Diahann Carroll's lifesaving breast cancer message to black women

Ebony, Oct, 1998

DON'T Wait! Don't Procrastinate! If you're a woman and you haven't had your annual physical exam, make that appointment now--it could save your life.

That's the lifesaving message from Diahann Carroll, the legendary actress and singer whose brush with breast cancer earlier this year gave her a new mission: to warn African-American women about the benefits of early detection.

"I hope that we will demand that Black women get checked on a yearly basis--the minimum that we must do to take care of ourselves, and some of us should go twice a year," she says. "There is a great tendency to be caretakers among Black American women," she adds. "While that is to be admired, neglecting ourselves is just not acceptable."

Carroll could not be accused of neglecting herself. Quite the contrary, it was her twice-yearly health exam that protected her life.

"The gynecologist actually discovered the lump," she says. "That's why it is so imperative to be checked because most women don't know when they have cancer."

The American Cancer Society estimates that approximately 178,700 new cases of invasive breast cancer will he diagnosed among American women in 1998. The five-year survival rate is 97 percent among women whose cancer has not spread beyond the breast at the time of diagnosis. Black women are 29 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than White women.

Carroll's lump was tiny and non-invasive, meaning it had not spread to other organs. At one time, mastectomy was standard therapy, but now it is not the standard treatment. Today the combination of radiation and lumpectomy (removal of the lump) is much more common. This is the treatment that was chosen by Carroll's doctors. The actress, who has been accustomed to breaking down barriers in her long career, was not prepared for a diagnosis of cancer.

"I had a violent reaction to the news," she says. After her doctor's "awful phone call," she learned two things. "He said the good news is that it's less than a centimeter. The other news is that it's malignant." The doctors said it had not spread and recommended radiation treatments immediately.

Carroll underwent a regimen of 36 radiation treatments throughout the summer. Because she is a non-smoker, has no family history of breast cancer and has been careful about her health, she says," I thought I was exempt."

In fact, the majority of women diagnosed with breast cancer have no close relatives (mother, sister or daughter) with this disease, according to the American Cancer Society. And although breast cancer incidence rates, meaning those who get the disease, have increased for both White and African-American women, the largest risk factor for women developing breast cancer is age. Research has shown that 95 percent of breast cancer cases occur in women 40 and older.

"I'm learning that all of us are really guinea pigs and no one has any clear view as to why or where this is coming from," she says. Just six days after her surgery, she attended the Los Angeles tuneral services of her longtime friend Frank Sinatra. "It was important for me to say goodbye to Frank, for what he meant to my life for such a long period of time," she "He was the romantic when I was a young girl, and he became the one who paved the way for confronting the September of my years." While undergoing teatment, she experienced overwhelming support from friends and family, especially her only daughter, Suzenne, who was "amazingly" supportive throughout her ordeal. "She confessed to me that she had not had her cheek-up, so I encouraged her to go immediately," sire says. "If we're going to be here to enjoy tire families that we develop and nurture, then we better take care of ourselves, because this is definitely an epidemic."

A native New Yorker and a legend in her own time, Carroll, who has been married four times, is single and lives in a Los Angeles mansion. The actress, who has won a Tony and who has been nominated for an Oscar, became the first Black woman in a sitcom to play a major role other than a domestic when she made her debut in the title role in TV's Julia in 1968. Another pioneering star role for her was the domineering Dominique Deveraux, opposite Joan Collins, in the 1980s on the popular television drama Dynasty.

The star of stage, screen and TV has triumphed over' considerable obstacles, and she has no intention of letting this illness get her down. She is preparing for a three-month concert tour singing the songs of Lerner & Loewe. "I'll be touring across the country, and I haven't done that in years," she says.

The busy actress also has a clothing line that is featured in several major retailers around the country, a new CD, The Time of My Life, and is also reviewing movie scripts following her critically acclaimed performance in the 1997 feature film Eve's Bayou with Samuel L. Jackson. "The opportunity to play different roles is too few and far between," she says. "The last time I was able to take off the false eyelashes was in Claudine." She received an Oscar nomination in 1974 for that role playing a welfare mother with six children. Today, although she is still offered many glamorous roles, she is looking for the opportunity to perform in a variety of roles. More often than not the roles are about glamour, unfortunately, but at this time in my life, I'm very happy to be considered for this type of role." Carroll, whose beauty endures, told a columnist recently, "...after a certain point, glamour is just maintenance, maintenance, maintenance."