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Buried in a laboratory and in obscurity, Dr. Dennis Slamon faced steep odds. He needed more time, more money and people to believe in his revolutionary approach to breast cancer.

"He just wouldn't stop," says Harry Connick Jr., who plays him in "Living Proof."

The film has waves of tragedy before reaching its conclusion. "At the end, you feel good," says producer Craig Zadan.

Getting there required perseverance -- first in real life and then in Hollywood.

Slamon, a UCLA oncologist and researcher, began his project in 1982 and kept running into funding blocks. "As with all the brilliant geniuses, he has a certain tunnel vision," says producer Neil Meron.

He met Lilly Tartikoff, who matched his determination. "She's a force of nature," says Angie Harmon, who plays her.

Lilly's husband, NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in 1982 and became Slamon's patient. He would live another 15 years, guiding the network in its glory years.

Meanwhile, Lilly Tartikoff was impressed by Slamon's work. She scrambled to get money for the research, partly through her own fundraisers but mainly through Revlon and its chairman, Ron Perelman.

Slamon faced times when it all seemed ready to crumble. "Here is a man who was willing to lose his home and his reputation," Harmon says.

It would be 16 years before the drug, Herceptin, received federal approval. Now it's considered an effective treatment for more than one-quarter of breast-cancer patients; it saves thousands of lives.

Getting the film made took the same sort of persistence. "Vivienne (Radkoff) had the story for about seven years," Meron says.

Adapting a book ("Her-2") by Robert Bazell, Radkoff eventually became one of the film's producers, along with Meron, Zadan and Renee Zellweger. "She's been a dear friend ever since we did 'Chicago,"' Meron says of Zellweger.

She's also the one who suggested casting Connick.

"You get pigeonholed really easily," Connick says. "People kind of had (me) only doing romantic comedies."

Now he's had a role with an emotional impact on the audience and on him. Connick was 10 when his mother -- a lawyer who became a small-claims court judge -- was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He was 13 when she died.

Now, 28 years later, he plays a cancer-fighter. "I dedicated this to her," Connick says.

The role put him alongside top actresses in small roles, including Bernadette Peters, Tammy Blanchard, Swoosie Kurtz, Regina King, Jennifer Coolidge and Harmon.

Amid all its emotion, "Living Proof" also has lots of details and detours. Viewers need an entry point; they get that from Amanda Bynes, playing a bewildered liberal-arts major working as Slamon's new aide.

It was typecasting, Bynes says. "I'm definitely not a science major."

At home, her dad (a dentist) and brother (a chiropractor) know the big words; Bynes, who had her own comedy show at 13, knows humor. Now, Connick explains things to her.

"It was based on his research assistant," she says. "In the end, she went to medical school."

Bynes emerged with a deep respect for Connick ("he's a tremendously nice person") and of the man he portrays.

Others agree. "So many times, he got shot down," Connick says of Slamon, "but he never stopped. ... It's just a slow, slow process."

And it prevailed. "We celebrate all the wrong people," Harmon says. "This is a hero."

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