Rona Barrett, Hollywood's Forgotten Gossip Girl

July 7, 2016 6:30 AM

Fifty years ago, Rona Barrett forged a Hollywood gossip empire. Then she left it all behind, her innovations attributed to others, her legacy almost entirely overlooked. But as she nears 80, there’s very little Miss Rona regrets. [sl Anne Helen Petersen@BuzzFeed]
posted by ellieBOA (29 comments total)

Man, there's a name from the past.
The main thing I remember from her tv spots was the novel (for that time) camera position she worked from. It was a slightly down-angle with her head slightly turned and her looking up into the camera. The effect was that of someone covertly telling spy secrets. Kind of cool, actually.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:42 AM on July 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

I would have bet $100 that she was dead. Thanks for this.
posted by Etrigan at 6:46 AM on July 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Her legacy? The whole 'gossip industry' she helped create has mainly given us a culture overrun with petty busybodies and creepy celebrity obsession.
posted by jonmc at 7:23 AM on July 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, I think petty busybodies and creepy celebrity obsession pre-date Rona Barrett. I remember her segments on the local news from back in the days when the weather consisted of a guy writing temperatures on a chalkboard map of the United States.
posted by Bee'sWing at 7:30 AM on July 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's an interesting mix of emotions, feeling badly that a life is nearing its end and being simultaneously repelled by that life's work.
posted by Mooski at 7:33 AM on July 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks for all the crap.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:41 AM on July 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, I think petty busybodies and creepy celebrity obsession pre-date Rona Barrett.

One of the things I discovered in Anne Helen Petersen's Scandals of Classic Hollywood (which anyone who likes this article should read) is that the Hollywood gossip industry is as old as Hollywood itself. There's really never been a time when the industry was free of gossip and scandal because the industry generated the gossip and scandal (often out of whole cloth for publicity purposes) and fed it to the general press and fan press. That relationship eventually evolved into what we now know as the gossip industry.
posted by griphus at 7:43 AM on July 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

griphus: "the industry generated the gossip "

cf. Singin' in the Rain
posted by chavenet at 7:46 AM on July 7, 2016

She agreed to talk only because she knew it would publicize her quest to provide housing for low-income seniors.

That is awesome.
posted by xingcat at 8:05 AM on July 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Cosby: “We all knew; he was always on the make.”

That is ... less awesome.
posted by chavenet at 8:08 AM on July 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

The thing I remember about her was the episode of Moonlighting she did, as herself. This was during late-stage Moonlighting when some kind of bullshit was going on with somebody's ego, I'm not sure how much of that was Shepherd and how much was Willis. But they could only do an episode every few months for one reason or another. It became as much of a thing as the show itself for a while there.

So at one point, instead of doing an actual episode, they did this bizarre meta-episode where Rona Barrett came to the set and tried to talk Maddie and David (NOT Shepherd and Willis, notably) out of their respective dressing rooms to make another episode because America needed them. It was deeply, deeply weird. But at the time, that's who she was. When you couldn't get America's sweethearts to stop killing each other, you brought in Rona.
posted by Naberius at 8:39 AM on July 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

“Just an inch, Miss Rona, just let me put it in an inch!”

Translation: "this column on Warren Beatty is way too long, Rona, we're going to have to shorten it, at least this paragraph."
posted by sexyrobot at 8:42 AM on July 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've read her swell trashy novel 'The Lovo-Maniacs'. It made think that on some level she really did understand Frank Sinatra's mind.
posted by ovvl at 8:47 AM on July 7, 2016

I remember her fairly well - on the news, on Good Morning America.
posted by 41swans at 8:49 AM on July 7, 2016

I used to watch Rona as often as I could. I am (and was) so far from caring about Hollywood gossip or celebrity, but Rona wasn't really about that. She was about reporting the Hollywood news which until her time was white washed by studio publicity flacks. I do not think that shows like Entertainment Tonight to even TMZ are her legacy. ET is too publicity agent driven and TMZ is too far on the let's get this out even if it is down right mean.

Rona had spunk. Apparently, Rona still has spunk. I guess I should read her now 40 year old memoirs as I would love to know more about what makes her tick.

I would also like to know if she is still married. She still has a nice ring on her finger, but it did not mention it in the article. Or I missed it.

Regardless, her work with and for the elderly is so admirable and too needed.
posted by AugustWest at 9:12 AM on July 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

I just watched Tab Hunter Confidential on Netflix, which she was interviewed for. I could listen to her talk about the Hollywood Machine all day every day.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:34 AM on July 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

The main thing I remember from her tv spots was the novel (for that time) camera position she worked from. It was a slightly down-angle with her head slightly turned and her looking up into the camera. The effect was that of someone covertly telling spy secrets. Kind of cool, actually.

