Noreen Fraser

Noreen Fraser was a producer and executive who was perhaps best known as a founder of Stand Up To Cancer, a telethon for women's cancer research.

A producer of such programs as Entertainment Tonight, The Richard Simmons Show and ABC’s Home Show, Fraser was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001. Spurred by her diagnosis, she became an activist and, along with film producer Laura Ziskin, developed the concept for a television event that would concentrate on curing breast cancer, and sold the idea to the cable networks Lifetime and Oxygen. Her "dream team" idea was to have competing cancer research programs work together. 

The first Stand Up to Cancer telethon, a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, aired simultaneously on ABC, NBC, CBS and in dozens of countries on September 5, 2008, and raised more than $100 million. Subsequent telethons were held in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.

Fraser died on March 27, 2017, in Los Angeles. She was 63.