Go-to Hollywood dermatologist Dr. Peter Kopelson’s key industry client is his dad, Platoon and Seven producer Arnold Kopelson, who’s been a patient since Peter finished his residency at UCLA nearly two decades ago. Most recently, Peter treated dad’s basal-cell and squamous-cell carcinomas.
Arnold, 79, notes that colleagues around town constantly buttonhole him about their happy experiences in his son’s Beverly Hills office suite. “He never tells me who his patients are, but people in show business come up to me and say, ‘Look what he did with my face. Isn’t it beautiful?’ ”
Back in Hollywood’s Golden Era, when Frank Sinatra or Judy Garland sought a voice doctor, only Dr. Ed Kantor would do. During the late 1970s, Kantor added a protege to his practice named Dr. Joe Sugerman. It quickly became clear that Sugerman, a brilliant physician with an easy bedside manner who could coax even the most inconsolably hoarse diva off a ledge, was the right choice. Sugerman went on to inherit Kantor’s practice, and among his first wave of rock-star patients was Kiss co-frontman Paul Stanley.
“We immediately hit it off,” recalls Stanley, 62. It was Stanley who first gave Sugerman a framed gold Kiss record to hang in his office. Says Sugerman: “When other singers came in and saw it on the wall, they said, ‘Hey, what about me?’ ” Now his Beverly Hills medical suite could be confused with a record producer’s office, with albums from Michael Jackson, Stevie Nicks, The Rolling Stones and Madonna.
Sugerman says the past few years have seen the biggest change in three decades of treating super-stars as concerts have become the industry’s main revenue generators. “People are on tour for a year at a time, singing six or seven nights a week,” he says. “And they just get into trouble.” Sugerman advises that patients find a vocal coach, skip the pizza before bedtime (the acid can wreak havoc) and hold off on aspirin (which can lead to hemorrhages).
Dr. Robert Kay initially didn’t recognize his former patient Tess, now 24, when she introduced herself at a recent shoot. It had been 16 years since the two met in an operating room at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where she had been transferred after being struck by a car outside her home. “She had a fractured pelvis, a broken leg and her kneecap was almost completely torn off,” recounts her father, Starz’s Chris Albrecht.
“When you go through something like this, and someone comes in to help you, you latch on to this person for reassurance and guidance,” says Chris Albrecht. “Dr. Kay became that figure for us.” The hospital made such a deep impression on the cable head that, six years after his daughter’s accident, he pledged $1 million and agreed to serve as co-chair of Children’s Hospital.
Fifteen years ago, when Jennifer Salke’s son Henry was born, it was instantly apparent that he had a cleft palate; Cedars-Sinai’s Dr. John Reinisch subsequently fixed the craniofacial malady with two surgeries. At eight, Henry, wishing to connect with other kids who had similar experiences, created a fundraising page for Operation Smile, a foundation that offers free surgeries (220,000 to date) to repair cleft lips and palates.
“I watched Bill perform hours of intricate surgery on babies’ faces,” says Salke. “I always relate to a worried mother who … gives her baby to be put under anesthesia for hours. I show parents Henry’s before and after pictures. It washes away so much worry. When they see their children, they are in love because their babies are OK and they’ve done the right thing for them.”
Dr. Oz, daytime star and cardiothoracic surgeon at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, lies prone in a blue Dior suit on a gurney in an unfinished wing at Columbia University Medical Center’s Milstein Family Heart Center. Standing over him with his hands around Dr. Oz’s neck in a suspicious strangling hold is his doctor, Dr. LaPook, chief medical correspondent for the CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley — and a gastroenterologist and professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center. “You'll notice he's losing color bit by bit as I'm occluding both carotid arteries,” says LaPook dryly. Oz feigns a swoon.
If gallows humor is common among doctors, both men are deadly serious about their commitment to their patients and millions of TV viewers who look to them for expertise and advice. “The interesting thing is that the conversations that you’re having with your patients are reflected in the show and vice versa,” says Oz, 54. “So I’m a much better doctor now.”
In May 2010, DreamWorks Studios president/COO Jeff Small was told that he had cancer on his left kidney, and the kidney would need to be removed. But his boss, Steven Spielberg, encouraged the then-36-year-old exec to get a second opinion at Keck Medicine of USC (where Spielberg is on the board) with a renowned urologist who had just moved to town, Dr. Gill. “The honesty with which he spoke about my situation was very comforting and refreshing,” says Small of Gill, who was able to do a partial nephrectomy, removing only the cancerous part. The surgery left Small with 80 percent of his kidney — and cancer-free.
Brillstein manager Andrea Pett-Joseph's son Brandon has epidermolysis bullosa (EB), which causes extreme skin fragility. She helped establish the EB Medical Research Foundation, enlisting the support of Courteney Cox, Zach Galifianakis and Nina Dobrev to raise more than $5 million.
Pett-Joseph and son Brandon were photographed June 26 by Christopher Patey at Sherman Oaks Castle Park.
As co-owner of the New York Giants, Steve Tisch is attuned to the dangers surrounding concussions in the NFL. But the Oscar-winning producer also cares deeply about the risks facing young athletes, which is why in May he pledged $10 million to UCLA’s BrainSPORT Program for concussion research, with a focus on the millions of youth who play sports. “If coaches get state-of-the-art information about how to recognize a head injury and how to treat it, it’s very comforting as a parent,” says Tisch, 65, whose daughter Holden, 14, sustained a concussion last year playing lacrosse.
By addressing these issues early, Tisch believes pro football’s future will benefit as well. “Our players start when they’re 8, 12 years old,” says Tisch, whose donation is the most an individual ever has given for the study of concussions. “Hopefully my gift to UCLA will inspire other NFL owners to do something similar. This is good for everybody.”