Tom Long

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Lifestyle

Family

Australian film and television actor, the son of an Australian surgeon and his wife who were in the U.S. at the time of his birth. He grew up in Australia but was somewhat undirected vocationally. He travelled widely, worked as a jackaroo and sheep shearer, held other farming/ranching jobs, and finally was accepted to and graduated from the prestigious National Institute of of Dramatic Art in 1994. Long appeared in several Australian television series, most notably the ABC hit SeaChange (1998–2000) and the Nine Network police drama Young Lions (2002). He appeared in the Australian films Two Hands (1999) and The Dish (2000). Long played Brenden Abbott in the 2003 telemovie The Postcard Bandit and appeared in the film The Book of Revelation. He has one child, a son, Ariel 'Ari' Maza Long, born in 1989 to his then-girlfriend, Rachael Maza. Long married Rebecca Fleming in February 2019. Long was diagnosed in 2012 with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. He underwent chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants and natural therapies to treat the disease. In December 2018, Long was given an updated prognosis of 3–12 months to live. In March 2019, Long travelled to Seattle, Washington to undergo a medical trial, after which he was pronounced "cancer free". Long died of the disease on 4 January 2020 at the age of 51. Link to Wikipedia biography