Sometimes the best way to learn about something that has not touched us throughout our life is through the example of others and what more effective way of doing this than by the intensely advertised experience of celebrities?
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Sometimes there's also more to learn that just the daily trivia about the life of famous people. Sometimes we learn that they are just as human and vulnerable and though there are similar examples closer to us we pay more attention to the examples of celebrities.



Such an example is that of Bob Marley and his struggle with brain and lung cancer. We all know lung cancer is the number one cancer killer and ironically enough it is also one of the most easily preventable types of cancer too. Marley's case was an atypical one. His death was the cause for much controversy and speculation. Some claim that his survival for so long despite his invasive cancer was due to his marijuana use, others blame marijuana for part of the damage while many have attributed his death to nefrious causes, with far-stretched theories.

The bottom line is that Bob Marley died from cancer in the lung, brain and stomach. This terrible disease struck him down when he was only 36 yeas old. The charismatic Jamaican singer was very popular and also socially involved so his death brought sorrow to many. He was also the one to introduce reggae to the world.

The story of his death is one with a lot of teachings. Contrary to what you'd expect the main lesson is not to quit smoking and especially to quit marijuana, but it goes even deeper than that. The moral of the story is to take good care of our body in such a way that we express our gratitude for being alive. What Bob Marley did wrong was to treat an injury to a toe too lightly and to dismiss its treatment to the point where it was recommended that the toe was amputated. Popular belief even portrays Marley as such a devoted singer and artist that he used to limp and refuse treatment in order to go through with his tour after refusing operation. Later on he finally underwent the surgery and it supposedly was a success.



However, in the autumn of 1980, Marley was on the verge of falling unconscious while performing in New York. The next day he went jogging and simply collapsed. Tests revealed a brain tumor as a result of the untreated cancer in his toe. At that point he was given less than a month to live. He only died 8 months after the diagnosis and by then it was verified that he had cancer in the lung, brain and stomach.

Cancer is one of the major health problems of our generations and our days and there is a great focus on this kind of disease all over the world because cancer is a global affection, it has no boundaries, it does not obey territorial criteria or nationality or culture aspects and it affects people of all over the world .
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There are many types of cancer which have been very present in our lives in different ways and we can not be totally insensitive to this affection . If we look at the numbers of the statistics , we can easily see that the numbers are increasing in the last years and the new cases also and this is a very worrying aspect of today’s society and of the communities from all over the world no matter if we refer to the people community, doctors one or other types of specialist and world organizations .

Always cancer are associated with many side effects, with many complications, with many pains, with many treatments, with many interventions and in the end with small life expectancies and also higher mortality rates which are very up comparing with other types of affections . Only lung cancer is responsible for killing over 1 million people each year and more and more people get infected each day, each week, each month in a way in which the total number of new discovered cases each year is over 1,3 million people . But in order to understand all the background factors of lung cancer, we have to pay attention to all the lung cancer actors .

There are several factors and things which are strongly connected with this disease and also directly to all the numbers that have been outlined by statistics during all this time . In this category of factors it is important to identify the causes that have raised in such a way the deaths and new cases discovered .

The main lung cancer actors can be considered : the small causes that can cause cancer like radon gas but especially the main cause meaning smoking including the smokers people who smoke and passive smokers people who do not smoke but who intake the smoke of others , other factors are the lake of signs and symptoms in early stages and the discovery of the lung cancer in advanced stages when the disease is very advanced and it has progressed too much which is of course against the patient life .

Other aspects which can influence the chances of the patients are : the various and wide range of complications which can be developed by the lung cancer patients including problem with digestive and circular system, adrenal glands, heart functions and brain, also bone system including back, seizures and chest and also problems with vision . Because of this wide range of affections, the chances of the survival of the patients are reduced and many times complications can prove to be more fatal to the patients than the actual cancer .

Many celebrities were affected by different types of cancer. Everybody heard about Patrick Swayze and his continuing fight with pancreatic cancer. But this may be one of the most famous battles with this cruel disease, but it is not, unfortunately, the only one.

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Paul Newman, a great actor, had lost his wife to cancer, and died at the age of eighty three because of lung cancer. He was a former chain smoker. Another beloved actor, Alan Hale of Gilligan's Island fame died of cancer at the age of seventy one.



