Eldergays, tell me about Rona Barrett

When I was a kid I knew her from the Tom Snyder show and he seemed annoyed by her.

I didn't think she was that big of a deal, more like the National Enquirer column type

She was a huge tv celebrity and the first name in Hollywood gossip in the 1970s.

Everyone knew her.

She could be nasty at times. There's an old Jack Paar show I think it was where she starts off with some vicious gossip and one of the other guests, Sir Clement Freud, really lays into her about her methods.

She seemed to mellow in later years, but she had her own gossip magazine, and used to have specials on tv, segments on different talk shows, etc. I don't think she was as powerful as Hedda and Louella had been during their era (when the studio system was in place), but she had a big audience listening to her or reading her columns.

She was ubiquitous and a household name in her hey day and the head of a publishing empire. At one point she published four different magazines with her name on them. She got celebs to open up to her on camera and even convinced Cher to be interviewed in bed next to her. She's now head of a non-profit for seniors.

[quote]She was ubiquitous and a household name in her hey day and the head of a publishing empire.

In an age of Entertainment Tonight and TMZ it's hard to believe, but she went on TV several nights a week and broke major stories -- not just who's seeing whom, but deals at studios and major business stories. She was loathed in Hollywood not because she was a gossip, but because she aired the laundry, she was tough, and she couldn't be bought. It was later that she did the glitzy star interviews.

I've always wanted to read her novel "The Loveomaniacs," which GoodReads describes as "A multi-character novel about movie moguls, LSD, hijacked planes to Cuba, and gay sex in Central Park."

She was big back in the day (I read one of her books and it was quite shallow). She acquired too much of an ego, people began to dislike her (I don't think they much liked her in the first place), she got the hint and left the gossip business.

Kirk Douglas tried to fuck her but she resisted.

Rona conducted Jayne Mansfield's final in studio interview, which ABC aired the day she died.

Rona Barrett (born Rona Burstein, October 8, 1936), 84, in New York City, is an American gossip columnist and businesswoman. She runs the Rona Barrett Foundation, a non-profit organization in Santa Ynez, California, dedicated to the aid and support of senior citizens in need.

I saw her on tv about the time of the Rock Hudson/Jim Nabors wedding hoax and she said it wasn't true but just a rumor started by a group of "vicious homosexuals". And this was years before DL.

If you watch 70s sitcoms, there will almost certainly be a reference to Barrett, that's how big she was. When she went to NBC from ABC's morning show, it was big because she became the reason NBC's Today jumped to first in the ratings. All the entertainment shows owe their existence to her

I didn't realize she was in her late 30s at her peak in the mid-seventies. She looked 20 years older

She was a cunt.

"The Loveomaniacs" was hidden in my mom's closet! I never read it but knew something was up about it.

Then I found her douche.

I stopped looking.

She was wonderful, Steve MacQueen begged her to let him put just an inch of his cock inside her. Her reporting was instrumental in bringing down David Begelman, the notorious head of Columbia Studios.

R16, It was Kirk Douglas, not Steve McQueen.

Saying you loved Rona Barrett would be a little like admitting that you ate the stale circus peanuts that had been under a couch cushion since Halloween. It's too humiliating to imagine.

The Tom Snyder/Rona Barrett pairing was about as successful as the Barbara Walters/Harry Reasoner pairing.

R19, Here's an excellent synopsis . . .

When Rona was added to the TODAY Show, then co-host Tom Brokaw refused to introduce her segments.

R4, that’s an amazing clip. Hardly surprising, in hindsight, that Clement Freud felt threatened by someone reporting on public figures’ personal failings.

Rona interviews a very intimidated Tom Cruise.

Rona, the pre-Barbara Walters.

Tom Brokaw had a long running feud with Barrett from his days as an anchor in LA.

When I was young, I loved her because she was show biz but clearly camp and a gossip. I wish they would do a bio pic on her with Kristin Wiig.

I used to spend my allowance on RB's Hollywood and Gossip magazines. I'd read them cover to cover.

