ABC Television · Public domain

A pioneering entertainment journalist who began as a gossip columnist in 1957 and helped invent modern celebrity television coverage, moving to broadcast on KABC-TV in 1966 and later reporting for Good Morning America, the Today Show and Entertainment Tonight through the 1970s and 80s. She is credited with developing the first in-depth televised profiles of film, music and political celebrities, a format much of later entertainment news would follow. After retiring from media in 1991, she founded the Rona Barrett Foundation to support senior citizens.