Christopher Anne Affleck, the mother of Ben and Casey Affleck, has died following a battle with cancer. An obituary in The Boston Globe reported that she passed peacefully in her sleep on June 2 at age 83.
Christopher Anne, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2025, had been given six months to live. Her primary wish, as per the obituary, was to live to see her grandson graduate high school. She achieved this, attending the ceremony with her family on May 31, 2026, and died peacefully two days later.
Born in 1942 in New York City, Christopher Anne was known for her activism. She taught literacy classes in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer, protested against the Vietnam War, and embraced the 1960s counterculture. She became one of the first women from Radcliffe to graduate from Harvard and spent 35 years as a public school teacher. Her teaching career was marked by an inclusive classroom environment where all students were treated equally, whether they were from Haiti or Cambridge.
Christopher Anne retired in 2008 and became involved in various volunteering activities, including campaigning for President Barack Obama, traveling to Israel and Palestine, and organizing for the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine.
She welcomed her sons, Ben in 1972 and Casey in 1975, with her ex-husband Timothy Affleck. The couple divorced in 1984. Ben and Casey have often credited their parents for their artistic inclinations. In a 2013 interview with Collider, Casey mentioned that their artistic journey started in childhood due to their father’s theater involvement and their mother’s frequent theater visits. Ben recounted in a 2007 interview with Parade that he began acting young due to a casting director friend of his mother’s, which led him to a successful acting career.
Ben achieved significant success by winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1998, alongside Matt Damon, for Good Will Hunting. Both credited their parents for their artistic pursuits, often attending significant events like the Oscars with them. Ben shared in Vanity Fair in 2023 that attending the awards with their mothers was a natural choice.
Christopher Anne leaves behind her two sons and five grandchildren: Casey’s children, Indiana and Atticus, and Ben’s children, Violet, Fin, and Sam.