Sam Neill died of pneumonia, agent reveals; 'Jurassic Park' star had beaten lymphoma with experimental therapy

Cause of death confirmed

Sam Neill died of pneumonia, his longtime agent Philip Grenz told Radio New Zealand on Thursday, three days after the 78-year-old actor's death in Sydney. The family had initially announced the loss as sudden and unexpected, noting only that Neill was cancer-free at the time. Grenz said he spoke with the family to clarify details after some media reports contained what he called inaccuracies and outright falsehoods.

Sam died of pneumonia. Before he fell ill, Sam had bravely fought and beaten lymphoma thanks to a new treatment called CAR-T therapy.

Cancer battle and remission

Neill was diagnosed in 2022 with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that affects the lymph nodes and immune system. He underwent CAR-T therapy, a gene therapy that modifies a patient's own T-cells to attack cancer. In April 2026 he announced he was cancer-free. His 2023 memoir and a Guardian interview had revealed he was possibly dying from stage 3 lymphoma, making the remission a striking turn.

Final projects and private memorial

Grenz said Neill filmed four projects back-to-back in the last year, all set for release in the coming months. Among them are Godzilla x Kong: Supernova and the romantic comedy The Last Resort. The family will hold a private memorial on Neill's farm in New Zealand at a date still to be determined.

As Sam was an extremely private man who detested fuss, his family will honor him with a private memorial on his farm in New Zealand.

Instead of flowers, the family asked for donations to two causes Neill supported: the Dunstan Hospital foundation, which funds healthcare in Central Otago, and the Snowdome Foundation, an Australian charity that finances blood cancer research and clinical trials.

A five-decade career

Born Nigel John Dermot Neill in Omagh, Northern Ireland, in 1947, he moved to New Zealand as a child and later adopted the name Sam. He appeared in more than 150 film and television productions. Early roles included My Brilliant Career (1979) and The Final Conflict (1981). International attention came with A Cry in the Dark (1988) opposite Meryl Streep, Dead Calm (1989) with Nicole Kidman, and The Hunt for Red October (1990) alongside Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin.

Steven Spielberg cast him as paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park (1993), which became the highest-grossing film ever at the time. That same year he starred in Jane Campion's The Piano. His television work included The Tudors and Peaky Blinders. Tributes poured in from Spielberg, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Nicole Kidman, Taika Waititi, Cillian Murphy, Alec Baldwin, Toni Collette, and Kylie Minogue, among others.