​                     Celebrities Concerned With Heart Health for Women 
*Disclaimer* Please note that the celebrities listed herein-above are not yet affiliated with this project but rather are people of celebrity and influence who have suffered from heart disease themselves or have loved ones who have experienced the effects of heart-related issues."  

Barbra Streisand is a legendary singer, actress, director, and filmmaker. Her stellar career expanded over 60 years and crossed from music to film to television to Broadway. She is the best-selling recording female artist with over sixty-eight million albums in the US and one hundred million albums and singles on the planet.  Barbra’s mother, Diana, was diagnosed with heart disease at 81 and had to have emergency bypass surgery. It was then that she discovered the inaccuracy, presumptions, and misdiagnose about fatal conditions that were causing women to die too soon. Heart disease kills more women than all forms of cancer combined.  The Barbra Streisand Women's  Heart Center at the Smidt Heart Institute, and it is playing a leading role in identifying female-pattern heart disease. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in US women. They are developing new analytic tools and advancing focused care, especially for women. Although heart disease takes the lives of more women than men, the treatment of women's heart disease has been based—until recently—on medical research performed on men. Ms. Streisand, Director of the center, and her team is working to correct these gender inequalities and to teach women how to recognize female heart disease symptoms. Thus the team designs to assistant women to reduce their chances to suffer from heart diseases through a preventive approach, including cutting-edge screenings and testing. The center provides expedient access to all of Cedars-Sinai's diagnostic and treatment resources for women’s heart disease. 
Ms. Streisand is also involved in the UCLA Barbara Streisand educational/research Women’s Heart Health Program. In 2014 she started the Women’s Heart Alliance to raise research funds and increase awareness. Streisand has been politically active since the late 60’s. She always has been vocal about her support towards Democrats and their causes. 
Susan Lucci is an actress, television host, author and entrepreneur, who is best known as the character, Erica Kane, on the ABC soap “All My Children” from 1970 to 2011. Susan is the highest-paid actor in daytime television. Twenty years ago, her salary was reported as over $1 million a year. Additionally, she starred in many television films, hosted a series appeared in commercials and competing on Dancing With the Stars. In 2018, the then 72-year-old soap opera icon started feeling a tightness in her chest but waved it off — until the end of October, when she had to be rushed to the hospital. There, Lucci learned that she had a 90% blockage in the main artery of her heart and a 70 percent blockage in another, and needed emergency surgery. Now, fully healed thanks to two stents in her arteries, Lucci is spreading the word. Fighting back her tears, Lucci said. “This is the way I can help. I can tell my story. Everyone’s symptoms are different, but I felt compelled to share mine. Even if it’s one person I help. That is someone’s life.” 
Miley Cyrus is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. After playing minor roles in a couple of television series, she became a teen idol in 2006, starring in the Disney Channel television series Hannah Montana as the character Miley Stewart. Cyrus has sold more than 20 million albums and 55 million singles worldwide. She has earned three number-one albums on US Billboard, and she has also earned nine top-ten entries on the US Billboard Hot 100. Miley was born with a heart defect - tachycardia - a faster than normal heartbeat. Because she is an icon to a whole generation, she is perfect for educating and communicating to young women about this life-saving issue. 
Susan Sarandon is an American actress and activist. She has received an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Screen Actor’s Guild Award, and has been nominated for nine Golden Globes Awards. She received Drama Desk Awards nominations for her Off-Broadway plays and was a six-time nominee for various guest-roles on television series. She was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy award for executive producing Cool Women in History.  Known for her social and political activism, she was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1999 and received the Humanitarian Award in 2006. Susan established the Susan Sarandon Charitable Foundation, in 2002 and her foundation has given a little over $200,000 in grants annually in the last decade.  Susan Sarandon is an outspoken progressive, and this is reflected in her philanthropy. She was personally touched in her life by heart disease by losing her younger brother, Terry.
