About
Remembered for campaigning against the tobacco industry, this activist received eleven separate cancer or cancer recurrence diagnoses before passing away in her early fifties. She started smoking casually with her friends at the age of 17.
Before Fame
She smoked her first cigarette at age thirteen and, by her late teens, was smoking up to two packs of cigarettes daily. At forty, she received an oral cancer diagnosis; she later had her larynx removed as a consequence of throat cancer.
Trivia
She appeared in an anti-smoking television spot produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her father was also a smoker.
Family Life
She grew up in Michigan and North Carolina as the daughter of Loretta McNutt and Gordon Ezben. Before ending in divorce, her marriage produced a daughter named Dana.
Associated With
She and Debi Austin both became smoking prevention and cessation activists after suffering from laryngeal cancer.
