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Epoch Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
Gary Sinise Opens Up About Leaving Hollywood, Son's Legacy, and His Mission to Serve Veterans
Gary Sinise, known for playing Lieutenant Dan in 'Forrest Gump,' shifted his focus from Hollywood to family and service almost exclusively following his son's cancer diagnosis six years ago. In a recent EpochTV 'American Thought Leaders' Stepping Away From Acting to Focus on Family Sinise's decision to step away from acting was driven by personal hardship. In late 2019, as his son Mac's health declined due to a rare spinal cancer, Sinise wrapped up his last acting jobs, including roles in 'Joe Bell,' 'I Still Believe,' and the series '13 Reasons Why.' 'Leaving home was getting harder and harder as Mac was getting more and more challenged with things,' Sinise said. By December 2019, he finished his acting commitments and began focusing entirely on his family and the Gary Sinise Foundation. Mac, a talented musician and foundation staffer, battled chordoma for nearly six years. Despite his condition, he completed an album, 'Resurrection & Revival,' in 2023. 'He celebrated his 33rd birthday in the recording studio, recording an album in 2023 that he envisioned doing, and he was very disabled by this awful, rare cancer that took his life,' Sinise said. Mac's music continues to support the foundation's mission, with proceeds from album sales benefiting veterans and first responders. Sinise's wife, Moira, also faced health challenges, undergoing multiple surgeries for stage 3 breast cancer. 'A month before Mac was diagnosed with cancer, she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. That was a hard summer—the 2018 summer. I had two cancer patients, you know, to care for, and that was tough,' Sinise recalled. Related Stories 11/15/2024 11/16/2020 Moira is now cancer-free, but the experience deepened Sinise's resolve to prioritize family and service. A Life of Service Inspired by Family and History Sinise's commitment to veterans began decades before his Hollywood fame. Influenced by Vietnam veterans in his wife's family and his own relatives who served in earlier wars, Sinise became aware of the challenges faced by veterans returning home. 'I started to feel very guilty and badly for what happened to them, you know, when they served in Vietnam and came home. So I wanted to try to do something back in the early 80s and in Chicago,' Sinise said. This led to his involvement in the play 'Tracers,' written and performed by Vietnam veterans. The experience opened his eyes to the struggles of veterans and inspired his ongoing support. Playing Lieutenant Dan in 'Forrest Gump' further deepened his connection to the veteran community. 'There's no question it played a greater role in my life than just a part in a movie,' he said. 'I very much wanted to honor our Vietnam veterans by doing a good job, you know, just playing a Vietnam veteran and in a way that they would feel was honorable and true and truthful.' The Gary Sinise Foundation: Supporting Veterans and First Responders Founded in 2011, the Gary Sinise Foundation supports veterans, first responders, and their families through a range of programs. 'We are here to support all those who serve and defend us on the military side—our veterans, our families that serve alongside them, our first responders, the families that serve alongside them, families of our fallen heroes and first responders—we have a role to play in supporting there,' Sinise said. Key initiatives include: Lieutenant Dan Band: Sinise's band has performed nearly 600 free concerts at military bases and hospitals worldwide over the last 20 years. RISE Program: Builds specially adapted smart homes for severely wounded veterans. 'We just gave away our 95th house since I've been involved in this,' Sinise said. First Responder Outreach: Provides support for first responders, including vehicles for those in need and memorials like the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance, honoring those lost on Sept. 11. Snowball Express: Brings children and surviving spouses of fallen military and first responder heroes to Disney World for healing and community. 'Every year, we take over 1,000 kids and the surviving spouse of military heroes to Disney World,' Sinise said. 'And then a couple of years ago, we started adding families of fallen first responders.' A Philosophy of Service and Healing Sinise believes that service is a powerful way to heal personal pain and strengthen communities. 'Service. I always say this is a great healer for a broken heart, and it helped me a lot through our fight for our son and the difficulties and the challenges of fighting for him and then losing him,' he said, adding that he didn't stop doing service work during that time. 'It was the thing that was helping me with our own battle at home,' he said. From NTD News
Gulf Insider
23-05-2025
- Health
- Gulf Insider
8 Habits That Can Add Decades To Life
We all want to live as long and as healthily as possible. Many healthy living hacks, such as lounging in a hot sauna or taking a cold plunge, claim to increase lifespan, but how effective are they? Growing research points to a different answer, suggesting that a few simple, consistent lifestyle habits can be far more effective at boosting longevity and well-being. Referring to a 2024 study examining nearly 720,000 U.S. veterans ages 40 to 99, Dr. Damon Noto, a rehabilitation medicine specialist, stated on the Epoch TV show Vital Signs that among eight lifestyle factors found to influence a person's lifespan by more than 10 years, the most significant are whether a person has smoked, had an opioid use disorder, and their level of physical activity. We know exercise is a healthy habit, but do we consider it life-saving? Noto said the veteran's study shows exercise may add as much as a decade or more to our lives. He also examined the type of physical activity in the study. People in the study often stayed active by engaging in natural movement, such as gardening or participating in sports with their friends. He believes these lifestyle or social activities are especially beneficial because building physical activity into someone's daily life can help a person stay consistent with moving the body. Diet can also impact a person's lifespan. Those living in blue zones tend to eat homegrown and home-cooked foods and avoid overeating. Those who ate highly processed foods and sweets had shorter lifespans than those who followed a nutritious diet, according to the same study. Noto highlights a social component of longevity. Research suggests that individuals who have friends and a sense of community tend to live longer than those who are lonely or isolated. 'A lot of these studies have shown that people who have purpose, especially purpose greater than themselves, not only live longer, but they live happier lives and more successful lives,' said Noto. 'So purpose is something we found to be extremely important.' Noto points out that those in blue zones tend to place family and faith as a high priority in their culture. Noto said that all those with longer lifespans had some way to deal with stress in their regular routines, whether it was socializing with friends, taking walks, praying, or working around the house. The Longevity Project, which began in the 1920s, followed 1,500 Americans with high IQs from childhood to death. Initially, it was thought that because these children were intelligent, they would succeed and do well in life, but that was not the case. The study showed that the more conscientious a person was, the longer they lived. Character qualities such as discipline, hard work, organization, thoughtful decisions, and a sense of responsibility greatly influences success in life. Sleep impacts the length of a person's life. Getting enough REM sleep is crucial to adding years to your life. Noto recommends getting a sleep-tracking device to ensure you get the proper sleep quality. Those who suffer from chronic anxiety or sleep apnea were shown to have shorter lifespans. However, he also emphasizes the body's ability to do amazing things, even under stress. He believes that having a sense of purpose helps through times of stress or low sleep, and significantly impacts a person's health and life.
