Kate Winslet delivered a moving tribute at the funeral of a mother she helped battle ovarian cancer.
The Hollywood actress, 43, was inspired to help Gemma Nuttall, a 29-year-old requiring pioneering immunotherapy, by her own mother’s death from the disease.
Gemma battled cancer for five years after refusing chemotherapy to allow her four-year-old daughter Penelope to survive pregnancy and passed away earlier this month (Oct18). Her family and friends remembered her at a funeral in Lancashire, England on Tuesday (30Oct18).
According to the Lancashire Telegraph, Kate said at the funeral: “It is a privilege to be able to give Gemma the send-off she deserves at the end of her incredible fight. As a young mom, Gemma’s extraordinary determination to beat her cancer for Penelope was something that deeply moved me and made me want to help. She was so clearly a fighter. She fought her battle and against all odds she kept proving them wrong.”
The Revolutionary Road star even roped in her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio to raise funds for Gemma by auctioning off dinner dates that helped her surpass the $383,000 she needed to travel to Germany for treatment and enable her family to set up a foundation in her name to help others in a similar situation.
Kate, who attended the funeral with her husband, Ned Rocknroll, expressed her heartbreak that the immunotherapy had not saved the young mom’s life, despite positive initial results.
“For a while it worked,” she added. “But even though that has not been the case and even though Gemma didn’t quite make it to 30, she did make it to Penelope’s first second, third and fourth birthdays and to her first day of big school. They were also able to have some magical memories together which doctors thought would be impossible.”
