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• Ms. Hart on Lifetime's Intimate Portrait
• American Heart Association
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Tavis: Melissa Joan Hart starred for several seasons on the hit series 'Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.' Of course you already know that. The talented actress is now a passionate advocate for the American Heart Association on behalf of millions of Americans who suffer from heart disease. I guess no matter how many times you hear it, it's always worth repeating. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in America. And Melissa, nice to have you on the program.

Melissa Joan Hart: Thank you.

Tavis: Thanks for coming on. Obviously, most times when you run into a personality or celebrity who is out front speaking about a particular illness or disease, there is a personal connection. But yours has, like, a personal connection two or three times removed here.

Hart: Yeah. Luckily I come from a relatively healthy family. The only thing in my history of my family is heart disease and stroke, and, um... My grandmother died of a stroke, and my uncle was seriously disabled by a stroke about 7 years ago, and he's doing fine today. He's just--he can't speak. He lost the left side of his body. I mean, he can't move or control the left side of his body. So, yeah, I am affected by it. The loss of my grandmother about 15 years ago was pretty severe in our family, and it's something that still to this day, every day, we think about. And, you know, it's something I like to come out and talk about and see if we can make people aware.

Tavis: Did I read somewhere or did somebody tell me that your grandmother, unfortunately, was misdiagnosed initially?

Hart: She, um, she went into the hospital. She was having a lot of issues. She was very sick. She knew she was sick. Nobody could figure out what was wrong with her. My mother came to visit her one day at the hospital, and she said, 'I had a stroke.' And the nurse was there and went, 'Oh, no. You don't know what you're talking about. You didn't have a stroke.' And she went into a coma the next day and never came out of it. And, um... That was something that, you know--course we looked to the hospital, and, you know, why didn't they know what was going on? And it's just one of those things, you know. If only this had happened, then this could have happened, you know? So...

Tavis: Is there a particular reason or have you been told there's a reason why heart disease runs in your family? Whenever I go to the doctor for a checkup, or whenever I'm having any kind of health conversation, they always ask, 'Does this run in your family?' You know, you go to the clinic, they ask you to check off this list of things that may run in your family. Any reason why your family gets hit by this?

Hart: I'm actually not really sure, but I know that my sister has her cholesterol--we have our cholesterol levels done pretty often to check for it. And blood pressure. I know that my grandmother's had a lot to do with her blood pressure. Um, I think my uncle had to do with smoking and alcohol. You know, so there are different causes, I think, for it, but, uh, I'm not exactly sure what it is in my family. It could just be that my uncle was a big drinker and smoker and my grandmother had high blood pressure. I mean, it could... I don't really know what it is that connects it.

Tavis: Tell me what specifically you have done and how you got involved. I hear the personal story, but that's different from deciding that you're gonna be out front talking about this particular illness. Why be out front? How did you get involved in this specifically?

Hart: Well, actually, I got involved in it because my mother was involved in it. She's the executive producer of 'Sabrina,' and, uh--

Tavis: That's nice. Keeping all the money in the family, huh?

Hart: Nepotism at its finest.

Tavis: Ha ha ha! You star in it, and your mama tells you what to do, and y'all take the money home.

Hart: Pretty much. No, but in this case, because she's the executive producer of 'Sabrina,' she was asked by-- The Heart Association put together a sort of a panel of people from the Film Commission to go with Al Gore and talk to Al Gore about sort of a campaign on how to quit smoking, or make people aware of the risks of smoking. So my mother was part of that group, and we made an episode about second-hand smoke. But we did it very indirectly where Sabrina's cousin comes to visit and every time she pops in there's smoke around her, and so Sabrina's... Turns out she dies of second-hand smoke, and so we did that episode, and that was honored by the Heart Association this year at a luncheon, their 'Go Red' luncheon, and my mother was honored with an award, and I presented it to her. So, actually, I got involved because my mother is involved.

Tavis: I'm always fascinated when I talk to personalities, and all this week we're talking about health issues and we're doing it in part with personalities. Because there's nothing that seems to get the attention of the American public like having a personality come on. On the other hand, it seems to me that we're really missing the boat on something if it takes, with all due respect, a Melissa Joan Hart to talk about heart disease or a Colin Powell to talk about prostate cancer or a Della Reese to talk about diabetes or an Alonzo Mourning to talk about kidney disease. I mean, are we missing something here? I mean, what's wrong with us that it takes us to have to get personalities on to get folks' attention to take better care of themselves?

Hart: Well, I think unless you have something personal in your life that has affected you and makes you aware of a certain disease... Like I know that one of my best friend's sister died of lupus, and so once I found out about her sister's disease and I learned a lot about lupus, I started to be more aware of it. And then if someone had symptoms of it, I'd say go be checked for lupus. You know, it's kind of word of mouth, and I think you have to be affected by it-- Well, unfortunately, people are mostly affected by it before they do anything about it. And, you know, people do sort of look to celebrities of any sort to give them their information for some reason. So, you know, that's part of our job, I think, is to make people aware. So I've done it with lots of different charities and then in this case with making people aware of--

Tavis: What impact do you think it has? What impact do you think it has that you--when you get out front and address an issue like this?

