SYDNEY, Australia, July 13, 2026 (UPI) — Sam Neill, the Northern Ireland-born and New Zealand-raised actor best known for his starring role in the Jurassic Park film franchise, died Monday in Sydney, his family said in a statement. He was 78.
“Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,” the statement published on his social media accounts said.
“The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.”
The cause of death was not disclosed.
Neill revealed that he had angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma when he announced in a March 2023 video that he was in remission. In the video, he said he began treatment after experiencing swollen glands a year earlier while promoting Jurassic World Dominion.
In April, he announced that he was cancer-free, telling Australia’s 7News that: “I’ve just had a scan and there is no cancer in my body, that’s an extraordinary thing.
Neill was a celebrated TV and film actor who appeared in dozens of productions dating back to the early 1970s.
Some of his most notable roles include Captain Borodin in the 1990 Sean Connery-starring The Hunt for Red October, Alisdair Stewart in 1993’s The Piano, Chester Campbell in the Peaky Blinders TV series and Dr. Alan Grant in 1993’s Jurassic Park, 2001’s Jurassic Park III and 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion.
