Marcia Cross Of Desperate Housewives Says She Battled Anal Cancer Desperate Housewives actress Marcia Cross revealed recently she is recovering from a fight with anal cancer. In a series of Instagram posts earlier this month, the 56-year-old mother of twin daughters said she was happy to be alive but sad that my hair fell out. All good now, she wrote. The actress, whose husband, Tom Mahoney, is a cancer survivor, said in a third post that her disclosure about her disease and hair loss made her feel liberated, deliriously free, and completely me. Cross played Bree in the long-running Desperate Housewives , about the lives of women friends in a suburban neighborhood.