She persuaded the New York-based Kiehl's company, which manufactures beauty products, to create one for YouthAIDS and donate the profits. Sale of "Eucalyptus" bath and shower liquid body cleanser has raised more than $250,000 since 2002.
She wanted a musical anthem, and met with producer Quincy Jones. He put her together with songwriter Linda Perry, who won a Grammy for Christina Aguilera's hit "Beautiful." For singers, she plans to approach a gaggle of artists who have donated time to YouthAIDS.
Kate Roberts, who once promoted soft drinks and cigarettes to youth, has enlisted pop stars to promote safe sex.
(Katherine Frey For The Washington Post)
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Roberts has a staff of six people and a budget of about $2 million a year, she says. But she secures millions of dollars worth of free media time and "guilts" artists into working for free. Flights and other services are donated, too. Hence her nickname "Pro Bono Roberts."
Several people in the corporate and entertainment world say she succeeds because she is relentless, obsessive, business-savvy and insistent that donations are properly spent.
Kevin Carroll, senior manager of worldwide community affairs at Levi Strauss & Co., calls her "the master of Plan B," because when she hits a wall, she goes around it and finds another way to do something.
"She could be a successful entrepreneur, a successful corporate executive, but she chose to operate in the world where people need help," says Charles Goldstuck, president of BMG North America, parent company of the RCA Music Group. "What a talent to be in this fight."
A New Cause
Even if Roberts were content with her life, she has scheduled no time to stop and savor it.
In May, she was a preliminary judge at the Miss Universe pageant in Quito, Ecuador. One evening the next month, she was in New York, attending the premiere of Ashley Judd's movie "De-Lovely," with Bill Rancic, Donald Trump's "Apprentice," as her escort. He introduced her to the show's director, who suggested involving YouthAIDS in the next version of the show, she says.
The next night, she attended both the Special International Emmy and the Cable Positive POP awards, in which VH1 was honored for a HIV/AIDS documentary Roberts helped produce. Her date: Rolling Stone executive Thom Allcock.
The night after that it was dinner with jewelry designer David Yurman, to persuade him to design a pin for YouthAIDS to raise funds.
Then there was a three-week trip to Southeast Asia to attend an international conference on AIDS in Bangkok and visit sites where YouthAIDS programs are in place.
It would be reasonable to assume she has found her life's work. But that old sense of unrest has surfaced again, a wanderlust that will take her not to a new country this time but into a new area of need, a new way to try to save people.
She returned from her latest Asian trip ready to start an initiative targeting teen obesity in the United States. She became interested, she says, because of her own struggle with weight as a young woman, and through Wynonna Judd, who discussed her weight troubles on Oprah Winfrey's television show.
Yes, Roberts says, it may appear that she is changing focus. But she says she is just expanding the fight to another threat to the health of young people.
Already, the beginnings of a stump speech can be heard:
"I was absolutely amazed at the statistics in America. I was blown away by the amount of people I see just walking around the streets with weight issues. It must make them so miserable and, of course, it's very dangerous to your health. They are also discriminated against, just like people with AIDS."
Standing one day recently in the studio of her home in Dupont Circle, Roberts wonders what it would be like to get married and have children. She does want kids, she says, but it's hard to see where they would fit into her life.
In spare moments, she paints in this studio, brush in the right hand, palette in the left. Roberts began painting in Romania. She had just moved from a dark, tiny apartment where she had to tiptoe around roaches to an airy, whitewashed villa, and she felt like expressing her glee. She had never taken lessons, nor has she since. "It just came to me," she says. "Things just come to me."
