Meta Rosenberg, agent and Emmy-winning exec producer of "The Rockford Files"

[deb...@comcast.net]

Meta Rosenberg, agent and Emmy-winning exec producer of "The Rockford
Files," died Dec. 30 in Beverly Hills. She was 89.
After graduating from Hollywood High at age 15, she went directly to
the story department at Fox. She spent time in New York working for the
Small-Landau Agency, and when she returned to L.A., became head of the
story department at Paramount.

While there, she urged director Billy Wilder to hire her friend Raymond
Chandler to write the screenplay for "Double Indemnity." She married
agent George "Rosey" Rosenberg, and they partnered in their own talent
agency until his death in 1969.

During her 65-year career she worked with clients including Christopher
Isherwood, Berthold Brecht, Robert Redford, James Mason and James
Garner. She overcame resistance from the networks to sell
groundbreaking series such as "Julia," "Hogan's Heroes" and "Ben
Casey," which included unusual subjects for their time.

She became a producer when she partnered with client James Garner on a
number of series, including "The Rockford Files," for which she won one
Emmy and was twice nominated.

Producer Sidney Sheinberg, president of MCA/Universal when "Rockford"
was in production, said "I admired her courage in changing her career
from talent agent to producing an an era when women producers were a
rarity."

"Sopranos" creator David Chase remembered she was "a complete original,
and totally absolutely fearless."

She was an avid photographer and photography collector of artists
including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams and Andre Kertesz, and
exhibited her own photographs at age 86 at the Peter Fetterman Gallery.

She is survived by a daughter, two grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren.

Donations may be sent to the Hospice Foundation of Los Angeles, 2601
Airport Drive, Suite 230, Torrance, CA 90505.

[Stephen Bowie]

Then using the name Meta Reis Rosenberg, she named names of former
friends and colleagues on the Hollywood left (including Abraham
Polonsky) before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the
early '50s. Like Roy Huggins or Lloyd Bridges she was not all that
well-known when named names and when she became very successful in
television later her past as a friendly witness never caught up with
her to the degree that it did with Elia Kazan or Edward Dmytryk. So,
it's not surprising that the Variety obit either sanitized her HUAC
status, or that the obit writer simply didn't know about it.

Rosenberg was a friend of Richard Collins (they prepared their HUAC
testimony together if I'm remembering Victor Navasky's book "Naming
Names" correctly), notorious among the friendly witnesses for also
having apparently been an FBI informant even before the Committee's
investigation, and also producing for Universal TV (on the "Chrysler
Theatre" and "It Takes a Thief") around the same time as Rosenberg.
And now (at 90) Collins is probably the most important of the finks
who's still with us.

See also this article from Emmy magazine, which also omits the
blacklist-era phase of Rosenberg's career.

http://www.riprense.com/Meta.htm

[Hyfler/Rosner]

"Stephen Bowie" <stephe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1105367835.8...@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Thanks for this. Appreciate you filling out the life.

[Stephen Bowie]

Not to persecute poor dear old Meta in her grave, but just to clarify
her McCarthy-era record beyond what I could remember this morning, she
gave the Committee the names of twenty purported Communists. According
to Robert Vaughn's "Only Victims," six of them had not been previously
mentioned before the Committee. Vaughn (yes, that Robert Vaughn) also
relates the this amusing incident:

"Nunnally Johnson, a producer-writer at Twentieth Century-Fox Studios
at the time of Mrs. Rosenberg's testimony, sent her a telegram which
she presented to [HUAC interrogator Frank] Tavenner at the conclusion
of her testimony. The committee counsel graciously decided to read it
aloud [himself], 'to save the witness a little embarrassment':

Mrs. Meta Rosenberg
Statler Hotel, Washington, D.C.

I trust this will convince you that politics is no business for a
fetching girl. Politics is for flat-chested girls.

(Laughter).

It is certain that those persons whose names were cited publicly for
the first time by Mrs. Rosenberg as having been in attendance at
Communist meetings agreed with Nunnally Johnson."

Rosenberg is mentioned extensively in a number of blacklist histories,
but I don't know if she ever gave an interview on the subject of her
testimony.

In her TV career, Rosenberg was credited with creating the "Ben Casey"
spinoff "Breaking Point" (although her role may have been more that of
a packager). She also parlayed her relationship with James Garner into
some directing assignments (six episodes) on "The Rockford Files"
beginning in 1976, which may have made her the second woman director
(after Ida Lupino) working in prime time television.

[Brad Ferguson]

In article <1105413139.9...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
Stephen Bowie <stephe...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Not to persecute poor dear old Meta in her grave, but just to clarify
> her McCarthy-era record beyond what I could remember this morning, she
> gave the Committee the names of twenty purported Communists. According
> to Robert Vaughn's "Only Victims," six of them had not been previously
> mentioned before the Committee. Vaughn (yes, that Robert Vaughn)

Sure is. The book was drawn from Vaughn's doctoral thesis and was
published (to great acclaim) in 1972. It was regarded as the first
serious, academic look at the blacklist.

Vaughn holds a Ph.D. in communications from USC.