Rosemary Breslin

Daily News Obituary

NEW YORK WRITER Rosemary Breslin's 15-year battle with a mysterious blood disease ended Monday when the nameless scourge she described in an acclaimed memoir took her life. Breslin, the daughter of Pulitzer Prize- winning columnist Jimmy Breslin, was 47. "She was so good that even when she was dying, her concern was that they study her case to prevent anyone else from suffering as she did," said Daily News columnist Michael Daly, a close friend. Breslin, who wrote for the Daily News, The New York Times and the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, came down with what she called "the headache that wouldn't go away" in 1989. Doctors did not have a name for the disease ravaging Breslin's body and put her on a regimen of blood transfusions that continued until her death. Two years after her illness was diagnosed, Breslin fell in love with TV producer Anthony Dunne. They married in 1994. Breslin continued writing, turning out scripts for "NYPD Blue" and a critically praised memoir titled "Not Exactly What I Had in Mind: An Incurable Love Story.

"She was the daughter of a famous writer but she was always her own person," Daly said. "She made her own way. She wrote in her own voice.

In addition to her husband and her father, Breslin is survived by a sister, Kelly; brothers James, Kevin and Patrick, and her stepmother, Ronnie Eldridge, a former city councilwoman.

From "NOTES FROM ROSIE’S MEMORIAL SERVICE" June 17, 2004 by cmackie By Jan Herman

"Rosie’s husband Tony Dunne and Tony’s aunt Joan Didion Dunne spoke. Couldn’t hear much of what Joan said. But Tony delivered the afternoon’s best punchline. He recalled the advice he got from Rosie’s father, Jimmy Breslin, on coping with Rosie’s death: “SUFFER!!” Tony also recalled Rosie’s advice. She told him, “I gave you 15 years of my life. Don’t screw it up.”