Leeza Gibbons, 67, is stepping back from Hollywood after working with stars like Tom Cruise and Trump

Leeza Gibbons is leaving show business for a project close to her heart.

The 67-year-old blonde has been active in Hollywood for more than 45 years, where she worked with stars such as Tom Cruise and Donald Trump.

She was an on-air journalist and cohost for Entertainment Tonight and then starred on her self-titled show Leeza before appearing on The Celebrity Apprentice with Trump and guest-starring on The Talk with Sharon Osbourne.

Now the South Carolina native wants to continue working helping caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients find the resources they need.

Therefore, she will devote much of her time to her non-profit organization Leeza’s Care Connection.

The star has seen firsthand how challenging it is to deal with loved ones who have Alzheimer’s disease: Gibbons’ mother Jean died from the disease in 2008 and her grandmother also died from it.

“It’s the best work I’ve ever done,” Gibbons said People.

The red carpet veteran wanted to help healthcare providers and make sure they could talk to others about what they are going through.

“I always say, ‘You can’t cure it if you don’t reveal it.’ There is enormous power in feeling heard, in being able to alleviate some of the guilt, sadness or even frustration of caregivers.”

And then she said, ‘It’s the best thing. It is the most creative; it is the most dynamic. The only thing that remains real is the way we care for each other. And because of this I come into contact with it every day.’

But she won’t be leaving Hollywood entirely.

“I wouldn’t say I’m retired,” Gibbons said with a chuckle. She is developing TV projects at the moment.

“I call it ‘downshifting,’” she said. ‘It doesn’t mean you’re no longer in the race. It simply means that you have found another lane and you are no longer distracted by the other cars on the road.

‘And I think you get so much more clarity about where you’re going and what you want.

“No one has loved their career more than I have loved mine. It was such a fun ride and I enjoyed every aspect of it,” she told the site.

“But I consciously changed the pace when I stepped into what I see as my true calling: my nonprofit.”

Leeza called this her ‘third act’.

“I think life happens in three stages,” Gibbons said.

‘Phase one: you grow and learn. You are acquiring and achieving phase two, the middle of your life. And then you get to phase three, where I am now, where you can celebrate and reflect – and start receiving.”

Her philosophy of life is a health philosophy: ‘I think you start with being happy, then there are some dips and as you get older you climb back up that happiness curve. And then you find peace.’

And she is smart about getting older: ‘I don’t look at people and think: “How old are you?” I think, “How many lives have you lived?”

Leeza is married to former talent manager Steven Fenton.

They met at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills on a blind date in 2009.

Fenton, former chairman of the Beverly Hills Board of Education, proposed to her in June 2010.

“On my first date with Steven, he was 38 and I was 51… Now, three years later, I can finally embrace my inner cougar,” Gibbons exclaimed in 2011.

Gibbons has had a rollercoaster love life.

She was married to John Hicks between 1980 and 1982. She was married to British actor Chris Quinten, Lexi’s father, for two years. He starred in the long-running soap opera Coronation Street for ten years.

After their divorce in 1991, she married Stephen Meadows that same year, but divorced in 2005. He is the father of Troy and Nathan.