Andy Whitfield
Got some really very sad news this morning.
Andy Whitfield, who played the title role in Sky1’s Spartacus: Blood and Sand has sadly lost his battle with cancer at the age of 39. Whitfield’s wife Vashti released a statement saying:
“On a beautiful sunny Sydney spring morning, surrounded by his family, in the arms of his loving wife, our beautiful young warrior Andy Whitfield lost his 18 month battle with lymphoma cancer. He passed peacefully surrounded by love. Thank you to all his fans whose love and support have help carry him to this point. He will be remembered as the inspiring, courageous and gentle man, father and husband he was.”
Andy was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in March 2010. To give him time to recover, the production team made the sequel ‘Spartacus: Gods of the Arena’. The cancer initially seems to go into remission, but returned a few months later forcing him to give up the role, although he wrote to creators of Spartacus saying he’d love to see the show continue, leading them to re-cast Spartacus with Andy’s blessing. Liam McIntyre will take over the role for ‘Spartacus: Vengeance’.
I’m really sad to hear of Andy’s passing, and our thoughts are with his friends and family.
