Stand Up to Cancer with Laura Ziskin

Laura Ziskin

Movie producer Laura Ziskin is adding some Hollywood style to a big cause. In an effort to raise millions of dollars for cancer research, she used her movie-industry clout to put together one of the most ambitious fund-raisers to date. On September 5, cancer survivors like Christina Applegate, Lance Armstrong and Elizabeth Edwards will join celebs like Josh Brolin, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Aniston to share the stage for “Stand Up to Cancer,” an hour-long, commercial-free broadcast that will air simultaneously on NBC, ABC and CBS. Not your traditional telethon, Ziskin says the hour will be “edutainment” designed to raise awareness and get cancer funding prioritized on the national to-do list.

A breast cancer survivor herself, Ziskin founded Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) with eight other women affected by the ubiquitous disease. “Each of us [was] impacted by cancer in some profound way,” says Ziskin. Her partners include newswoman Katie Couric, who lost her husband to colon cancer, Noreen Fraser, a former television producer living with metastatic breast cancer, and one-time Paramount Pictures Chairman Sherry Lansing, whose mother died of ovarian cancer. Their ultimate goal is to fund cooperative research that gets new, more effective treatments to patients quickly. “Scientists are doing research on their own, and we want researchers to come together,” Ziskin says. “A small part of what we raise will be earmarked for innovative, out-of-the-box research. So it doesn't replace or take away from all the other funding going on. It's just a more focused fund.”

In early 2004, Ziskin was diagnosed with stage-3 breast cancer. She faced it head on over the course of a year with one goal in mind—to get well. “I said, ‘I am going to pretend like I'm a consumptive and I'm being sent to the sanitarium,’” she says. “I put all my energy toward the healing process.”

Having produced some of the most popular American movies in the past 20 years—including Pretty Woman, As Good as It Gets, and all three Spider-Man movies, as well as two Oscar telecasts, to name a few—Ziskin decided that once she recovered she would bring her personal experience to what she does best—putting on a good show. “When I was going through [cancer treatment], on some semiconscious level I felt compelled to use the skills that I've learned professionally to impact this disease,” she says. “I don't define myself as someone with cancer, but it's a part of who I am.”

Likening cancer to a terrorist that kills 1,500 Americans a day, Ziskin knows she’s up against a formidable enemy. “Cancer is probably the toughest problem nature has ever given mankind,” she says. But there’s hope, she believes. With new technologies and recent victories in cancer research, more successful treatments are within our reach.

“I don’t think we’re going to cure cancer with a TV show,” says Ziskin, so after the broadcast, SU2C will keep up its fundraising efforts and look for ways to continue the momentum. Supporters can keep visiting the Web site StandUp2Cancer.org to form fundraising teams, launch a star in the SU2C Constellation for a dollar, or link up to The Strand, a Facebook application that shows how closely everyone is connected to cancer. “When we join together,” Ziskin says, “we are a huge constituency.”