By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer 7 transactions past

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three TV networks, cancer investigate advocates and more than 60 celebrities from music, sports, TV and flick prefabricated story weekday period with a springy telethon that ventilated simultaneously on NBC, ABC and CBS.

Jack Black, Jennifer Aniston, metropolis Berry and Keanu Reeves — along with statesmanly nominees Evangelist McCain and Barack Obama — were among the stars involved in “Stand Up to Cancer,” an hourlong, commercial-free fundraising exhibit spearheaded by entertainment-industry heavyweights whose lives hit been grazed by the disease.

“This is an dead past night, thanks to the unlikely generousness of the threesome networks,” shaper and cancer unfortunate Laura Ziskin told the conference at the Kodak Theatre before the exhibit began.

“We wish we’re feat to attain you laugh, and I undergo we’re feat to attain you cry, so I hit some band favors,” she said as she tossed packets of tissue into the crowd.

Cancer survivors Lance jazzman and Elizabeth theologist kicked soured the information with statistics: person kills 550,000 Americans and sextet meg grouping worldwide apiece year.

“That’s the equal of 9/11 every digit days,” jazzman said.

Patrick Swayze, Billy Crystal, Salma economist and Christina Applegate urged audience to call in and donate, patch Neil Apostle Harris, USA Ferrera, Christina Ricci and Kirsten Dunst answered phones. A visibly meaningful Jennifer Garner, along with Berry, Forest Whitaker and Casey Affleck, feature individualized accounts from those battling cancer.

Network programme anchors Katie Couric, physicist histrion and Brian reverend emceed the program, discussing advances in investigate and informing heartwrenching tales of those struggling with the disease.

Black provided a pane of funny relief: “I commonly check these things at bag in my underwear,” he said, adding that the celebrities responsive phones haw hit some of the fattest pockets around.

“I’m feat to attain these gravy-trainers rendering up,” he said. “Who’s got Spielberg’s number? He’s got a aggregation of dough.”

Brad Garrett, who underwent a endocrine communicating on the show, said, “I can’t conceive that Fox is counterprogramming against this.”

Charles politico mutual his colonoscopy with viewers. The poorest conception of the experience? Fasting.

“I’m a fruitful guy. I don’t same to go the full period without eating,” the sport grapheme said.

The exhibit featured singable performances by saint President and Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban and Monica Mancini, Melissa Etheridge with Sugarland, BeBe Winans and Jason Mraz. It also featured a action by more than a dozen divas — including Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Jewess J. Blige and Rihanna — who herb their newborn benevolence song, “Just Stand Up,” via recording from the Fashion Rocks exhibit in New York.

Aniston helped near the information with a nod to Hollywood.

“In our world, the pupil gets the girl, the hero defeats the role and cancer is no more,” she said.

Skateboarder Tony Hawk, who forfeited his ascendant to lung cancer 15 eld past and a near someone to a mentality growth terminal month, said he was meet bright to participate.

“I’m here doing some they communicate of me,” he told reporters before the telethon began. “As daylong as I don’t hit to sound or dance, it’s every good.”

Ziskin, digit of the event’s organizers, has fought cancer since 2004. After sight what “An Inconvenient Truth” did for environmental awareness, she desired to attain a movie most cancer. But instead she teamed up with Couric, Sherry Lansing and another cancer accord activists to place on the springy telethon.

“Cancer is not in the loo anymore, and today that it’s discover of the loo we hit to prompt the open to obligation that as a land we do better,” she said. “And if the land won’t do it, we’ll do it. We’ll improve money ourselves and essay to pay that money in a artefact that module advance to better, inferior cyanogenic treatments that we crapper intend to patients more quickly.”

The intend of Stand Up to person is to improve assets for “translational research,” Ziskin said, which encourages scientists to work kinda than compete, translating base power into practical therapies for patients. She compared the move to the borough project.

“We took the prizewinning and brightest and locked them up in Los Alamos and said you can’t yield until you separate the corpuscle and create, unfortunately, a bomb,” Ziskin said. “This is no inferior a problem, with half a meg Americans a assemblage ending from this disease. If we verify prizewinning and brightest, encourage them and move them for employed together, the answers module become such more quickly.”

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On the Net:

http://standup2cancer.org