Lilly Tartikoff Karatz (née Samuels; born June 23, 1953 in Los Angeles, California) is an American activist, socialite, restaurateur and breast cancer fundraiser. Early life and marriage Born as Lilly Samuels, the daughter of Jack and Bluma Samuels, both Holocaust survivors, she attended public schools while growing up in Los Angeles and at the age of 10 received a Ford Foundation scholarship to study ballet at the David Lichine and Irina Kosmovska Ballet School. From ages 10 to 17 she danced with the Los Angeles Junior Ballet. When she was 17 years old she was invited by George Balanchine to attend the School of American Ballet on a Ford Foundation Scholarship. During her nine years at the New York City Ballet, under the direction of Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, she danced in Russia, Germany, Denmark, London, Paris and Washington, D.C. In 1982, Lilly Samuels married Brandon Tartikoff, Chairman of Entertainment for NBC. The couple had two daughters, Calla Lianne and Elizabeth Justine. In 1991, Calla, aged 8, suffered a severe brain injury in a car accident. She received intense therapy in order to walk and speak again, while Brandon received chemotherapy for the third time for Hodgkin's Disease. After a long illness, Brandon died on August 27, 1997, aged 48. In November 2009, she married Bruce Karatz, an American homebuilder and philanthropist. Philanthropic work In 1990, along with Ronald O. Perelman, Chairman and CEO of Revlon, she created the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program under the direction of Dr. Dennis Slamon. The annual Fire & Ice Ball in Hollywood was also established in 1990 to raise funds for this program. These funds were used to advance clinical trials which led to a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug, Herceptin, which increases responses and survival in women with the most aggressive form of breast cancer. Lifetime Television and Renée Zellweger produced the film Living Proof which follows the true story of Lilly Tartikoff Karatz and Ronald Perelman's efforts to raise money for Dr. Dennis Slamon's cutting-edge science. The film is also based on the book HER-2 written by Robert Bazell, which chronicles Dr. Slamon's development of the drug Herceptin. The film aired on the Lifetime Channel in October 2008 during Breast Cancer Month. She co-founded the EIF Revlon Run/Walk For Women in Los Angeles with Revlon and the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) in 1993 and the EIF Revlon