'Norma Rae' dead at 68 after struggling with insurance company for cancer treatment

It's the death of an American icon, a working-class woman who stood up for her rights and unionized her workplace. And wouldn't you know it? She fought the mills, but she couldn't make her insurance company do the decent thing until it was too late: The woman whose life inspired the 1979 film Norma Rae has died of cancer after struggling with her health insurance company, which had delayed her treatment. Crystal Lee Sutton was 68. She had struggled for several years with meningioma, a form of brain cancer.