Actor and former Kansas University student Mandy Patinkin bared his soul before 500 admiring fans Saturday during “A Conversation With Mandy Patinkin” a fund-raising appearance at KU’s Crafton-Preyer Theatre in Murphy Hall.

Responding to questions posed by theater and film professor Jack. B. Wright, Patinkin, casually dressed in dark slacks and an olive polo shirt, revealed that he’d long struggled with depression, spent enough money on therapists to “buy a small country,” and has cornea transplants in both eyes.

He said his life forever changed on March 21, 2004, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and on May 14, 2004, when he had a radical prostatectomy.

“In life, the greatest gift a person can get is a cancer that’s serviceable,” the 52-year-old Patinkin said. The diagnosis, he said, caused him to re-evaluate his course in life.

“I can only tell you that since the operation, my life has never been better,” he said, noting that he wished the revelation had come 30 years earlier.

Now, not a day goes by that he doesn’t meditate for 30 minutes — once in the morning, once in the evening — and eat at least one of five foods known to help fight cancer: broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, blueberries and cooked tomatoes.

Patinkin — who grew up in Chicago, attended KU from 1970 to 1972, and lived in Oliver Hall — violated the university’s curfew laws early on and dated a member of the Chi Omega sorority.

He fondly recalled having temporary access to the sorority’s file of top-grade English themes.

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While at KU and, later, The Juilliard School in New York, Patinkin said he was not known for his studiousness. “At the end of four years, I had the grade equivalency of a first-semester freshman,” he joked.

Undaunted by academia, Patinkin went on to win an Emmy for his role on “Chicago Hope.” He’s also appeared on TV shows “Dead Like Me,” “Boston Public” and “Touched by an Angel.” His film credits include “The Princess Bride” and “True Colors,” and he was the narrator in “The Polar Express.”

Other revelations:

• His wife’s best friend is actress Diane Keaton.
• For his now-famous sword-fighting scene in “The Princess Bride,” he trained and rehearsed for “10 hours a day for six months.”
• While at KU, he took flying lessons. He coaxed his instructor into letting him fly “illegally low” over Murphy Hall. When they returned to the airport, “the Lawrence police were waiting.”

In 1971, Patinkin played the lead character, Tevye, in the KU Theater Department’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

The performance, he said, turned out to be the last time his father, who “sat in his wheelchair in the back row,” saw him on stage. Patinkin’s father died of prostate cancer at age 52.

In a tribute to his father, Patinkin ended his two-hour appearance with an impromptu — he’d lifted a copy of the lyrics from the Internet — version of Tevye’s “If I Were a Rich Man.” The audience responded with a standing ovation.

Patinkin’s appearance raised approximately $30,000 for KU’s theater department.