A television star of the ’70s is speaking out about her scary experience with a brain tumor. Sandy Duncan, who had her own CBS sitcom “The Sandy Duncan Show” which IMDb says aired in 1972, spoke to John Cato of the YouTube interview show “That’s Classic!” to recount what happened.
Read to learn about Sandy Duncan’s brain tumor ordeal and the super-famous visitor who came to see her in the hospital.
GettySandy Duncan Recalls Brain Tumor Diagnosis: “They Sawed the Top of My Head Off”
The now-79-year-old Duncan said her illness began the year prior to the debut of her television show. “Screaming headaches” and a loss of vision were her first symptoms, she told Cato. The actress was filming the show “Funny Face” at the time, in which she starred alongside Valorie Armstrong, and says she worked through the pain.
In a terrifying incident during the final week of filming, which Parade says happened when the starlet was 24, Duncan says she entirely lost her vision. Despite her intentions to return to set, she was told by a doctor who rushed to the house, “You’ve got to sleep.”
She was eventually admitted to the hospital, where due to the lack of imaging technology at the time, exploratory surgery was required which found a brain tumor. “There was this big tumor attached to the orbit of my eye.” While removing the tumor, she says they severed her optic nerve. She also woke up halfway through the 10-hour surgery.
Sandy Duncan Recalled Hospital Visit from a Hollywood Legend
In the hospital, Duncan says Lucille Ball surprisingly came to see her. “I didn’t see that coming. I’d never met her in my life,” she said of the star’s kind gesture. “
The “Roots” actress went on to recall, “Just suddenly, it was the night before my surgery and they were about to shave all my hair off. This woman in a black cape came swooping into the room like a bat. “How are you doing?” she remembers the icon saying, to which she replied, “I’m okay.” She says Ball then told her, “Ok so surgery’s in the morning,” before gifting her a Limoges box and saying, “I want you to take this box and put all of your pain.” Duncan says the red-haired beauty also inquired as to whether her father had someone manning the gas station he owned, and spoke with her parents to help them make arrangements so they could be with when she came out of the operation.
Getty“It was a really generous, wonderful thing to do for somebody,” she gushed of the comedian, who passed away at the age of 77 in 1989.
“Later, Lucy and I worked together. We did a play together, and I got to know her a little bit,” she revealed.
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