Betty Rollin (born January 3, 1936 in New York City), has been an NBC News correspondent and author.
Rollin's reports have won both the DuPont and Emmy awards. She now contributes reports for PBS's Religion and Ethics News Weekly.
Rollin was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1975, and again in 1984, each time losing a breast to the disease. Rollin discussed her battle with cancer publicly and wrote about her struggle with cancer in the book, First, You Cry. to encourage public awareness and to give encouragement to others facing this disease. First, You Cry was made into a television movie starring Mary Tyler Moore as Rollin.
Rollin's mother Ida was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer in 1981, and Rollin helped her mother end her life in 1983. She revealed this in her book Last Wish, published in 1985 and republished in 1998. One critic called it "a document of personal compassion and public importance." The book has been published in 19 countries and was made into a TV movie in 1992 starring Patty Duke as Rollin and Maureen Stapleton as her mother.
Since the book was published, Rollin has been active in the Death with Dignity movement. She is now on the board of the Death with Dignity National Center. Rollin was criticized in certain quarters by those who oppose hastened death.
She and her husband, mathematician Dr. Harold Edwards, live in Manhattan. They have no children.
Read more about Betty Rollin: Books
Famous quotes containing the words betty and/or rollin:
“He could jazz up the map-reading class by having a full-size color photograph of Betty Grable in a bathing suit, with a co- ordinate grid system laid over it. The instructor could point to different parts of her and say, “Give me the co-ordinates.”... The Major could see every unit in the Army using his idea.... Hot dog!”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Biological possibility and desire are not the same as biological need. Women have childbearing equipment. For them to choose not to use the equipment is no more blocking what is instinctive than it is for a man who, muscles or no, chooses not to be a weightlifter.”
—Betty Rollin (b. 1936)