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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Noreen Fraser, a TV producer whose own cancer diagnosis turned her into an activist against the disease, has died. She was 63.
Fraser died Monday at her Los Angeles home of metastatic breast cancer, her family said.
She joined forces with other prominent women, including Katie Couric, to found Stand Up to Cancer. The organization holds celebrity-filled telethons and has raised a reported $300 million-plus for research since 2008.
Its aim is to get lifesaving treatment to patients more quickly through collaborative research.
Another of its founders, producer Laura Ziskin, died of breast cancer in 2011 at age 61.
Fraser's personal crusade began after she was diagnosed in 2001 with breast cancer, her husband, TV producer Woody Fraser, told the Los Angeles Times.
"She didn't know if she'd see her children graduate from grade school, then high school, then college," he said, adding that she got to witness those events but not her daughter's upcoming wedding.
Fraser established the Noreen Fraser Foundation in 2006 to fund women's cancer research. At her direction, the foundation's assets were transferred last year to the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, where a research lab is named for her.
Fraser, a native of Cleveland, produced TV shows including "Entertainment Tonight" and "Home Show."
Besides her husband, she is survived by children Madeline and Mack; her parents Jackie and Fred Friend; and eight siblings.
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