Marcia Cross - What I Learned From Cancer

After Being Diagnosed With Anal Cancer, She Found Strength In Family And Friends. Now She’S Speaking Out To Help Others

- Julie Jordan

Taking a deep breath, Marcia Cross looks out at the sun setting over the Hollywood Hills. It’s been nearly a year and a half since she was diagnosed with anal cancer and then successfully treated for the disease. Now she’s beginning to feel like herself again “but different,” she says. “Whenever you have cancer, you think, ‘I just want to get back to my life.’ Afterwards you realize you will never be the same.” Posing for her first photo shoot since revealing her diagnosis, Cross, 57, exudes an appreciation for life. When she catches a glimpse of herself in a nearby mirror, she smiles. “Oh, it feels like me again,” she says softly, admiring the resilient woman looking back at her. “A new me.”

When doctors told the former Desperate Housewives star that she had cancer back in November 2017, she was no stranger to the disease. Her husband of almost 13 years, Tom Mahoney, 61, with whom she has 12-year-old twin daughters, Eden and Savannah, is now healthy after being diagnosed with throat cancer in 2009. Before her marriage she had been in a long-term relationship with actor Richard Jordan, who died of a brain tumor in 1993. Although she initially intended to keep her own diagnosis private, Cross outed herself when she posted an Instagram photo playfully bemoaning her hair loss and asking her followers if they could relate. The inclusion of “#cancer” in her caption prompted a deluge of support and inspired the self-described “introverted extrovert” to share her story. “I want to help put a dent in the stigma around anal cancer,” says Cross. “I’ve read a lot of cancer-survivor stories, and many people, women especially, were too embarrassed to say what kind of cancer they had. There is a lot of shame about it. I want that to stop.”