Danny Glover revealed on Wednesday on Today that doctors diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s disease sometime after he won an honorary Oscar in 2022. “I can live with [the diagnosis], in a sense,” he said on the program.
When Lester Holt asked the actor about
whether he feared losing his memories, Glover, 79, said he understood the disease, which affects people’s memory and cognition. “As it advances, things gonna be different and changing,” he said. He has chosen to speak about the disease, which affects Black men at a rate double the national average, to remove stigmas associated with it. His daughter, Mandisa, told the program that she felt it was important for Glover to tell his own story.
Reflecting on his career, and his C.V. which includes the Lethal Weapon movies, The Color Purple, and Predator 2, among others, he looked back fondly on interactions like signing toilets for Lethal Weapon fans (a nod to a famous scene) and said his favorite film was 1984’s Places in the Heart. He dedicated his performance in that film to his mother, since she died in an accident on the day he was cast in it.
In a separate Todayfeaturette, Glover spoke in greater detail about his parents’ influence on him, noting how they taught him the importance of social justice. Glover’s role as an activist caught the idea of playwright Amiri Baraka, who cast him in a play. He’s subsequently chosen some roles based on the message the work transmits, such as when he portrayed Nelson Mandela in the 1987 TV movie Mandela.
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