Rosie O’Donnell is an American comedian, actress, author, and television personality. She began her comedy career as a teenager and received her breakthrough on the television series Star Search in 1984. Later, she hosted her own syndicated daytime talk show, between 1996 and 2002, which won several Daytime Emmy Awards. It was during this period, she developed the nickname "Queen of Nice," as well as a reputation for philanthropic efforts. In addition to comedy, film, and television, O'Donnell has also been a magazine editor, celebrity blogger, and author of several memoirs. She was named The Advocate's 2002 Person of the Year; in May 2003, she became a regular contributor to the magazine. O'Donnell also continues to be a television producer and a collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company, R Family Vacations.  Not knowing at the time, Rosie suffered what she called a “widowmaker” heart attack. She just took an aspirin and saw her doctor the next day. Her cardiologist diagnosed a heart attack. Doctors removed a significant blockage from her coronary artery before inserting a stent to keep it open.  Rosie’s story is a timely reminder that a women's heart is often different than a man's and that women sometimes wait too long to get emergency help. At the time she was 50 years old, and she now advises women to learn and heed the women’s heart attack symptoms to save their lives. 
Toni Braxton is an American singer, songwriter, pianist, record producer, actress, television personality, and philanthropist. Braxton has sold over 67 million records worldwide, including 41 million albums. She is one of the biggest-selling female R&B artists in history. Braxton has won seven Grammy Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, seven American Music Awards, and numerous other accolades. In 2011, Braxton was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Braxton is also a television executive producer and personality. She competed in the seventh season of the reality competition series Dancing with the Stars. She has executive produced and starred in Braxton Family Values, a reality television series that has aired on We TV since 2011. Braxton is also an executive producer of Tamar & Vince.  In 2004, Toni discovered that she had high blood pressure and pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining of the heart. Her case proves that anyone can experience heart disease, even those who are young and otherwise healthy. Now she takes a beta-blocker and concentrates on staying fit and active. She also avoids salty and fatty foods, which aggravated her condition.  In 2008, just before starting the demanding Dancing with the Stars competition, Toni came down with a new heart-related problem: microvascular angina which is known as cardiac syndrome X and results in pain when doing strenuous exercises. 
Jennie Garth started her career as an actress 30 years ago. She is most known as Kelly Taylor in the role in the series “Beverly Hills, 90210.” She also starred in other TV series, TV movies and minor roles in feature films. In 2008, Jennie appeared on the game show “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” and won $100,000 for her charity, the American Heart Association, for which she is a spokeswoman for its "Go Red for Women" campaign. In 2002, Jennie, then 44, found out she had a leaky heart valve. “A lot of people have it,” she told Access Hollywood in 2009. “They don’t know they have it ... [It] leaks blood. It sort of flutters open and shut. It’s weird because sometimes when I’m resting I can feel a little weird fluttering.” Garth was already familiar with heart disease before her diagnosis because it runs in her family. “I’ve been affected by heart disease practically my whole life,” she said. 
Star Jones is an American lawyer, journalist, television personality, fashion designer, author, and women's and diversity advocate. She was recruited by Court TV in 1991 and spent several years as a legal correspondent for NBC's Today and NBC Nightly News. In 1994, she was given her own court show , Jones & Jury, which mimicked the arbitration-based reality format of The People's Court, though with a talk show like set as opposed to a courtroom set. Jones then became chief legal analyst on Inside Edition. She was the only reporter to interview Simpson during his civil trial, which she covered for American Journal. 
She is best known as one of the original co-hosts on the ABC morning talk show The View, on which she appeared from 1997 to 2006. She was also one of sixteen contestants of the fourth installment of The Celebrity Apprentice in 2011, coming in fifth place. In 2010, Star had open-heart surgery, and since then Jones has worked as a national ambassador for the American Heart Association to raise awareness. “Heart disease is the number one killer of all Americans, the number one killer of African-Americans and the number one killer of women, so I should’ve been put on notice since I’m three-for-three. But like a lot of women, I thought that heart disease was an old white guy’s disease.” Jones’ goal with the AHA is to help women “actively put themselves on the track to heart health.” 
Queen Latifah started her music career in 1988, beatboxing for Ladies Fresh, a hip-hop group. Since then she has had success in music and acting, starred in movies and television guest spots and her own day talk show. She was nominated as an Academy Award and was a celebrity spokesperson for many sponsors. She also launched her own cosmetic line at CoverGirl. 
The star’s mother, Rita Owens, was diagnosed with heart failure after passing out while teaching art at a New Jersey high school in 2004. The tragic event’s silver lining was that it caused Latifah, 46, and her mother, 67, to bond. “We’ve gotten a lot closer, and we’ve learned each other on a whole different, deeper level,” she told PEOPLE in 2015.  Latifah has taken on her mom’s care-giving duties, along with relatives and a nurse, whenever she is on the east coast. “I will do whatever I can to make sure my mom is comfortable and has whatever she needs,” she said.
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