Donald E. Biederman, 67; Lawyer Provided Face for Skin Cancer Ad

Donald E. Biederman, a veteran entertainment lawyer and law school professor who put a face on the dangers of too much exposure to the sun by appearing in a graphic public service commercial sponsored by the American Academy of Dermatology, has died. He was 67.

Biederman, founding director of the National Entertainment and Media Law Institute at Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, fought a six-year battle with skin cancer, during which doctors were forced to remove his nose and a cheek. He died Thursday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.

Before joining the full-time faculty at Southwestern in 2000, Biederman spent 17 years as executive vice president and general counsel of Warner/Chappell Music, the world’s largest music publishing company.

As the firm’s chief legal officer, he supervised its legal staff and outside counsel in litigation in the U.S. and abroad. He also served as liaison with Time Warner’s corporate legal staff and worked with trade groups on legislation to combat piracy in electronic media.

Biederman wrote what many consider to be the finest case book on entertainment law, “Law and Business of the Entertainment Industries,” which is in its fifth edition and is used in more than 80 law schools.

But it was his battle with skin cancer and his decision to appear in 1999 in a national campaign about the dangers of sun exposure that propelled him into the public spotlight.

Campbell Mithun, the Minneapolis-based advertising agency for the American Academy of Dermatology, told The Times in 1999 that the commercial had been inspired by a photograph in National Geographic that showed an Australian man who had lost his nose to cancer.

After sending inquiries to dermatologists, the agency found Biederman, who had a malignant form of squamous cell cancer.

Biederman, who had undergone a total of 58 surgeries in 5 1/2 years, had his nose and cheek removed in 1996. He wore a prosthetic nose that hid his missing cheek.

Family members were apprehensive about his appearing in the commercial.

“I kept saying, ‘Is this something you’re sure you want to do?’ ” Marna, Biederman’s wife of 39 years, said Tuesday. “Our friends saw his face had been completely altered, and he said it was really important.”

“It is a tough choice to do this--make myself available as a public monster,” Biederman told The Times in 1999. “I am hoping more than anything that people will be sufficiently terrified to ... stay out of unprotected sun.”

The commercial featured home movie clips showing Biederman’s son as a toddler playing on a beach and his now-deceased father, reclining shirtless on a lounge chair. Those images were juxtaposed with close-ups of Biederman as he talked about his changed attitude toward sun exposure.

“All my friends used to say, ‘The first time you go to the beach, get a good burn. You’ll tan faster.’ ... A tan was considered healthy,” he said in the commercial. “None of us knew the potential ramifications.”

The commercial ended with Biederman turning sideways and removing the prosthetic device, which exposed the dark cavity where his nose had been.

The advertising agency said at the time that ABC rejected the spot as too graphic to broadcast nationally. NBC rejected it because the American Academy of Dermatology did not meet its guidelines for pro bono advertising. The ad wasn’t submitted to CBS because its guidelines were similar to NBC’s.

However, the commercial was sent to local broadcast stations around the country and to cable networks. Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta were among the local markets that aired the spot, though only briefly.

“I understand it was pulled very quickly because of the graphic nature of it,” Biederman’s son, Jeff, a Nashville attorney, said Tuesday. “The medical community was very unhappy it was pulled because, to them, it was effective because it was so dramatic.”

Nevertheless, according to a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Dermatology, Donna Stein, Biederman’s public service spot “reached millions of people and we felt he was very courageous in sharing his important story.”

“Because it was so graphic and because it was so controversial in nature, it also received a lot of editorial play, and there was a significant debate about how bold the campaign was,” Stein said.

Biederman got first-hand proof that the commercial had affected many who saw it.

“He received countless letters from people who saw that commercial, and who literally said he saved their lives because they just put off going [to a doctor] for a little spot on their face and it turned out to be malignant,” said his wife.

Biederman was born Aug. 23, 1934, in New York City. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1955 and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1958.

He entered entertainment law in New York in 1972, first as general attorney for CBS Records Group and then as vice president of legal affairs and administration for ABC Records in L.A. He joined Warner/Chappell in 1983 after several years as a partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.

Biederman became an instructor in UCLA’s extension program in 1979 and adjunct professor of law at Southwestern in 1983. He later became director of the National Entertainment and Media Law Institute.

In addition to his wife and son, Biederman is survived by a daughter, Melissa, an assistant attorney general in Des Moines; and a grandson.