An Evening With Rona

Article

Montecito Journal
July 2009

Like a scene from a Hollywood set, we were shuttled up a steep driveway just off East Mountain Drive and let off in the motor court of a recently restored residence that was as stunning as the view. Gregg Wilson and John Maienza had made the estate look like it did when John Elgin Woolf designed it,. Lawrence Harvey and his widow once lived here. Woolf was an architect to glitterati like John Wayne, Cary Grant, Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Woolf and partner Robert Koch Woolf created the unique Hollywood Regency style during the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. John died in his Montecito home in 2004.

This was the setting for an “Evening with Rona and Friends.” That would be Rona Barrett, who pioneered the way for other TV and print journalists; in a career spanning 30 years, Rona conducted interviews with celebrities at their homes. She now has a fioundation to help the elderly poor—a result of caring for her father for ten years. The other recipient of the party’s fundraising was the Pacific Pride Foundation.

We sipped wine and wandered through the entire house. there were flat-screen TVs hidden in mirrors, and all were playing the premiere showing of Rona’s new DVD about Hollywood, “Nothing but the Truth.” It is a compilation of some of her favorite star interviews, many of whom have Montecito connections, like Cher (her mom lived in Montecito for a while where I met her during an interview for Santa Barbara magazine). Carol Burnett (who calls Montecito home), and former residents Priscilla Presley and Robin Williams, who recently attended Jonathan Winters’ wife Eileen’s private memorial service.

Pacific Pride Executive Director David Selberg introduced Rona who told us she was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy and told she wouldn’t live past 12 or 13. She reminisced, “I said ‘Famous people don’t die young.’ I became famous and I didn’t.” Attendee Marc Malkin from E! Online remembered seeing Rona reporting when he was in the 5th grade. “Twenty years later I was having lunch with her,” he laughed. For information concerning the Rona Barrett Foundation call 688-8887. To learn more about Pacific Pride call 963-3636.