Elizabeth Edwards, whose marriage to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards

unraveled after he admitted fathering the child of a campaign aide, died today. She was 61.

Additional Photos

In this photo taken Sept. 10, 2010, Elizabeth Edwards arrives at a "Stand Up To Cancer" television event in Culver City, Calif. AP

In this January 2008 photo, Elizabeth Edwards, then wife of Democratic presidential hopeful former Sen. John Edwards, hugs their son Jack on stage after he was too embarrassed to talk in Ames, Iowa. AP

Edwards died in North Carolina after a long battle with cancer, her family said in a statement.

Her breast cancer, which was diagnosed in the final days of the 2004 campaign, returned in 2007. John Edwards, who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004, said at the time that the cancer was “no longer curable but completely treatable.”

The family issued a statement Monday saying further treatment would be unproductive. She told People magazine in June that the cancer had spread with tumors in her skull, spine and legs.

Elizabeth Edwards was a successful attorney who became a forceful political wife and bestselling author, describing her battle with cancer and her grief over the 1996 death of the couple’s 16-year-old son, Wade, in a one-car accident.

But her life became tabloid fodder during Edwards’ bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. The National Enquirer reported in 2007 that he had had an affair with Rielle Hunter, who worked as a videographer for the campaign, and had fathered a child with her.

John Edwards at first denied any relationship and continued his quest for the nomination.

He admitted the affair in 2008 after dropping out of the presidential race but did not admit being the child’s father until January 2010. Elizabeth Edwards announced that month that she was separating from her husband.

“Just as I don’t want cancer to take over my life, I don’t want this indiscretion, however long in duration, to take over my life either,” she wrote in her 2009 book “Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities.”

“But I need to deal with both; I need to find peace with both.”

She was born Mary Elizabeth Anania on July 3, 1949, in Jacksonville, Fla., at the Naval Air Station hospital. Her father, Vincent, was a Navy pilot. Her mother, Mary Elizabeth Thweatt, was the daughter of a Navy pilot and had been married previously to another Navy pilot who died when his plane was lost in the Pacific.

“My life is measured by which air station, which town, which country I lived in. And the cast of characters changed with each move,” Edwards wrote in her 2006 book “Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength From Friends and Strangers.” Besides Florida, Edwards spent parts of her childhood in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Japan.

She started college at what was then the University of Virginia’s school for women, Mary Washington College, but transferred to the University of North Carolina in 1969 when her father was assigned to an ROTC unit there. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1971. It was at the UNC law school that she met John Edwards.

“In many ways John and I were different,” she wrote in “Saving Graces.” ”I had traveled the world; he had never left the South. … But we had each moved from place to place, following our fathers’ jobs. We had each lived in company housing — military bases for me, mill villages for John. Neither of us had a chance to be rooted in a place, so we were rooted in family and faith, the things we took with us.”

They were married in 1977, just days after taking the bar exams. Their son Wade was born in 1979, their daughter Catharine in 1982.

The couple’s careers shifted dramatically after the death of their son in 1996. John Edwards ran for the Senate in 1998, defeating incumbent North Carolina Sen. Lauch Faircloth.

Elizabeth Edwards became her husband’s close adviser, a role that intensified when John Edwards became the vice presidential nominee and a presidential candidate. She was also the mother of young children, with daughter Emma born in 1998 and son Jack in 2000.

“I try to bring my perspective and make sure John’s viewpoint is there, if he steps out of the room to get a phone call or something and I’m still here,” she told the News and Observer in Raleigh, N.C., in 2004. “I feel like I’m his surrogate. I know where he comes from, I know what he cares about, so I can voice that.”

She received praise for her direct, down-to-earth style, which contrasted with her husband’s more polished image.

“I come out of real life,” she told The New York Times in 2004. “Because I’m 55, I’ve spent 20 years at PTA meetings and soccer practices, all the kind of things that regular moms do, and I think that makes people feel fairly comfortable with me, which is great.”

That positive image intensified after the breast cancer diagnosis in 2004.

In “Saving Graces,” she wrote about continuing to campaign in late October 2004, despite finding a lump in her breast: “Lump or no lump, cancer or not, I had to continue to talk to as many people as possible, debate whatever issue needed debating, and do what I could for those people, and more importantly, John had to do the same,” she wrote. “The rest we’d take care of after the election.”

The Democratic ticket of John Kerry and Edwards lost to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

She underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The cancer returned in 2007 but Edwards continued his campaign for the Democratic nomination. He bowed out of the race in January 2008, unable to overtake Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the primaries. His political career imploded after the affair with Hunter became public.

Elizabeth Edwards received harsh treatment in “The Politician,” a 2010 book by former top campaign aide Andrew Young, who initially claimed he was the father of Hunter’s child to protect Edwards.

“He was not scared of anything, journalists, crowds, anything. He was scared of Elizabeth,” Young said of John Edwards in an interview on ABC’s “Nightline.” ”He openly admitted that Elizabeth was smarter than him. He gradually got boxed in by his lies to Elizabeth.”

In a June 2010 interview on the “Today” show, Elizabeth Edwards said she had been hurt by how her political role was perceived. And she discussed separating from her husband.

“I think it was just that finally I realized we’d just come so far down this road that … I wasn’t going to find a place where, and I hate to talk about myself in the third person, but where Elizabeth existed anymore,” she said. “I wanted to be present in the remainder of my life.”

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