Soon Rona had her own column in the then #1 fan magazine, Photoplay. It would only be a matter of a few years when a magazine bearing her own name overtook that magazine as the leader in its field – and paved the way for the introduction of the celebrity-oriented People magazine.
Rona’s success, however, was not limited to just print journalism. In the mid sixties, she began reporting on show business and its stars right in the middle of where it all happened — Hollywood. Her reports for ABC station, KABC-TV was so successful, she graduated to the entire network of ABC owned and operated stations. From there she became the first nationally syndicated reporter through the Metromedia stations. With ABC, Rona also worked on a special daytime series including interviews with Jerry Falwell and Tom Cruise. In the early 70’s she produced and hosted a groundbreaking string of intimate interview specials called “Rona Looks At…” which featured in-depth interviews with top personalities from Raquel Welch, Liza Minnelli and Cher to Michael Caine, James Caan, and Burt Reynolds.
In 1975, Rona was invited to return to ABC to bring her brand of journalism to a new show she helped create and inaugurate, Good Morning America. There, her news reports and interviews became the talk of not only Hollywood, but also America, including even the notoriously media-shy Alfred Hitchcock!
In the early 80’s she left ABC and continued her success as a Contributing Editor to NBC’s Today Show and West Coast Anchor for Tomorrow Coast To Coast. Her interview subjects ranged from OJ Simpson and Magic Johnson to David Bowie, Roman Polanski, Bette Davis, Sylvester Stallone, Elton John, Reverand Billy Graham and hundreds more!
After her tenure with those programs was completed, she hosted a series of network specials as well as frequently sitting in for Larry King on CNN’s Larry King Live, interviewing all types of celebrities to political movers and shakers including Mrs. Gerald Ford.
Convinced that everyone’s second business was becoming show business, she began publishing her own newsletter, The Rona Barrett Report, which offered its subscribers unparalleled insight and details on all the entertainment-related companies including Time-Warner, Viacom, Fox and many more.
After the devastating 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, Rona and her late husband, businessman William Trowbridge, moved their base of operations north to Santa Barbara County where they raised and sold running Paint Horses and eventually began growing Lavender, one of the most healthy and medicinal of all herbs. With the growing of the Lavender Fields came a line of Lavender Food and Skin Care Products, recently sold. Their ranch, LuvLand Farms, became familiar to many of the stars who also live in the area including Bo Derek, John Forsythe, Cheryl Ladd, Fess Parker, Bernie Taupin, Noah Wylie, David Crosby and many others.
With her immeasurable contacts, insights, and opinions related to the world of entertainment, Rona’s expertise has been frequently utilized by many of the world’s entertainment conglomerates. After the years she has served reporting about show business and interviewing its most talked-about personalities, she has seen empires –and careers – built, lost, only to be built or reclaimed again.
Most of all, she has never lost her fascination with people or her drive to understand what makes people tick. She is like millions of us, with one important difference: she’s lived her life right alongside the major players! And she’s not afraid to ask the questions everyone wants answered.
Today, Ms. Barrett still makes her home in the Santa Ynez Valley where she lives with her two dogs. She is engaged to her childhood sweetheart, author Daniel McNeet.
She is also the founder of the non-profit Rona Barrett Foundation, created to promote the emotional, financial, physical well-being and dignity of low-income elderly adults
Aside from being the Founder and CEO of the Foundation, "Miss Rona" also spends her time talking to groups around the country about aging and caring for the elderly. She has served as Member and President of the Board of Santa Ynez Valley Hospital whose doors were once threatened by closure for lack of funding. Today, that threat no longer exists. |
In 1986, Rona Barrett bought her first ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley and commuted back and forth to Los Angeles until 1991. It was then that she decided to reside on the Central Coast full time. Miss Rona had spent three decades of her life on television, starting her career on the local Los Angeles station, KABC, graduating to their five owned and operated stations around the country and finally to the network in 1975 where she inaugurated Good Morning America. 