“Jurassic Park” star Sam Neill died of pneumonia, a representative confirmed on Thursday.
The “Jurassic Park” star, who was 78 when he died on Sunday in Sydney, Australia, will be honored in a private family memorial on his farm in New Zealand at a “later date,” his agent Philip Grenz told Page Six.
“Sam passed away from pneumonia,” Grenz said. “Prior to becoming sick, Sam had valiantly fought and beaten lymphoma through a new treatment called CAR-T therapy.”
Grenz said he disclosed details about Neill’s cause of death after consulting with the actor’s family and following news reports “which contain inaccuracies and outright falsehoods.”
He added that Neill had completed four projects “back-to-back” over the past year that are expected to be released in the coming months.
“As Sam was an intensely private man who loathed a fuss, his family will honor him with a private family memorial at his farm in New Zealand at a still-undetermined later date,” Grenz said.
“I’d like to thank those who were truly close to Sam for considering his privacy with the respect he earned and his loved ones need and deserve during this immeasurably difficult time,” he added.
The actor (pictured above in “Jurassic Park” in 1993) died in July. ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
The actor’s former “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” co-star Rima Te Wiata said this week that Neill had been battling pneumonia before he died.
“It really sucks, actually,” Te Wiata told the New Zealand Herald. “I think he would be like: ‘For goodness sake, I got over my cancer. And now look, now I get pneumonia. What next?’”
“He’s on his big journey now,” she added.
While Neill was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, his family clarified that he was “cancer-free” at the time of his death.
Neill’s loved ones, who called the “immeasurable” loss “sudden” and “unexpected,” wrote that he was “surrounded by family” and went “with dignity.”
Three months before Neill died, the Golden Globe nominee revealed his recovery from angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma.
“I’ve just had a scan just now and there is no cancer in my body, that’s an extraordinary thing,” he told Australian network 7News in April.
