Brooke Andrews is simply too busy to give in to illness. She is a certified professional resume writer who has helped hundreds of people find meaningful work; she’s very involved with the American Maltese Rescue Organization; plus she’s a working actress about town, both on stage and on film. Illness just gets in her way.
Brooke has always been feisty and resolute. When she was 7, she decided that she wouldn’t answer to her given name, Bernice, and insisted everyone call her Bambi – and everyone did! Though she legally changed her name to Brooke in 1977, some people still call her Bambi. “The name change is an example of my philosophy: If you don’t like something and you can change it, take whatever action is needed to secure that change. If you can’t change something you don’t like, accept it as gracefully as possible.”
Born to Jewish parents in Brooklyn, Brooke found her performing legs early on. Her first acting role was Miriam in the Story of Moses when she was 8, and she knew that acting would be a major part of her life. In addition to acting on stage, she studied clothing design at Prospect Heights High School and used her talents to costume shows. She and her husband, Don, moved to Phoenix in 1965 sight unseen after Brooke had written his resume and sent it to SRP, from which he has now retired as a vice president. Brooke worked for Channel 12 from 1967-75 and started doing her own film and commercial work. In the ’80s she worked with Hope Silvestri z’l to develop a theater-based child abuse prevention program through Jewish Family & Children’s Service. The program became known as Project Prevention and increased to include the topics of drug and alcohol prevention, gang membership and teen pregnancy. They provided performances for more than 600,000 students around the state before funding ran out.
Brooke is anxiously awaiting the premier of the movie “The Dog Wedding,” a romantic comedy she filmed at Cosmo Dog Park in Gilbert in the fall of 2013, which is scheduled to open soon. The film was written by Jason B. Hurwitz and James Lefkowitz. Brooke plays Roz, the mother.
“I’ve played lots of mothers and grandmothers,” Brook smiles. “I loved playing Miriam Goldman in James Sherman’s ‘Beau Jest’ and Ma Bailey in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ ” She was nominated for a local ariZoni award for her role as Emma Christano, the Italian grandmother in “Over the River and Through the Woods.” She has performed with many local theater companies and also appeared in a Super Bowl Doritos commercial. So you may understand why she feels she just doesn’t have time “to spend the rest of my life being sick in bed!”
In 2010 Brooke’s “dance with cancer” began. She had already had a hysterectomy to handle uterine cancer in 1971. But she never anticipated what lay ahead. She was first diagnosed with bladder cancer. “It is not a terrible procedure, so people shouldn’t fear it,” she says of the surgery to remove tumors and the BCG preventive chemotherapy that followed. To date she has had three such surgeries and chemo treatments, but felt they weren’t difficult to handle. They didn’t make her sick and she was still able to function.
In 2011 nodes were discovered on her thyroid. She sought a second opinion before having her thyroid removed and instead discovered through a scan that she had a large tumor in her right lung. One-third of her right lung was removed in January of 2012. Though she started a chemo regimen after that surgery, she did not complete it because her husband had become ill, and she needed her strength to tend to him. “I also realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life sick and exhausted, unable to live my life.”
In May of 2013, in addition to the return of bladder cancer, a tumor was found on the right side of her chest. She chose a high-dose radiation treatment, which successfully eradicated the tumor. While she was in rehearsal for a show in December of 2013, Brooke’s doctors found more “trouble spots” that they believe is a return of the adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer in nonsmokers. Brooke has made it clear that she will not accept “regular” chemotherapy as an option. She watched her sister and her best friend suffer through their treatments with no change in the outcome. She has agreed, however, to try a new pill for now, as long as the side effects are tolerable.
Brooke is well aware that her outlook on life may seem strange to some, but it works for her. “Maybe if I were 42 instead of 72 I’d feel differently,” she says. She’s had a good life and feels comfortable with her relationship with God. “Like Tevye,” she grins, “I talk to Him. I thank Him for all the good in my life and rarely ask for anything.” Brooke believes she’ll be reunited with her loved ones when the time comes.
In the meantime, you will rarely find Brooke without a smile. “I will do my best to enjoy my remaining time, to continue to make audiences laugh, to help my clients get ahead and to do all of this with as much grace as I can muster.”
