Colleen is just coming out of her second go around with oral cancer. She is a real trooper, getting back to filming, and back to living life. I am privileged to call her a friend, and OCF is equally privileged for her to have done so many things for the foundation and the disease.
After her first dance with OC, she did a TV public service announcement on oral cancer early detection, and CBS gave $500k in minutes of air time to play it at their affiliates around the country. She did an Early Show appearance for us on her own time as well. Later, Colleen and I were able to convince the producer of ATWT to have her character (Barbara Ryan) get oral cancer in the TV series story line, an idea that Colleen was not real keen on after just coming out of treatment. True to her desire to be a strong advocate she played the part. That idea which cost the foundation nothing, kept oral cancer in a daytime TV series, told properly, for almost four months. Colleen received an award for public service for that effort at ceremonies in Hollywood last year.
In all these things like this article, Colleen's publicist for ATWT's Lisa Lugsassi has been instrumental in making them happen. My relationship with her has helped OCF and oral cancer a great deal.
In the beginning I was the poster boy for all this, but these days my role is behind the scenes, seeing that people who have celebrity, voice, contacts and more are informed, interested, and advocates for our cause. Most people do not realize that these things seem simple but actually take months of phone calls, meetings, convincing, providing disease backgrounder to writers, and more to make happen.
Woman's Day Magazine has been here once before when I was able to get them to do a story entitled "My dentist saved my life" in 2004. W keep plugging away, awareness slowly begins to take place, the world begins to change.
2009 we have many more ambitious projects with other celebrities, and mediums. We have a full four color page ad featuring Gwyneth Paltrow in ELLE Magazine coming out in about 4 months. I wrote it in first person voice for Gwyen, and it speaks to the loss of her father to OC and the need for annual screenings. We have a photo shoot for the image in the ad next month in LA when she is out here to film the next version of Iron Man. The ad space was donated to OCF a 93k $ value) at our December event. We have a developing relationship with Mandi Patinkin (a personal fiend of Colleen's) who has starred on Chicago Hope, and Criminal Minds, as well as done lots of Broadway shows. More to come............
Awareness is raised in many ways. From you guys wearing pins and talking to people, to celebrities doing interviews. It will happen.
