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Danny Glover, 79, Reveals He Has Alzheimer’s
The actor says he is still finding purpose as his family helps him navigate the disease
Actor Danny Glover, seen in Philadelphia in May 2025, has revealed he is living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images/Getty Images
Key takeaways
- Danny Glover told the Today show, “I’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s,” and People reported the actor received the diagnosis in 2023.
- Medical professionals advise calling a doctor when memory or thinking changes raise concerns, because some causes may be treatable.
- Glover said he still feels that he has work to do.
Danny Glover is speaking publicly for the first time about his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
“I’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s,” the actor, 79, said on the Today show in an interview from his San Francisco home, where he sat surrounded by family memories, career honors and the people now helping him manage the disease. The interview aired July 1.
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Glover, known for his roles in Lethal Weapon, The Color Purple and Places in the Heart, as well as his decades of activism, also spoke to People in an interview about life since his diagnosis. People reported that Glover was diagnosed in 2023 and that his support network, including his daughter Mandisa, his younger brother Marty and caregivers, is helping him navigate the changes.
“I’m still not accepting in my mind all parts of it,” Glover told People. “There are the moments that you keep remembering that validate the fact that you can remember stuff. And there are moments I’ll never forget.”
On Today, Glover described his diagnosis in plain terms. “I can live with it, in a sense,” he said. Asked whether he fears losing his memories, he answered, “I’m sure as it advances, things will be different and changing.”
Mandisa, 50, told People that her father had long been able to recall the smallest details from decades earlier.
“The history of my dad is that he remembers every single thing back to 1970, what corner he was standing on, who he spoke to, what they spoke about, what color they were wearing, everything,” she told People. Then she noticed pieces missing from stories she had heard many times. “I said, ‘I wonder what’s going on?’ ”
Mandisa’s account echoes several warning signs AARP health experts urge families not to ignore: familiar stories that begin to lose pieces, repeated questions or stories, trouble finding words and difficulty following or completing conversations. Occasional forgetfulness can happen at any age and may become more common with aging, according to the National Institute on Aging. But when changes in memory or thinking raise concern, medical professionals advise calling a doctor, because some causes may be treatable.
AARP’s guide to dementia warning signs lists short-term memory loss, difficulty finding words, trouble multitasking, repeating questions or stories, personality changes, confusion about time or place, financial missteps and misplacing items in unusual places, among symptoms that should not be ignored. Dementia is an umbrella term for a decline in mental ability that interferes with daily life. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia.
An estimated 7.4 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s in 2026, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. About 1 in 9 people 65 and older have the disease, and nearly 13 million Americans provide unpaid care for someone with Alzheimer’s or another dementia. In addition, the association notes that older Black Americans are about twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s or other dementias as older white Americans.
Health professionals quoted by AARP stress that not every memory change means Alzheimer’s. Medication side effects, depression, stress, thyroid problems, vitamin deficiencies, head injuries, delirium and hearing loss can cause dementia-like symptoms. That is one reason medical professionals advise calling a doctor when concerns arise. A primary care doctor may refer a patient to a neurologist or geriatric psychiatrist for cognitive and neurological testing, brain imaging, blood work or other evaluation.
For Glover, the diagnosis has come late in a life defined by work, family and public service. In 2022, he received the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an Oscar statuette given for humanitarian efforts that have brought credit to the motion picture industry.
The memories that remain close to the surface often return to his family and his purpose. He told People he keeps a picture of his parents in his living room “to remind me, looking at it, how much I loved them both.” He also recalled his mother’s reaction after seeing him perform onstage: “Son, the people said you can act.”
Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in 1987’s “Lethal Weapon,” the buddy-cop film that made Glover a household name.
Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
The disease has changed how his family moves through the day. “When I wake up, I try to figure out something,” he told People. “Reading something, looking at something.”
Mandisa told People the change is difficult to watch. “It’s a change in the core of who you think you are or don’t think you are,” she said. “You just have to live the day for what it is.”
Marty described the emotional weight of seeing the disease affect him. “You see the deterioration, and you think, Wow,” he told People. “Sometimes you get emotional about it. It’s tough, because you don’t want to see nobody go through this.”
Glover and his family plan to keep working with his doctor to explore treatment options, People reported. “We just want him to live his best life,” Marty said, “like he made us live ours.”
Glover’s reason for speaking publicly now appears tied to the same instinct that has long shaped his activism: usefulness. He told People, “I don’t feel like it’s the end of my life. There’s work to do.”
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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