This woman has been married to a celebrated actor for over six decades. While their journey has been filled with unforgettable memories, they’ve also weathered storms that could have torn them apart.

A Near-Death Wake-Up Call

It was 1976. Her husband, already a rising actor with roles in gritty films and acclaimed dramas, was filming “Apocalypse Now” in the Philippine jungle. The shoot was chaotic, and the pressure was immense. Then came the heart attack. He was only 37 at the time.

She wasn’t there when it struck, she had taken a short trip to Manila. He’d spent the night pacing, reading from books scattered around him. The pain started in his arm and then spread to his chest. By dawn, he could barely move.

He dressed while lying on the floor, pulled on his combat boots, and dragged himself to the roadside where a public bus picked him up. A wardrobe van later carried him to the production office, and when the production designer saw him, he started to cry.

When the doctor finally arrived to examine him, the look on his face said it all. There was real concern — so much that the actor felt his time might be running out. He asked for a priest to be brought in.

“He came and gave me the last rites,” he recalled. “Here I am confessing, and he couldn’t understand a word of English.”

Talking about that period wasn’t, and the memories still sat heavy. “I was lying there for hours while they tried to decide whether to fly me out by helicopter,” he said.

The chopper lifted off and took him to Manila. An ambulance met them on arrival. “I remember sitting up and untying my shoes,” he said. “The doctors were yelling, ‘Lie down!’ And I told them, ‘Don’t say another word until I get my boots off.'”

But the heart attack was only the beginning. He suffered a breakdown, too. “I completely fell apart,” he said. “My spirit was exposed. I cried and cried. I turned completely gray, my eyes, my beard all gray.” He was placed in intensive care and his wife stood by him through it all.