Linda Williams, Mother of Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Has Died
Linda Williams died following a long bout with dementia. She was 73.
— -- Linda Payne Williams, mother of actresses Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Ashley Williams, has died.
Williams-Paisley confirmed the news on her social media channels.
Williams, who died on Wednesday following a long bout with dementia, was 73 years old.
"I will remember you this way, Mom. Rest in love and peace," Williams-Paisley captioned an older photo of her. "Linda Williams: June 22nd, 1943-November 16, 2016 #endalz"
During her career, Williams worked as the director of principal gifts at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City before moving to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, where she raised millions of dollars in support of medical research. In 2005, at the age of 62, she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia. Williams-Paisley discussed her mother's condition in a 2014 interview with "Good Morning America" and later, in her 2016 memoir, "When the Light Gets In."
"I'm finally at a point - my mother's finally at a point where I feel like it's OK to talk about it. There was a long time … that she didn't want us to talk about it, and that was so much a part of the stress of what we were all going through, was that we had to hide it and cover up for her, and protect her pride," she told Robin Roberts at the time. "And I just felt like we were at a point where our story could help other people."
Williams is survived by her husband, sister, three children, and five grandchildren. Her family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Association or the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.