It was a Tuesday morning on the Today show set when Danny Glover sat down and told the world something few had known. At 79, the actor behind some of American cinema's most enduring working-class heroes — Martin Riggs’s reluctant partner Roger Murtaugh, Celie’s quietly brutal husband in The Color Purple — confirmed he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the details of the interview, describing the moment as emotional. Glover, who turned 79 this year, has spent five decades building a filmography that stretches from Spielberg-adjacent blockbusters to independent prestige drama, and his public profile has always carried a certain gravity. That gravity was on full display as he spoke openly about a diagnosis that his family and inner circle had been managing privately.
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia and currently affects an estimated 6.9 million Americans aged 65 and older, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Celebrities who have spoken publicly about their own diagnoses — among them Bruce Willis, whose family announced a related frontotemporal dementia diagnosis in 2023 — have historically shifted public awareness and charitable giving around the disease.
Glover’s Lethal Weapon run alone spans four films between 1987 and 1998, a franchise that defined a specific flavour of late-Reagan-era buddy-cop cinema. He is still, for a significant portion of the audience, the man who was “too old for this.” That audience is now watching him navigate something far heavier than any on-screen villain. His next public appearance has not been announced.