“The Walking Dead” star Kelley Mack dies at 33 of an aggressive brain tumor.
Hollywood mourns the loss of Kelley Mack. The US actress died on August 3 at the age of 33 in the circle of her family. Her mother Kristen and her aunt Karen were on her deathbed in Ohio. The death message was made public on her private Instagram account.
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Actress suffered from aggressive tumor
Mack has suffered from a so-called diffuse midline glioma, a particularly aggressive tumor in the central nervous system, which affects both the brain and spinal cord. After a tissue sample, the actress was dependent on a wheelchair. On the “Caringbridge” platform, her family has regularly shared updates to their condition in the past few months. “She was a bright, passionate beam of light,” her family writes in a moving statement on Instagram. “She is painfully missed by so many people. Words can hardly describe it.”
The family’s statement on Instagram:
Breakthrough in “The Walking Dead”
Kelley Mack was born in Cincinnati in 1991 and studied camera work in California after graduating from the Hinsdale Central High School. As a child, she gained first acting experiences in commercials. She gave her film debut in 2008 in the independent drama “The Elephant Garden”, which was awarded the Tribeca Film Festival.
Mack celebrated her breakthrough 2018 in season 9 of “The Walking Dead”. As an Addy, she was part of the Hilltop colony, a youth group that claimed in five episodes against the zombie threat. In an interview with “Alternative Mindz” she later said: “I was originally only supposed to be there in two episodes. I was grateful that it ultimately became five.”
Roles in “Chicago Med”, “9-1-1” and cinema productions
In addition to the zombie series, Mack played in “Chicago Med” (as Penelope Jacobs) and in the success series “9-1-1”. She was also present on the cinema screen, for example in the psychothriller “Broadcast Signal Intrusion” or the indie production “Delicate Arch”. In the animated Marvel production “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” she took over a voiceover for the figure Gwen Stacy (spoken by Hailee Steinfeld). Most recently she was seen in the British comedy “Universal” with Joe Thomas (“The Inbetweeners”) in June 2025.