Former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson has announced that she may have fewer than three years to live, after she was diagnosed with an inoperable cancerous tumor. The 65-year-old comedian made the revelation in an Instagram post late Wednesday, saying doctors found a marble-sized tumor on her windpipe that is inoperable. Earlier this year, Jackson said her cancer had returned, nine years after she successfully battled breast cancer.
Jackson was a cast member of Saturday Night Live for six seasons, from 1986 to 1992, appearing in 109 episodes and additional primetime specials. In recent years, particularly after her initial cancer diagnosis in 2016, she has spent more time on social media, often singing songs of her own composition, something she was famous for on SNL. In her Instagram post, she said that cancer patients taking her latest medication usually live less than three years, which caused her to take stock of the limited time she may have left:
I’ve had a wonderful life.
Referring to her tumor as a “marble,” Jackson said doctors “cannot operate and cut out the marble in my chest that is laying on my windpipe, and eventually would suffocate me to death.” Instead, doctors prescribed Ribociclib, a cancer medication that works by blocking the proteins that cancerous tumors use to grow. “They’re giving me a magic pill,” Jackson said in her video. “It’s going to be delivered to my front door within the next 12 hours. It’s based on Ribociclib, and it will shrink the marble, hopefully…I looked up the pill on Google and it says people who take this have 32.6 months to live.”
Jackson, who has two grown children, also said she hopes to see her grandson born this October, and future grandchildren, if her time is indeed short. “I’d like to see my grandson born – his name is Jimmy – in October and get to know a little and I would like to see my daughter Aubrey have a baby.” She noted the survival time frame she mentioned is based on her online research, and wasn’t an estimate from her doctor.
Victoria Jackson’s Comedic Career Extended Beyond SNL
Victoria Jackson earned her start in acting in the early 1980s, when former child star Johnny Crawford of The Rifleman fame cast her in his nightclub act, after seeing her work in summer stock. Her standup comedy earned her an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and she went on to make 20 appearances in all. Her impersonations on Carson earned her a spot on the Saturday Night Live cast for six seasons, where she was known for her quirky songs (which she usually performed on the ukulele), and “Weekend Update” sketches. Her distinctive, high-pitched voice often had her cast as the “dumb blonde” in many skits, and she was often called upon to impersonate celebrities like Roseanne Barr, Sally Struthers and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
2:11
Related
The 15 Greatest SNL Sketches of All Time (with Videos), Ranked
Saturday Night Live has had countless funny, pants-wetting sketches over the last 49 seasons, making it one of the longest-running shows on TV.
After leaving SNL, Jackson appeared in a number of films, including Baby Boom, Weird Al Yankovic’s cult classic UHF, The Pick-up Artist, and Casual Sex? with Lea Thompson. Her television work in the 1990s included In the Heat of the Night, a guest spot in a memorable episode of The X-Files, and appearances on Hollywood Squares. Her television work continued into the 2000s, but in recent years, after her first cancer diagnosis, she has limited her public appearances, choosing instead to record songs performed with her trademark ukulele and communicating with fans on social media.
