LOS ANGELES, July 2 -- He was 74 years old when he walked onstage at the Dolby Theatre to accept an honorary Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, given not for a single performance but for a career of what the academy described as bringing credit to the industry through a lifetime of activism. He already knew. The diagnosis had arrived years before. The condition had taken hold of his movement and his speech. He accepted the award and said what people say in those moments and went home.

Danny Glover, the actor and political activist who spent four decades making films that other studios would not make and saying things that other celebrities would not say, revealed Wednesday that he has Alzheimer's disease. He is 79.

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