LIVESTRONG™ Gala

The LIVESTRONG Gala is an annual fundraiser for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The special event raises money for LAF public health, education, advocacy and research programs. The event features a dinner, a silent auction, and a program featuring a keynote speaker and celebrity guests, who in the past have included comedian/actors Ben Stiller and Robin Williams and musician Sheryl Crow.

The LIVESTRONG Gala in Austin took place Friday, May 19, 2006 at the Hilton Austin. The emcee for the Austin LIVESTRONG Gala was Evan Handler.  Evan is a cancer survivor who overcame acute myeloid leukemia more than twenty years ago. He is also an actor, author and screenwriter, best known for his role in the HBO television series, Sex and the City. Additional acting credits include leading roles in Ron Howard's film Ransom, Taps and Sweet Lorraine, as well as featured roles in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers and the filmed adaptation of Chaim Potok’s novel The Chosen. Known to television audiences from starring roles and guest appearances in several comedies including, It’s Like, You Know..., Friends, Sibs and the recent Hot Properties, he has also appeared in dramas including Lost, The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Law and Order, 24, Joan of Arcadia and The Guardian.

Prior to his work in film and television, Evan played leading roles in seven Broadway productions before his thirtieth birthday – all in spite of losing the years from 24 to 28 to his four-year battle with leukemia, which he wrote about in his critically acclaimed memoir Time On Fire: My Comedy of Terrors. Called “laceratingly funny and self-revealing” by the New York Times, and “angry, hilarious and riveting” by the San Francisco Review of Books, Time On Fire was described by best-selling author Amy Tan as “a visceral knockout of a book, a Kafkaesque Saturday Night Live version of negotiating for your life.”

A contributor of feature articles for Elle, Mirabella, USA Weekend and The New Yorker, Evan is currently completing work on his second book, a collection of autobiographical essays examining his life in the years since his illness, titled It’s Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive, which is due out from Riverhead/Penguin in early 2007.