Thank-you - - that's the kind of oblique insight that keeps me coming back to MetaFilter.
posted by fairmettle at 9:38 AM on July 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

hey did this bizarre meta-episode where Rona Barrett came to the set and tried to talk Maddie and David (NOT Shepherd and Willis, notably) out of their respective dressing rooms to make another episode because America needed them.

And the capper was..."So Bruce, what happened to your hair?"
posted by Billiken at 9:44 AM on July 7, 2016

That picture of Rona with David and (his then-wife) Angie Bowie in the green room at Good Morning, America speaks volumes about why dude wanted to flee back to Europe. Having to play that game at all just to sell some records or a film or TV show is just ugh. A dog and pony show, truly.

I can't blame her for Hiddleswift, though. That's just another level of WTF? entirely.
posted by droplet at 9:58 AM on July 7, 2016

Fascinating how someone so well known could just disappear. Interesting story.
posted by bongo_x at 10:03 AM on July 7, 2016

Remember all the grown-up men in my life hating her, which only goes to confirm all the misogyny and anti-Semitism she had to endure.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:08 AM on July 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Jesus Christ:

On the New York broadcast, that “acknowledgment” manifested in a cloaked misogyny. Every night, news anchor Roger Grimsby crafted a newly insulting introduction: “Here’s Rona Barrett, Hollywood’s tripe caster”; “Here’s Rona Barrett, keyhole ferret”; “Now here’s the woman who made ‘broad casting’ two words.” Barrett keenly remembers when Grimsby reported a story of three children who locked themselves in an abandoned fridge, never escaped, and were discovered in a garbage heap — then segued into Barrett with “And now here’s some more garbage.”
posted by Lyn Never at 11:20 AM on July 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

I grew up loving Roger Grimsby who, I discovered later, had a major drinking problem. I don't remember him being such a bastard to Rona Barrett though. That's some serious misogynistic bullshit.

This came at a good time; I'm watching the ESPN documentary, OJ: Made in America and they showed her interviewing him about moving from sports to Hollywood, and I wondered what had become of her. I'm happy to see it's good work.
posted by ceejaytee at 11:42 AM on July 7, 2016

I grew up loving Roger Grimsby who, I discovered later, had a major drinking problem.

I grew up watching Eyewitness News on Channel 7 in NY. Bill Beutel and Roger Grimsby (and Tex Antoine ugh.) Grimsby was smart and sometimes funny but he had serious misogynistic views, enough so that in his NYTimes 1995 obituary, they referred to one incident with NOW.

And then there was this incident, More seriously, in 1976 the WABC-TV newscast's weatherman, Tex Antoine, was suspended for using the line, "If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it," after a report about an attempted rape of an 8-year-old girl. Five days later, Mr. Grimsby introduced Mr. Antoine's replacement by saying, "Lie back, relax and enjoy the weather with Storm Field." (NYT)
posted by AugustWest at 12:16 PM on July 7, 2016

Every night, news anchor Roger Grimsby crafted a newly insulting introduction

Does this have anything to do with the SNL skit with Dan Aykroyd's character calling Jane Curtin's character an ignorant slut?
posted by porpoise at 1:13 PM on July 7, 2016

Does this have anything to do with the SNL skit with Dan Aykroyd's character calling Jane Curtin's character an ignorant slut?

Eh? That was a parody of the Point / Counterpoint segment they used to do on Sixty Minutes with James Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander.

Apart from the Hollywood Minute, what I remember Barrett for was the way NBC shoehorned her into The Tom Morrow Show. A disaster all around.
 
posted by Herodios at 1:27 PM on July 7, 2016

There were giants back then. Now, we are diminished.
posted by Postroad at 1:58 PM on July 7, 2016

Lainey Gossip's take on Rona - an interesting analysis

Once upon a time, Tom Cruise was interviewed by a gossip columnist. When the interview was over, he told his publicist he never wanted to speak to her again – because “that woman is a psychologist. I felt like I had been through a session with a doctor.” It was a gossip columnist, asking a gossip columnist’s questions, who made Tom Cruise feel like he was … known. Celebrities want to be understood, on their terms, but they don’t actually want to be known. That’s why they’d rather answer the questions they tell you to ask them – not the gossip columnist’s style.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:59 PM on July 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Where is Anne Helen Petersen on the topic of Hiddleswift and publicity management already? I really want to know this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:15 PM on July 7, 2016