Vale Cornelia Frances 'Mum Is Finally At Peace'

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She’s the flame-haired Aussie acting icon adored for playing some of TV’s feistiest characters, but it was in her final months battling cancer that Cornelia Frances really showed her toughest side.

“Mum’s specialists were stunned by her fighting spirit. She went into palliative care in February, before passing away peacefully last Monday around midday,” Cornelia’s devoted son Lawrence Eastland tells Woman’s Day.

“I was by her side, holding her hand when she took her last breath. She slipped away in her sleep. It was serene. There was no pain. I feel relieved that Mum is finally at peace.”

CLASSY TO THE END

The past few years have been tough for Lawrence, 46, who gave up his graphic design work in Byron Bay to hold vigil at his mother’s Sydney bedside after she was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2016.

“When she first told me, I broke down in tears,” says Lawrence, whose father, Cornelia’s former husband Michael Eastland, died of cancer just four years before.

She underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment, but the cancer spread. “We kept hoping for a miracle and, I guess, that miracle was the extra time we had together. I’m so grateful for that blessing,” he adds.