'The Avengers' and 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Rally Around Father With Prostate Cancer
Cast members from Marvel's "Avengers" and "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." have taken to social media and rallied around a father battling prostate cancer. The man's daughter first alerted the actors and Marvel executives to her father's plight and never expected the powerful reaction from everyone.
Stratford Caldecott was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October of 2011 and was recently told that he only has 12 weeks to live. His daughter, Sophie Caldecott, wanted to do something special for her father and wrote about his love of Marvel comics on her personal blog. She hoped that executives would arrange for her father to see the newest Marvel movie, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," before he passed.
"We're going to try and get in touch with Marvel to ask if they can fulfill dad's dying wish by sending us a copy of the film for him to watch at home," Sophie blogged. "But I think we can go further than that. We're also going to tweet the 'Avengers' actors and see if they will take a picture of themselves holding a sign saying 'Captain America/Thor/Iron Man [insert name of character here] for Strat!' so that we can surprise him with their messages of support and encouragement."
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As soon as Sophie's blog hit the web, a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #CapForStrat began. People began tagging the actors and tried to get their attention through tagging and tweeting. Mark Ruffalo, "The Hulk," was the first actor to tweet his support.
Now others have joined in the movement. Jeremy Renner ("Hawkeye"), Samuel L. Jackson ("Nick Fury"), Cobie Smulders ("Maria Hill"), Elizabeth Henstridge ("Agent Simmons"), Clark Gregg ("Agent Coulson"), Brett Dalton ("Grant Ward"), Chloe Bennet ("Skye") and "Captain America" himself, Chris Evans, have all tweeted their support to Stratford.
"We've actually achieved what we wanted to achieve in that Marvel have got in touch and are going to arrange for dad to see 'The Winter Soldier' at home, hopefully next week," Caldecott told The Huffington Post. "And the selfies of support for him from the cast are just a wonderful cherry on top that are making him smile. I'm going to get them all printed out and stick them by his bed for when times get tougher."
