Sir Ian Holm in cancer battle

10 April 2012

Sir Ian Holm is fighting prostate cancer. The 70-year-old actor, who plays Bilbo Baggins in Lord of the Rings, was diagnosed and treated late last year.

"It's all strange because I still feel like I'm immortal," said Sir Ian. "I can't believe that I've had something seriously wrong with me."

He added: "I didn't go through chemotherapy and my hair didn't fall out - but they won't actually know if I'm cured for another two years. I'll be dead of old age by then."

The RADA trained actor, who made a triumphant return to the West End last year in a production of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, was forced to miss a royal charity performance of Lord Of The Rings last December to seek treatment in America.

Sir Ian, who has five children, has been undergoing a series of treatments which have had, he says, some alarming sideeffects. Sir Ian, currently in New York, said he has given up hormone treatment because it gave him hot flushes.

"The flushes were one thing," he said. "One of my women friends says 'Now you know what it's like.' But the other thing is a little odd. I'm looking optimistically at the fact that my pubic hair has fallen out - I'm told that's rather fashionable, like a Brazilian wax.

"I look a bit strange, to put it mildly, but these are small prices to pay."

Even worse for Holm, he woke up one morning and couldn't go "for a pee".

He added: "My neurologist was on his cellphone and said 'You're lucky you're not in Guatemala. Come in now.'

Prostate cancer is set to become the most common form of the disease among men within a few years, experts recently warned.

If trends continue, it is predicted more than 25,000 British men a year will contract prostate cancer. Although easily treated if diagnosed early, men's reluctance to visit the doctor regularly means many sufferers only discover they have prostate cancer once it is too advanced.

Sir Ian Holm in cancer battle
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