Boy Band `2gether' Member Dies

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Michael Cuccione, youngest of the five-member spoof boy band 2gether, has died at age 16 from complications from Hodgkin's disease. <br><br>``His lungs just gave out,'' his

Wednesday, January 17th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Michael Cuccione, youngest of the five-member spoof boy band 2gether, has died at age 16 from complications from Hodgkin's disease.

``His lungs just gave out,'' his uncle, also named Michael Cuccione, told MTV News on Tuesday. ``We weren't really expecting it.''

Cuccione died Saturday, eight days after his birthday, of complications from respiratory failure in his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.

The teen played Jason ``Q.T.'' McKnight on the MTV show ''2gether,'' which poked fun at the boy band craze. His character had a fictional illness, ``biliary thrombosis,'' but Cuccione really had suffered from Hodgkin's disease as a child and underwent five months of chemotherapy.

Cuccione's uncle said the cancer had not returned in five years, but past treatments had left him unable to move air properly through his lungs. A problem with his diaphragm developed and he was forced to tape episodes of ''2gether'' while carrying a portable oxygen machine.

The singer-actor set up a cancer research foundation, co-wrote a book with his grandmother and appeared on ``Baywatch'' as a cancer victim.