At age four, she was a cover girl for the Ladies Home Journal. In her twenties, before an estimated TV audience of a billion people, she globally splashed her way into our hearts as a Baywatch lifeguard. Her appeal transcends generational borders. Actor Don Johnson (of Miami Vice) agrees. He recently anointed her as the co-star of his successful TV series Nash Bridges. She is Yasmine Bleeth, and if you look into her stunning blue eyes, you may not read tragedy, but it is there.

Her mother, Carina Bleeth, died prematurely of breast cancer nine years ago. From the early 1970s until her death, Carina ran a thriving business in the New York fashion world. Her mobile homes were hired by top fashion magazines and modeling agencies. Her clients became her friends. Photographer Francesco Scavullo recognized the family’s extraordinary gene pool in a memorable two-page layout for his book, Scavullo’s Women, when Yasmine was just a teenager.

At the start of our interview, she declares, “I am not an activist. If Carina hadn’t died of this, I wouldn’t have done what I’m doing.” Carina’s life ended at the age of 47.

In 1998, Yasmine became the spokesperson for the Lee Jeans National Denim Day, staged on October 9. Through their “Wear Jeans to Work” campaign, $5 million was raised in a single day to help the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, a non-profit organization “dedicated to eradicating breast cancer.” It was established in 1982 by Nancy Brinker to honor the memory of her sister, Susan G. Komen, who died of breast cancer at age 36. The Foundation lays claim to being the largest privately-funded research entity “dedicated solely to breast cancer.” They underwrite education, screening, and treatment projects for the medically underserved.

In America, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes. Each year it takes the lives of approximately 44,000 women and 300 men. Yasmine tells me, “My involvement in this campaign is something young people would react to.”

“For six years, I didn’t talk about it {her mother’s death},” says Bleeth. She recognizes there is a great deal of denial and fear associated with the disease of breast cancer. So when the breast of her apparently healthy mother became inflamed, she thought, “Cancer?” Yasmine says, quite straight-forwardly, “She just didn’t think it could happen to her.” Yasmine’s charming voice is a sweet messenger with an ominous and visceral warning. She remembers out loud how the cancer was initially misdiagnosed as the body’s reaction to menopause.

Carina discovered the inflammation just prior to a three-month trip. She jetted off to isolation in the Caribbean, away from everything, including modern medicine. She opted not to schedule an appointment for a second opinion and another diagnosis. The decision proved fatal.

During a 1996 interview with Longevity magazine, Yasmine made known the story of her mother’s illness. She reiterates, “It was not a conscious decision to suddenly take up the cause. I just wanted to see if I could talk about it.” Her candor is disarming. When questioned, she conveys that she is not reticent to speak out publicly. It is simply “that the subject never came up prior to the Longevity interview.”

She lays out her modus operandi: “I don’t want to be phony. I had to step out of myself to do this. It’s been a catharsis. I want to get people to be real, and my experience can relate to a lot of people. I’m not trying to impress anyone.” Her direction is becoming evident. People her age (30) and younger rarely listen to messages of life and death or how they relate to breast cancer. “I’ll do it in a more hip manner and not always in a serious forum. You don’t have to appear on MacNeil-Lehrer to be serious. Young people can relate to this.” Does one have to “wax serious” to convey a message?

Our discussion shifts to the year’s best film, Life is Beautiful, a comedy about the Holocaust and how it weaves an emotional web around the audience through the unlikely vehicle of laughter, without betraying the subject.

Yasmine is laughing. “I find it too manipulative to be so serious.” She seeks to influence people when they are younger, through education and awareness. She reads mainstream articles, not medical abstracts. Lowering the breast cancer mortality rate is about, “helping people separate fact from fiction. There is no cure right now. The way to prevent it is through early detection. Get a second opinion. Mom was in denial.”
I knew Carina. She was a worldly woman of high intellect—very hard to fool. Part French, part Algerian, she survived the French-Algerian war and once narrowly escaped death by using her quick wits. I thought of her as a survivor—the last one standing.

In retrospect, it seems enigmatic that breast cancer got the best of her. “My mom took very good care of herself, watched what she ate, and espoused a healthy lifestyle.” It was not enough. She goes on, “I really have to stand behind what I’ve said. I had a mammogram at age 26.”

She has appeared on the Tonight Show and the talk show circuit, and she always finds a way to mention her role educating people about breast cancer. She has backed up her words by turning over the proceeds of her $10,000 win on Celebrity Jeopardy to breast cancer research.

On January 26, 1999, The New York Times published an extensive article entitled, “In Breast Cancer Data, Hope, Fear and Confusion.” The report cited, “In women’s minds, the disease and the treatments for it are inextricably tied to disfigurement, suffering and death. Women also associate breast cancer with dying young . . . it is also true that in some of their most vibrant years, their mid-30s to mid-50s, more women die of breast cancer than heart disease.” But the article encourages readers to break with fears and stereotypes associated with the disease. Yasmine Bleeth, a gifted actress and inspirational spokesperson, does a great deal to crack through this confusion and uncertainty as a positive, powerful, and beautiful role model.