Walt Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, and philanthropist and became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. Walt died of lung cancer in December 1966.

Robert Goulet, who became a well known celebrity in the play "Camelot", died of lung cancer at the age of seventy three, while waiting for a lung transplant. Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood director and celebrity, also died of cancer. Pollack directed films such as "Out of Africa" and "The Way We Were" with Barbara Streisand.

A case that socked was Peter Jennings death because of lung cancer. Jennings was an anchorman with the ABC news. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and died four months later, at the age of sixty seven. The same thing happened when Dana Reeve, who won worldwide admiration for her devotion to her "Superman" husband, Christopher Reeve, through his decade of near-total paralysis, died of lung cancer at the age of 44.

Some celebrities decided to make public there suffer. The celebrity willingness of going public with their personal stories, such as Peter Jennings or Dana Reeve deserves far more than admiration and sympathy. It can and should stimulate and educate people to become more aware of the impact of this disease

Many famous people have been diagnosed with lung cancer. Besides the ones mentioned, other celebrities who suffered from lung cancer are Nat "King" Cole, Bette Grable, Gary Cooper, Yul Brenner, Desi Araz, Duke Ellington, John Wayne, Jimmy Dorsey or Carl Wilson. We can name as well Raul Alfonsin, former President of Argentina, Jim Finks, football player, Paek Nam-sun, North Korea Foreign Minister, William O’Hagan, Mueller Industries CEO, Mate Parlov, Olympic and World Champion Boxer, W.D. Snodgrass, Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet or John Updike, famous novelist. Most of the celebrities who died because of lung cancer, named here, lived in the ’30 and ’40.

As we can see, lung cancer is not choosy and has the ability to develop in anyone, without discrimination: sportsmen, actors, politicians or businessman. Celebrity lung cancer cases have the ability to determine all of us realize that this disease can affect anyone, and that we must try to prevent it, because it is very difficult to cure. 

John Wayne died of lung cancer in 1979

By now we have all heard of cancer, most of us will have known one person who has suffered or died from cancer. Yet most people seem to be under the impression that they will never have cancer themselves and that famous people are intangible. Lung cancer makes no exception from this. It is one of the leading causes of deaths from cancer. Lung cancer kills more people than breast, colon and prostate cancer combined and it kills up to 160.000 people every year and some of them were public figures. Lung cancer, just like any other type of cancer, forgives no one. Along the years famous people with lung cancer have been singers, painters, writers, scientists, photographers and others.
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Bob Marley was a very well known singer, songwriter and musician. In 1980 he was diagnosed with skin cancer, that had already spread to his lungs and brain. He died in 1981, at the age of 36, only a few months after being diagnosed.

Lance Armstrong is a very well known cyclist, with exceptional performance in the Tour the France. Despite being an exceptional cyclist he is probably best know for his condition rather than his performance. In October 1996 he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had already spread to his lungs, brain and stomach. Despite the low chances of survival that the doctors announced, in his case treatment was successful and in 1997 he was declared free from cancer. Luckily he is one of the lung cancer survivors, here to show lung cancer patients that it is possible.



Dana Reeve, was known and admired by many for her devotion to her husband, actor Christopher Reeve. She was a singer and actress. The shocking announcement that she was diagnosed with lung cancer was made in 2005. Although the treatment was thought to be going well she died in 2006. She had never smoked.

Gary Cooper, one of Hollywood's great stars, died of lung cancer in 1961. One month before his death he was awarded a special Oscar that he could not accept in person due to illness.

Walt Disney is the man who needs no introduction and is known by many for creating 'Mickey Mouse'. He was diagnosed in 1966 after taking a chest X-ray for a different condition. Despite the fact that his entire left lung was removed and he underwent chemotherapy he died just a few months later.



Peter Jennings was a well know journalist and anchor man and his death came as a shock to many. He made the announcement in April 2005 and died only a few months later in August 2005 of complications from lung cancer. He had admitted to having smoked in the past, some 20 years ago.

These are only a few of the most famous people with lung cancer. The list can continue with names like Yul Brynner, Joe DiMaggio, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Susan Hayward, Paul Gleason, Ed Sullivan and unfortunately many others. Lung cancer does not discriminate!