{"id":2660,"date":"2026-07-14T10:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T10:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=2660"},"modified":"2026-07-14T10:08:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T10:08:00","slug":"sam-neill-had-pneumonia-before-his-death-co-star-says-as-tributes-pour-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=2660","title":{"rendered":"Sam Neill had pneumonia before his death, co-star says, as tributes pour in"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sam Neill, the acclaimed New Zealand actor, was suffering from pneumonia before his death on Monday, according to a co-star. <\/p>\n

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Fellow Kiwi actor Rima Te Wiata, who appeared opposite Neill in the 2016comedy \u201cHunt for the Wilderpeople,\u201d told the New Zealand Herald that Neill was not scared of dying but that he would be \u201cannoyed\u201d by it. <\/p>\n

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\u201cIt really sucks, actually,\u201d she told the outlet\u2019s video show \u2018Ryan Bridge TODAY.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he would be like: \u2018For goodness sake, I got over my cancer. And now look, now I get pneumonia. What next?\u2019.\u201d But she added: \u201cHe\u2019s on his big journey now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Te Wiata did not offer any more detail and it was unclear how recently Neill may have been sick with pneumonia.<\/p>\n

Neill\u2019s family announced his death at age 78 on Monday. \u201cThe loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free,\u201d the family said in a statement, which did not specify a cause of death. <\/p>\n

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In 2023, Neill wrote in his memoir <\/strong>\u201cDid I Ever Tell You This?\u201d that he was \u201cpossibly dying\u201d with stage-three non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But he declared himself cancer-free in April, after several years of treatment for blood cancer.<\/p>\n

Tributes have poured in globally for Neill, who was best known for his role playing paleontologist Alan Grant in \u201cJurassic Park\u201d in 1993, alongside actors Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.<\/p>\n

Dern called him a \u201cbeloved lifetime friend,\u201d in a tribute on Instagram. \u201cHe was a true and noble gentleman, wrapped up in my dream leading man. I will love you forever, Dr. Alan Grant.\u201d <\/p>\n

Goldblum said simply: \u201cThe next great adventure begins.\u201d <\/p>\n

Director Steven Spielberg said he \u201cadored making all the Jurassic movies with him … We will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Laura Tingle, a journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation \u2014 who dated Neill for several years \u2014 told ABC Radio Sydney on Monday, \u201chis poor old body just sort of got a bit exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe\u2019s been pretty sick for the last couple of weeks and everybody who loved him has been willing him on from near and far, but I think it was just a bit too much to recover from one more time,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d had a lot of chemo and a lot of immunotherapy and, thankfully, it finally cleared him of the blood cancer that he had, but that left him pretty compromised in terms of his immune system,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

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