charges might've put it. "You know what, I wanted to beat it, I wanted to survive it—and with the help of my family and my doctors, I did," she told E! News in 2003. Today, when she's not judging America's Got Talent, she runs a colon-cancer support program stablished in her name.

 

 

 

 

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5. Roger Ebert: The movie critic blogs, tweets and writes—oh, does he write. In other words, after countless, or, rather, he-can't-count-how-many surgeries since an initial bout with thyroid cancer back in 2002, Ebert is still Ebert, the most any of us can hope for.

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