Ben and Casey Affleck's Mom Dies at 83

Ben and Casey Affleck have lost their mother, a onetime civil rights activist who helped launch their acting careers. Christopher Anne "Chris" Affleck died June 2 at age 83, six months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to an obituary cited by the Hollywood Reporter. A Harvard-educated former public school teacher, Chris spent 35 years in the classroom and joined 1964's Freedom Summer literacy campaign in Mississippi.

She later connected young Ben with a casting director friend, a move he once described as the spark to his career, notes People. She was her eldest son's date to the 1998 Oscars when he and Matt Damon won for Good Will Hunting. "We were sitting next to our moms and we won, and we kind of hugged our moms. I remember how everyone had made such a big thing out of it, as if this was such a novelty," Ben told Vanity Fair in 2023. "There was nobody else that was going to go."

A longtime activist in Massachusetts, Chris worked on Barack Obama's campaign and with groups focused on Palestinian water rights and local sustainability. Her final wish, per the obituary, was to see grandson Atticus graduate from high school—a milestone she reached two days before her death. "Chris was suitably proud of her descendants' achievements," read her obituary. "But she was delighted when they questioned, defied, or cleverly engaged authority."