FAMED PRODUCER LAURA ZISKIN LOSES BATTLE WITH CANCER AT AGE 61

Spider-Man and Pretty Woman producer Laura Ziskin has lost a seven-year battle against breast cancer. A founder of the advocacy group Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C), Ziskin had helped raise millions of dollars to support cancer research and to bring together scientists who had been studying the various forms of cancer to share their information. Ziskin had served as president of 20th Century Fox from 1994 to 2000, setting up shop at Sony afterwards. Besides producing the Spider-Man movies — she was working on Spider-Man 4 at the time of her death — her eponymous company also produced the Oscars in 2002 and 2007. Last August, in an interview with Katie Couric for Glamour magazine, Ziskin said that early mammogram tests had missed detecting her cancer. “I had a mastectomy, chemotherapy, an autologous stem cell transplant and radiation. I had no detectable cancer after that for three years. And then a year ago I had real evidence of the disease on a scan—tumors in my liver, bones and peritoneum. So then I went on a [clinical] trial, and that held everything at bay for a year. And then that kind of stopped working. I did some chemo for a while, and now I’m about to go on another trial. I don’t have any symptoms of my cancer, but I have to treat it so that I can be among many of those living with cancer.” She expressed confidence that one of the trials of new cancer drugs would halt the progress of the disease. She told Couric, “I actually believe, in my case, I will continue to have treatment, and they’ll keep me alive, and eventually they will—quote, unquote—cure me. I think it’s coming.”