SCREEN STAR LOSES CANCER BATTLE
VETERAN actress Cornelia Frances, who portrayed some of Australian television’s most iconic characters, has died after a battle with cancer.
The 77-year-old’s death was announced by the Seven Network yesterday.
Frances is best known for playing Morag Bellingham on Home and Away, Sister Scott on The Young Doctors and hosting The Weakest Link.
In a social media tribute, her son Lawrence posted a photo of his mother sleeping in a hospital bed beside a plush toy.
“A very personal photo of my mum during one of her resting moments, she is so peaceful, soft and serene,” he wrote on Monday morning. “I truly love this woman.” She died surrounded by family and friends, Seven said.
In January Frances revealed she had been diagnosed with bladder cancer a year earlier.
“I discovered I had bladder cancer. This then spread to my hip bone which fractured, and then I almost died from loss of blood due to an ulcer in my throat. Despite all this, I am still here, as the old song goes,” she told News Corp.
Her mother also died from cancer and the actress donated every year to cancer charities.
Born Cornelia Frances Zulver on April 7, 1941, in Liverpool, England, she began acting in the UK. But it wasn’t until after she moved to Australia in 1970 that her career flourished.