Heigl of Grey's Anatomy says... ''I Needed To Make Sense of His Death''

[Guest guest]

By

Deborah Starr Seibel Published: October 8, 2006

As a

breakout star on ABC’s hit medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy, actress Heigl

has earned fame, fortune and that rarest of Hollywood perks, job security. But her role on the show also has

helped her deal with a painful personal tragedy.

When Heigl was only 7 years old, her adored

15-year-old brother suffered massive head injuries in a car accident near

their home in New

Canaan, Conn. Rushed to intensive care, clung to life for a week,

unconscious.

“When my parents told me that he had died, I remember feeling

betrayed,” Heigl says. “I knew they had

shaved his head—and he had lost all his beautiful hair—because they

had to operate, but I thought he was going to be fine.” It unnerved her

even more when she learned that her parents had opted to donate ’s

organs to people in need.

“I remember being so upset,” says Heigl.

“If he didn’t have his organs, it didn’t bode well for his

coming back.”

Heigl’s mother helped her three remaining

children (Heigl has another older brother and sister)

understand the decision-making process. “What she went through,”

says Heigl, “losing a child, was so horrible

and devastating that she couldn’t imagine sitting idly by if she had the

opportunity to save another mother from having to go through it. And was

someone who was so beautifully alive and passionate about life. It was clearly

what he would have wanted too.” Ultimately, ’s heart and

kidneys saved the lives of three people; his corneas gave sight to two others.

Still, when Heigl, now 27, was offered the role of

surgical intern Dr. Isobel “Izzie”

s on Grey’s Anatomy

in 2004, she was worried. Would taking a job that required spending 16-hour

days in a hospital—even a fake one—bring back painful memories of

her brother’s death?

“I didn’t even watch ER,”

says Heigl, who has always hated the smell of real

hospitals. “The panic mode they’re always in made me

anxious.”

Her attitude began to change when Grey’s

third episode involved a brain-dead bike accident victim. The other TV doctors

wanted to remove his organs for donation, “but my character was desperate

for him to live,” Heigl says. After that show,

she felt freed to speak out publicly about ’s death.

“I thought, ‘You know what? This is the perfect venue for me to

start talking about organ donation, because I’m on a show that deals with

it constantly,’” recalls Heigl. She

wanted to let the world know the importance of organ donation—and how

deeply it had affected her and her family. She became a spokesperson for Donate

Life America, a nonprofit national coalition of organizations dedicated

to inspiring organ, eye and tissue donation.

Nothing spoke her message louder than last season’s final dramatic

episodes. Heigl’s character fell in love with a

handsome patient named Denny, who was waiting for a heart transplant. Despite

her risky, over-the-top maneuvers to get him to the top of the transplant list,

he died. Millions of viewers wept. And the deeply personal resonance of the

story no doubt contributed to Heigl’s moving

performance.

“I realize that it’s a sensitive subject,” she says,

“because nobody wants to talk about the ‘What if...’ What if

something happened and you were tragically killed?”

Her mission now? To let people know how easy it is to

sign up to become a donor or include it on your driver’s license.

“For our family, it helped make sense of ’s death,” says

Heigl. “It lent it a sort of grace.”

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