C. Rosenzweig, 71; TV Writer, Cancer Activist

Carol Rosenzweig, a pioneer telethon producer, TV writer and art collector who participated in a new cancer treatment study at UCLA, has died. She was 71.

Rosenzweig, a 41-year cancer survivor who counseled and provided hope for other cancer patients, died May 20 of ovarian cancer at her home in Beverly Hills.

During the 1950s, while with a Pittsburgh public relations firm, Rosenzweig produced telethons for the March of Dimes and other national charitable organizations. In fact, she wrote the official March of Dimes telethon handbook, which was used by the organization’s future telethon producers.

In 1976, Rosenzweig wrote “21 Days of America,” a series of two-minute, nationally televised salutes to the country’s bicentennial featuring President Ford, Bob Hope and other notable Americans.

In the mid-1980s, she wrote several episodes of “Women of the World,” a syndicated series of one-hour documentary profiles of famous and not-so-famous women.

About the same time, Rosenzweig created Artists Editions Ltd., a Beverly Hills company that produces jewelry by 10 well-known artists.

Rosenzweig was inspired by the Bauhaus School--a 20th century strain of art in which artists of dissimilar media worked together.

“I’ve collected furniture and other works from the period when the Bauhaus was formed in Europe,” she said in 1989. “Even though the artists were painters and sculptors, they made furniture, jewelry and ceramics with the idea that art could be functional. That’s what inspired me.”

“She wanted to have these [jewelry] pieces for herself, and she set up a workshop with the artists, which we funded,” said Rosenzweig’s husband, Saul. But other women also showed an interest in owning the pieces, he said. And out of that grew the idea of creating signed and numbered limited-edition jewelry pieces.

The works created for Artists Editions Limited are in the permanent collections of 12 major art museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

For a half-dozen years in the 1980s, Rosenzweig headed a committee for the Los Angeles museum’s contemporary art council that recommended monetary prizes and exhibitions at the facility for young artists.

Born Carol Coppersmith in New York City, Rosenzweig received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Pennsylvania State University in 1951.

The same year, she went to work as an account executive for Public Relations Research Inc. in Pittsburgh, where she spent the next nine years and eventually became vice president. Through that firm, she produced nearly 20 telethons, mostly for the March of Dimes.

Rosenzweig was first diagnosed with breast cancer at 29 and, after undergoing two mastectomies in nine years, remained cancer-free for 22 years. In 1991, she was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer. She experienced recurrences in 1994 and 1997, which required more surgeries and chemotherapy.

In 1997, she became the first patient at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center to receive a new genetic treatment for ovarian cancer, which helped push the cancer into remission.

“She was a very inspirational person,” said Judith Gasson, director of UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center. “She was very outspoken in the way she encouraged people to participate in clinical trials, because that’s where all new therapies come from. And she firmly believed she was alive for those four decades because of advances in cancer therapy and that those are only possible because people are willing to participate in clinical trials.”

As a long-time cancer survivor, Rosenzweig spent a good deal of time writing and speaking about cancer. “She consulted with dozens and dozens of cancer victims all over the world to try to encourage them,” said her husband, president of the RZ Group communications investment company.

“We were fortunate enough to have her speak to our volunteers on several occasions,” Gasson said.

“She brought people to their feet. She really had a charisma that is unusual.”

In 2000, the Rosenzweigs donated $1 million to establish an endowed chair in cancer therapy development at the Jonsson Cancer Center.

In addition to her husband, Rosenzweig is survived by her children, Davy Rosenzweig of New York City and Laurance Rosenzweig of Philadelphia; a grandson; and two brothers, Dr. Abraham Kupersmith of New York City and James Coppersmith of Marblehead, Maine.

The family requests that memorial donations be made in Rosenzweig’s name to UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation, Factor Building, 8-590 Box 951780, Los Angeles, CA 90095.