Ben and Casey Affleck’s Mother Passes Away After Cancer Battle

Christopher Anne Affleck, mother to actors Ben and Casey Affleck, passed away at 83 after battling pancreatic cancer. According to The Boston Globe, she died peacefully on June 2 in her sleep. Her family shared that her greatest wish was to see her grandson graduate high school, which she fulfilled by attending his graduation on May 31, 2026. She passed away two days later.

Born in 1942 in New York City, Chris was known for her activism. She taught literacy classes in Mississippi during Freedom Summer, protested against the Vietnam War, and participated in the 1960s counterculture. She was among the first women from Radcliffe College to graduate from Harvard and spent 35 years as a public school teacher. Her classroom was a place where every student, regardless of background, was valued equally.

Chris retired in 2008, later volunteering for Barack Obama’s campaign, traveling to Israel/Palestine, and organizing for the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine. She had two sons with her ex-husband, Timothy Affleck, before their divorce in 1984. Both sons attribute their love for the arts to their parents, with Casey recalling how their mother frequently took them to the theater.

Ben Affleck started acting as a child, partly due to a family friend who worked as a casting director. This early exposure led to a successful acting career, marked by his Academy Award win for best original screenplay in 1998 for “Good Will Hunting,” co-written with Matt Damon, another Cambridge native.

During the Oscars, Ben and Damon took their mothers as their plus-ones. Ben explained his surprise at the attention given to this decision, emphasizing that it felt natural and genuine to bring their mothers.

Chris is survived by her sons and five grandchildren: Casey’s children, Indiana and Atticus, and Ben’s children, Violet, Fin, and Sam.