Betty Rollin, who was a correspondent at NBC News and ABC News, and wrote the memoir First, You Cry about her cancer battles, died November 14 in Switzerland at age 87. The cause was voluntary assisted suicide, according to The New York Times. She was suffering from arthritis and a gastrointestinal condition.
Both of Rollin’s memoirs were adapted into TV movies.
Rollin was born in New York City in 1936 and grew up in Yonkers, New York. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and wrote two books in her 20s. I Thee Wed was a collection of wedding vows and Mothers are Funnier Than Children was a spoof of motherhood.
Rollin worked at Vogue and then Look Magazine. She joined NBC News in the early 1970s, after Look folded, and stayed until 1982. She then joined ABC News program Nightline as a correspondent. She spent two years there.
First, You Cry, which came out in 1976, was about Rollin’s cancer diagnosis. It was adapted into a movie on CBS, with Mary Tyler Moore portraying Rollin.
A second memoir, Last Wish, from 1985, was about helping her pain-stricken mother end her life. That book was also adapted into a TV movie, on ABC. Patty Duke played Rollin and Maureen Stapleton portrayed her mother.
After Last Wish was released, Rollin returned to NBC News, where she spent the next decade. She also worked for PBS, reported the Times, on its Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly series.