Epoch Times
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
The Life Story of Opera Singer Frederica von Stade
The renowned mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, who is currently living in the San Francisco area, reflected on a stellar career and her legacy to classical music in an interview on EpochTV's 'Bay Area Innovators' program. 'Music has been the greatest gift of my life—it's given me a language to express what words cannot,' said von Stade, who is called Flicka by family and friends. Born in New Jersey, von Stade grew up in Washington and New York, and although she did not come from a family of musicians, she loved to sing from a young age. While a teenager in Catholic school, she received formal training and has been singing ever since. She sang in New Haven, Connecticut, productions and attended college at Mannes School of Music in New York, where she studied under Sebastian Engelberg. She called Engelberg one of the first angels in her life because it was on his advice that she auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera. She finished as a semi-finalist, and her professional career took off from there, leading to opportunities to perform all over the world. Luck played a big part in her career, she said, because she so often found herself at the right place at the right time. 'I had one of the greatest managers of all time, Matthew Epstein, at the beginning of my career. He managed [mezzo soprano] Marilyn Horne and a lot of great names and singers,' the singer said. 'And he knew just what I should do. I didn't know he led me to roles that led to other roles, and that was lucky that I got together with him instead of another agent at the time.' Related Stories 3/27/2025 10/6/2022 Von Stade lived in France for about six years and loved her experience there. 'I love the language, I love the people, I love the architecture, I love the countryside. I love the food, I love the decor. It just hit a chord in me,' she said. Indeed, one of her signature pieces is a classic romantic French song by Edith Piaf, called La Vie en Rose, meaning 'Life in Pink,' or life viewed through rose-colored glasses. She recalled her high school days in France. 'Part of our homework every night was to read at least 25 pages of either Lamartine or Voltaire or Saint-Exupéry, and we were not allowed to use a dictionary. With the knowledge we had of the language, we had to sort of use our minds to imagine what it meant.' Von Stade's favorite opera role was that of Cherubino, a young page boy in Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro.' 'He's always thinking of love and passion, and sometimes he's happy, sometimes he's sad. He's got all the energy, emotions, and psychic instability of a teenager,' she said. 'So, I've played a number of roles of boys that age, and it's fun to try and deal with that, especially as a woman.' Her favorite performing venue is the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, she said, because she loves the architecture and the people who make a performance possible. 'For every singer that is on stage, every single one, there are 10 people behind them, getting them there. There's the voice teacher, there's the coach, there's the pianist, there's the conductor, there's the… director, there is the costume lady, there is the wig lady, there is the makeup man, there are all the stagehands.' Von Stade's tributes include the title of Chevalier [Knight] of the Order of Arts and Letters, the French government's highest civilian honor for the arts, two Grand Prix du Disque awards, and nine nominations for a Grammy. She recorded over 60 albums and performed numerous times at the White House, where she sang for four presidents, including Ronald Reagan. 'I can't remember what I sang for President Reagan, but I adored Reagan, and they were so good to me and so kind, and I loved it. It was very, very special.' She admitted to getting stage fright, especially five minutes before a performance. But once onstage, she describes the feeling as 'elation with worry.' 'Singers, we all talk about having these judges that sit on our shoulder and are saying, oh, that's flat, oh no, that's sharp,' said von Stade. 'So our job is to silence them and put all our focus on what we're doing and what message we want to give, because the wonderful thing about song and opera is that we have stories to tell, and the more you concentrate on the story, the happier you will be. That's our job. That's what we are meant to give to the public.' Her most challenging days, she said, are when she feels that her voice, like an instrument, is not up to par—fatigue, weather, and dryness can all affect it. 'Just like life that's never going to be in perfect sync, [there's] never going to be perfect coordination, you know, and most things aren't perfect ... It's that striving that makes us keep doing it and keep trying and keep learning and keep on progressing,' she said. To protect her voice, she takes care of her body and stays healthy. Von Stade, who will be 80 years old on June 1, is semi-retired and giving back to her community. 'Being good to other people brings goodness to you,' she says. For 20 years, she has been on the board of Young Musicians Choral Orchestra in Berkeley. The program offers classical, jazz, opera, and musical theater lessons to children of low-income families. It's based on a Von Stade's advice for young people who want to succeed in their artistic endeavors is to not be too critical of themselves—something many artists go through. Instead, she suggests making a short list of things to achieve and working on them gradually every day. 'It's hard to forgive [yourself], but it is so rewarding,' she said, adding that there are other alternatives. 'There are lots of people who don't make it, who become maybe a fabulous teacher, maybe just a fabulous mom.'
