Iris Cantor - UCLA Women's Health Center

Iris Cantor, nationally respected philanthropist, women’s health care advocate and champion of the arts, died on February 22, 2026, in Palm Beach, Florida. As chairman of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, Mrs. Cantor nurtured the Cantor legacy in the visual arts, with a primary focus on the work of French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) and his contemporaries. Equally passionate in support of women’s health, she also was instrumental in furthering gender-targeted health care and research at major medical and academic institutions on both coasts. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Mrs. Cantor launched her career by joining a brokerage firm on Wall Street — then an avenue few women pursued. Through her professional activities, she met her future husband, B. Gerald Cantor (1916-1996), founder of the securities brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald, Inc.

Mrs. Cantor was active in the philanthropic and cultural life of her native New York as well as Los Angeles and Palm Beach, serving on numerous leadership boards at universities, medical centers and arts institutions. Having lost her younger sister to breast cancer, she became a leading advocate for mammography as a tool for early cancer detection. She established the Iris Cantor Center for Breast Imaging at UCLA in 1986. She then expanded her interests to address women’s health comprehensively, founding a women’s health center at UCLA in 1995 and another at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in 2002. Janet P. Pregler, MD, director of the Iris Cantor - UCLA Women’s Health Center, noted that “Iris Cantor’s vision for women’s health has been transformational. Her sustained advocacy has shaped comprehensive health care for tens of thousands of women.”

Mrs. Cantor received many accolades for her philanthropic leadership, innovation and patronage. She held UCLA’s highest honor, The UCLA Medal. The French National Order of the Legion of Honor named her a Chevalier in 2000 for her work in promoting women’s health care as well as Rodin, and then elevated her to Officier in 2017.