S.Z. Berg

We all know Cindy Crawford as the beautiful, carefree-looking supermodel. However, her life hasn't been picture perfect. She was just shy of 10 years old when her brother, almost four years old, passed away from leukemia. Back then, her family didn't have much money, she said, and she watched as...

I've often wondered how some people became enormously successful when they came from poverty. When Jewel told me about her life, from growing up in a rugged saddle barn without running water and without electricity in the wilds of Alaska; when she told me how her family had lived off...

Years ago, former Congressman Patrick Kennedy said to me that health insurance doesn't cover just certain parts of the kidney, why should it cover only certain parts of the brain? He was in the midst of his fight to get brain disorders - the ones that carry the extra burden...

Several years ago, Emmy-award winning actress Patty Duke shared a story with me. Back in 1970, at age 24, she'd walked off the set of a show on which she was guest starring. The actors had been told to take lunch and leave a tired crew behind to fix technical...

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has been an unrelenting crusader for people suffering from mental illness (which I refer to here as brain disorders). For more than 40 years she's been working on promoting awareness of the issues, public policy, making health care insurance coverage for these brain...

The holiday season is a good time to talk about brain disorders. The kind I'm talking about are more commonly referred to as mental illness, but I think that term detracts from the fact that depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia and other such conditions arise in the brain....

Jillian Rose Reed stars on MTV's offbeat comedy Awkward (which has been picked up for a second season) as the sassy and fun-loving best friend Tamara. Now 19, Jillian was only 9 years old when her older brother developed diabetes. He was away at college, which she notes made it...

Mark Salling, who's best known for his mean jock character Noah "Puck" Puckerman on Glee, has every reason to be excited. He just got a new puppy, an Australian cattle dog (which he named Noah), and there's a lot in store for his character on Glee this season. He told...

Jane Kaczmarek, who played Lois, the hard-nosed and embarrassing mother on FOX's Malcolm in the Middle, has joined the cast of the new NBC sitcom Whitney, where she plays, you guessed it, another outspoken mother.

But what you might not have guessed is that toward the end...

Anyone who's had a child sick with the flu knows how stressful it can be to take care of him or her. Now imagine what it's like to become a caretaker to a chronically sick child, parent, or other family member.

Some 13 years ago, Leeza Gibbons, former co-host...

After an exciting game between Notre Dame and Michigan, ESPN Sportscaster Erin Andrews got on a plane and headed to New York City where she spent the tenth anniversary of 9-11. She's not afraid of much, but this was different, and she admits...

Wayne Rogers, best known for his role as Trapper John on the now classic TV series M*A*S*H, is a man with many hats. He's weaved in and out of acting roles to take such leads as a founding shareholder of six banks, real estate developer, and co-owner of a vineyard,...

Carolyn Hennesy is not a starving artist. She has ongoing roles on General Hospital and Cougar Town and is the author of the Pandora Series young adult novels and, as of mid-April, has a New York Times bestseller, The Secret Life of Damian Spinelli. Yet, she told me, she is...