Hart: I think it helps. I think that the people that are my fans or anyone that has, you know, has seen my show or enjoys my show might listen and hear what I have to say, and, um, hopefully do something about it. Hopefully, people will just--I mean, it's as simple as, you know, you go and get your teeth cleaned every 6 months, you know? Go get checked for cholesterol, blood pressure, you know? Go to your doctors and get checked.

Tavis: I wonder whether or not one of the reasons why we don't make more advances--one of the reasons we've not done better, as it were, on an issue like heart disease is because it's not something you can see. You mention your teeth, I start laughing inside, because when your teeth get yellow, you know it's time to go get your teeth cleaned. Or if there's a lump on your breast, you know--

Hart: Breast cancer. Exactly.

Tavis: But heart disease is something that--

Hart: Well, breast cancer, I think, gets a lot more attention because it is something that is a little bit of a, you know, I would say women are afraid that, you know, this is something that's very--like you said--you can see, feel, all that. Yeah, your heart, you don't really know what's going on in there. So it's up to the doctor to kind of figure it out. But I think, one out of every two and a half women will die of a cardiovascular disease. One out of every 30 women will die of breast cancer. So heart disease is definitely--it's the number one and number three. Stroke is the number 3 killer of women.

Tavis: I wrote this down since you're on these stats--I'm very impressed, by the way, that you know these stats. You talk about them so much, you ought to know these stats. This one I wrote down because I wanted to make sure that I phrased it the proper way. I love how the Surgeon General speaks in a certain sort of a language. The Surgeon General has called health disease, and I quote here, 'The most important of the known modifiable risk factors for coronary heart disease in the U.S.' I think what that means is that we can actually prevent--we can treat heart disease if people will go get checked up first.

Hart: Yeah, if you get checked out, if you, you know, quit smoking, if you get on a healthy diet, if you exercise-- things that, you know--now the country's all up in arms about the obesity in this country, and--

Tavis: There's a fly on our set.

Hart: He came to say hi.

Tavis: Ha ha. Hi and bye. Yeah.

Hart: The country seems so up in arms about obesity these days, and it seems that if we do battle that obesity problem that we might be able to help with the cardiovascular diseases.

Tavis: That is fascinating. There's a direct link between obesity and heart disease, and it seems that we still don't spend enough time, again, talking about something that we see. We see that we're an overweight country, but we don't spend enough time on the obesity issue. Matter of fact, I should have done a whole show just on obesity. We started Monday night with the former Surgeon General--speaking of Surgeon Generals--David Satcher. He talked about the fact that obesity may very well become what kills most of us in America--say nothing of these other diseases--but we haven't gotten that under control.

Hart: And I would think that what we eat affects a lot of what happens in our body, and so that can cause so many different things between cardiovascular disease, cancer, and, you know, whatnot. So, I mean, it's pretty simple--eat greens and have a little protein in your diet.

Tavis: Yeah. So tell me what's going on with you these days.

Hart: I'm actually leaving to go to Europe to do a play. That's actually all I can say right now.

Tavis: OK. That's all you can say. Let me ask you about that. I want to ask you more about the play itself. Have you done stage before?

Hart: Yes, I have. I started out doing a lot of theater in New York when I was growing up. I did a bunch of plays with Circle Repertory Company in New York when I was 13--no, probably around 11, 12. And then I did 'The Crucible' on stage with Martin Sheen and Michael York when I was about 16. And this'll be--I did 'The Vagina Monologues' a couple of times in New York and then L.A. about two or three years ago. But that's a whole different sort of play. It's also--you sit there with cards and you read the cards.

Tavis: It's a great play, though.

Hart: This is gonna be--the play I'm going to do is a real play. And it's gonna be very interesting to see what happens.

Tavis: How do you prepare for a transition from doing a television show--

Hart: I don't really know anymore. I have to learn a whole new thing. I have a really good memory, which serves me in my profession.

Tavis: But is stage one of those things like riding a bike--once you've done it, you never forget how to do it?

Hart: I hope so. I hope so. It's a lot of playing out. The one thing that's gonna be difficult for me--although I am a loudmouth--is getting the volume behind, you know, being loud enough for everyone to hear.

Tavis: So is your mom exec producing the stage play?

Hart: No. She has nothing to do with it.

Tavis: Ha ha ha. Thanks for coming by to talk with us. Nice to see you.

Hart: Thank you.

Tavis: All the best on 'the play.' That's all we can say about it.

Hart: You'll hear about it.

Tavis: In Europe. All right, Melissa. For more information on cardiovascular disease, visit the American Heart Association's web site at Americanheart.org.

That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching. Good night from L.A., and as always, keep the faith.