R11 Not true. They loved me!

She was quite stiff.

She used to grow lavender on her ranch in Santa Ynez, California, and sell lavender products. Bath, beauty, food and aromatherapy stuff. 2% of the profits were donated to The Rona Barrett Foundation, a charity that provides services to seniors. But she ceased production of the lavender and sold that business. She still has the foundation, which runs on donations. She is now 86.

Tom Cruise was cute AF in that interview. Very self-possessed and articulate for only 20 years old. Think of 20 year-old celebs today and what trash they are, the contrast is striking.

R27 - Same! Rona Barrett's Gossip and Rona Barrett's Hollywood magazines were my monthly reads. I was in High School in the 70's and my friends and I would go to nearby Woolworths to check the magazine racks for the latest issues.

She was NOT NICE and a TOUGH GIRL. I was a nice girl and she filled me with envy.

I'm certainly old enough to remember Rona's hey day and yet still find all these old clips riveting. But then I couldn't even watch the entire Paar clip, it was so cringey on so many levels. TV interviews are all so polite and scripted nowadays. What a cunt Rona was and that's why everyone watched her all time. Truly the woman you LOVED to HATE.

Also, Tom Snyder was hot AF. At least in the 1970s. He deserves his own thread.

She was very well-known in the 1970s, enough for The Carol Burnett Show to do a parody of her.

I only knew her from the Mae West film Sextette (1978)

The ULTIMATE JEWESS.

[quote] R16, It was Kirk Douglas, not Steve McQueen.

You're both wrong. It was Hugh O'Brian.

She was popular in the 60s and 70s, but then got elbowed aside by Barbara Walters when she came out with her 'Barbara Walters Special' in 1976. Walters was able to get the real big names back then (Streisand, Ross, etc.) and did more in-depth interviews than what Barrett was doing.By the 80s, Entertainment Tonight came along doing Hollywood gossip every night of the week, and really pushed Barrett out to sea.

How many of you had this?

I once worked in the same office where her magazine was published in Hollywood. This was in the 90s, but the company I worked for kept the same tacky 70s office furniture left over from The Laufer Company.

Loved her on Good Morning America.

R39 wrote what I planned to say. He's 100% correct.

I recall that interview she did with Tom because she really disappeared after that - the industry completely bypassed her because of Entertainment Tonight, which provided great gossip and celebrity interviews by the likes of Mary Hart.

One more thing. There's no way that bitch was born in 1936. I bet she knocked a few years off her age.

Rick Dees (remember him?) the morning show DJ on KIIS FM in LA did more ‘comedy’ sketch bits than he ever played music.

His wife Julie(?) Dees would lend her funny voices to the bits and had the recurring character Groanin’ Bear-It.

Komedy Gold

I too used to read [italic]Rona Barrett's Hollywood[/italic] as a kid. I thought her frosted wiglet was the height of glamma as a '70s gayling.

[quote]His wife Julie(?) Dees would lend her funny voices to the bits and had the recurring character Groanin’ Bear-It.

She did another one called Jane Fondle. LOL

So country, r40!

Was just scouring YouTube for the SCTV sketch The Gene Shalit Critics’ Variety Special, but they yanked it.

Funny bit with Catherine O’Hara as Rona singing I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face to Eugene Levy as Shalit and also Siskel and Ebert singing Jeepers Creepers and all of them in sequined pop and lock outfits doing the robot.

Maybe I'm crazy but wasn't she even on the nightly news?

I'm not crazy, I just saw a reference to it. " Rona Barrett drove around Hollywood in a Rolls-Royce with a license plate that read MS RONA, the nickname she’d picked up when she first started delivering Hollywood tidbits at the end of the ABC evening news."

I thought she was the Hedda Hopper of the 1970s. But rather than having a daily column, she was more TV and magazine oriented. All the kids used to make fun of her Noo Yawk accent. She was sort of likeable.

I remember the big fallout she had with Ali MacGraw when this magazine hit the newsstands. Rona had given her a rating of 4.