‘The UnXplained’ star William Shatner talks about daughter’s stage 4 cancer battle

Actor William Shatner, 94, has broken his silence concerning his daughter Melanie Shatner Gretsch’s past battle with Stage 4 breast cancer.

Gretsch is the daughter of Shatner and his first ex-wife, Gloria Rand.

In an interview with “On the Red Carpet” back in September, Shatner hinted at the idea of the two teaming up for a podcast, where they would talk about the secrets of longevity.

“My daughter who had breast cancer, Stage Four, is cured because of the luck of finding the doctor whose chemicals he invented 10 years ago were directly applied to this particular cancer. So she got through her cancer,” the 94-year-old said during the interview.

Shatner himself has also had a few health issues, including Stage 4 melanoma and prostate cancer.

“I’ve had some illnesses. I don’t want to discuss it now, but I’m aware of what it’s like to have the magic of medicine dealing with cancer and age,” Shatner explained. “There is this combination between my daughter and myself that we can speak about ‘How are you going to live longer?’”

To Shatner, the key to living longer is “embedding yourself in life [and] to take advantage of every opportunity.”

“You have to mix it up, to do something unusual, to do something different. That energy energizes your cells and keeps you young. That’s the key to youth,” he noted.

Back in 2024, Gretsch spoke about her breast cancer battle in an October 2024 interview with UCLA Health, alongside UCLA Health breast surgical oncologist Carlie Thompson, MD.

Gretsch, 61, had a double mastectomy.

During the interview, Thompson shared that while “Melanie was stage 4” she and her UCLA Health team, which also included UCLA Health oncologist John Glaspy, MD, and radiation oncologist Joanne Weidhass, MD, PhD, believed Gretsch “was one of those rare cases of stage 4 breast cancer that was curable” due to it only going to her chest lymph nodes, not to her vital organs.

“It’s two different treatment pathways if you are treating breast cancer that has not spread versus breast cancer that has spread or metastasized,” said Thompson.

Fortunately, Gretsch went through an 18-month treatment plan that began in 2022 that consisted of “chemotherapy, targeted therapy, surgery and radiation.”

“Dr. Thompson says I did the maximum. There is no more they could have thrown at me,” Gretsch said in the UCLA Health interview.

“She really had the lengthiest and most invasive treatment that a patient can go through.”

“We had to be particularly aggressive about her treatment,” the doctor said of the former actress.

“For now, we can say that she is cured,” Thompson added.

“The chance of the cancer coming back in Melanie is probably a little bit higher just because she had those cells that got out initially. However, she had a phenomenal response to the treatment and we are all very, very hopeful that this means a long-term cure for her,” the doctor revealed in the interview.