{"id":551728,"date":"2026-04-26T14:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T14:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/551728\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T14:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T14:12:08","slug":"rita-wilson-looks-back-cancer-was-terrifying-but-now-i-see-it-as-a-gift-it-gave-me-an-extra-lease-on-life-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/551728\/","title":{"rendered":"Rita Wilson looks back: \u2018Cancer was terrifying, but now I see it as a gift. It gave me an extra lease on life\u2019 | Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Composite of two images of Rita Wilson, in 1970 and 2026<\/a>Rita Wilson in 1970 and 2026. Later photograph: Simon Webb\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. Hair: Lisa Laudat. Makeup: Shon Hyungsun Ju. Archive photograph: courtesy of Rita Wilson<\/p>\n

Born in Hollywood in\u00a01956, Rita Wilson\u2019s first role was in The\u00a0Brady Bunch at the age\u00a0of 15. She went on to appear in\u00a0Frasier and The Good Wife, as well as romcom classics such as Sleepless in Seattle<\/a> and Runaway Bride. She produced the highest\u2011grossing romcom of all\u00a0time, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as well as Mamma Mia! and A Man Called\u00a0Otto, which starred her husband, Tom\u00a0Hanks, and son Truman. Alongside her career on screen, she has released music since 2012. Her sixth studio album, Sound of\u00a0a Woman, is out on 1 May.<\/p>\n

My mum took this photo of me in Hollywood. I\u2019d just started high school and was joyful, open and optimistic.<\/p>\n

This image captures the start of everything. A few weeks before, on\u00a0my first day of Hollywood high school, I was walking to class and someone approached me to ask if I\u00a0would mind getting my photo taken. I said yes, even though I didn\u2019t know what it was for. A couple of days later I got a call saying that I had to go down to the offices of Harper\u2019s Bazaar. They were interested in casting me in\u00a0a\u00a0photoshoot for the January 1972 issue as it was the first time 18-year\u2011olds had been given the right to vote, and they wanted young models. Nobody seemed to mind that I\u00a0was still only 14 and a half.<\/p>\n

On the shoot, I got to meet real, professional models. I asked them how they managed to get booked for the magazine and they told me all about agents. I took their advice and after the shoot I called an agent and said, \u201cI\u2019ve just posed for Albert Watson at\u00a0Harper\u2019s Bazaar magazine. Would you like to meet me?\u201d They asked for a headshot, so Mum took this photo of me. It wasn\u2019t very glamorous, but it\u00a0was enough to get me signed.<\/p>\n

I had no expectations of what my career would turn into. My parents were immigrants and we didn\u2019t know anybody in the industry. Plus I was pretty content with my life \u2013 I\u00a0loved my family, my school and my friends. My childhood was one of safety \u2013 my mum, dad, brother and sister and\u00a0I\u00a0lived in a small house in LA. As Mum was Greek, she took cooking seriously. She went to the market every day for fresh ingredients and\u00a0until she shopped, the fridge was empty aside from a tub of Greek full\u2011fat yoghurt, a block of feta cheese and a bottle of 7Up. The house was filled with comforting smells of food and the sounds of an AM radio blasting out the Supremes, Al Green, the Beach Boys, the Beatles and Dolly Parton.<\/p>\n

My first acting job was The Brady Bunch. I went along to the audition with a friend who wanted to be an actor, and the producers of the show saw me waiting and asked if I\u2019d like to\u00a0try out for the role of the cheerleader. I got the part, which meant I was suddenly working on my\u00a0favourite show, with actors I\u2019d\u00a0loved for years. I\u2019ll never forget the\u00a0feeling of driving through the studio gates with my mum and thinking, \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m here!\u201d The whole thing blew my mind.<\/p>\n

From that moment on, I was working consistently. As much as I enjoyed it, I\u00a0sensed my parents were disappointed that I hadn\u2019t gone to college \u2013 they valued education because they didn\u2019t have it themselves. I wanted them to be proud, and felt I should commit to the craft \u2013 so in my 20s I ended up going to the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art to get formal training. It was incredible \u2013 most evenings I\u00a0went to the theatre, and I lived in an\u00a0apartment with an incredible gay couple who converted their living room so I could take their bedroom. The only downside was that they had a\u00a0bathtub with no spray nozzle and I had such long hair that I would have to fill a\u00a0saucepan to rinse the shampoo off.<\/p>\n

double quotation markThat girl in the photo is still with me. I couldn\u2019t be who I am without her \u2013 without every incarnation of myself that came before<\/p>\n

Having kids was one of the only times I stopped working \u2013 but, even then, I wouldn\u2019t say I properly stepped away. There were just certain jobs I\u00a0couldn\u2019t commit to, like TV, which often involved blocking off six\u00a0years. I\u2019m also married to an actor, so if we both worked constantly, we wouldn\u2019t be present for our children, and I\u00a0didn\u2019t want that. We never had a\u00a0nanny, and I knew that I wanted to take them to school and to be there when they came home, because that\u2019s what my mum did.<\/p>\n

I was flicking through the Los\u00a0Angeles Times theatre ads in 1997 when I first came across the title: My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I\u00a0thought it was a\u00a0funny name, so I\u00a0went along to this 99-seat theatre to see a one\u2011woman play. It was so hilarious that afterwards I asked to meet Nia\u00a0Vardalos, the writer, and told her it would make a great movie. She had already written the script for it and handed it over to me. The studios didn\u2019t want to cast her in it because she wasn\u2019t famous. Eventually, we found financiers. We made the movie. But we had to fight for it. I was certain that there was a universal appeal to the family dynamics she had written about. The whole experience was so validating and reminded me of a small but valuable compliment my acting coach gave me when I was a teenager \u2013 that I had good taste in material, and\u00a0good instincts.<\/p>\n

I felt a similar feeling of satisfaction as\u00a0soon as I started songwriting. It\u00a0was\u00a0as if I was coming home to myself. I was able to explore ideas and\u00a0themes that, as an actor, I\u00a0couldn\u2019t, because I was working with other people\u2019s words. It\u2019s been so empowering to write from my heart and imagination \u2013 as if it was a part of myself that I had always wanted to access but was put on hold.<\/p>\n

Throughout all the things a woman endures over the course of her life \u2013 the periods, pregnancies, births and menopause \u2013 I always thought of my body as something that got on with things. In 2015, that changed. I was diagnosed with breast cancer and went on to have a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. At first it was terrifying. I remember saying goodbye to my body in the mirror before the surgery. As much as it was profound and scary, I was so grateful for all the modern medical miracles that were available to me. Now I see my cancer as a gift \u2013 an extra lease on life. After that, anything that was not truly important just melted away.<\/p>\n

My new album has a song on it called Marriage. It\u2019s about how we change over the years, and it\u2019s about commitment, not only to your partner but to yourself, as a person who wants to keep growing. What I\u2019ve learned from the 38 years I\u2019ve been married, is\u00a0that it\u2019s a constant. There are going to be ups and downs, but you have to create and maintain it just like anything else in your life.<\/p>\n

In many ways, I\u2019m more optimistic now than I\u2019ve ever been \u2013 and more unfiltered, too. That\u2019s the gift of getting older: you stop caring what anyone thinks. There\u2019s nothing to hide or prove. But that girl in the photo is still with me. I couldn\u2019t be who I am without her \u2013 without every incarnation of myself that came before. These past versions of ourselves, they are not ghosts. They\u2019re\u00a0our community, our angels. They form who we are, and they carry us, step by step, to the next level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Composite of two images of Rita Wilson, in 1970 and 2026Rita Wilson in 1970 and 2026. Later photograph:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-551728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}