Meta Rosenberg (5 June 1915 – 30 December 2004), born Meta Arenson, was an American
television producer
A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of video production on a television show, television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television net ...
and talent agent, who was also executive producer of the television series ''
The Rockford Files
''The Rockford Files'' is an American detective drama television series starring James Garner that aired on the NBC network from September 13, 1974 to January 10, 1980, and remains in syndication. Garner portrays Los Angeles private investigator ...
''.
Early life
Born in San Francisco and raised in Los Angeles, Rosenberg graduated from
Hollywood High School
Hollywood High School is a four-year public secondary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, located at the intersection of North Highland Avenue and West Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California.
Histo ...
in 1930, after skipping three grades.
After a period working at
Stanley Rose Stanley Rose (December 5, 1899 – October 17, 1954) was an American bookseller, literary agent, and raconteur, whose eponymous Hollywood bookshop, located (from 1935 until its closure in 1939) adjacent to the famous Musso & Frank Grill restaur ...
's bookstore, she became a story editor at
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
and later led the story department at
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
.
From the mid-thirties to the late forties, Rosenberg was head of the literary department at the Berg-Allenberg talent agency, and worked with such writers as
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
,
Bertold Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
, and
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
. In 1950 she adopted a daughter and spent most of the 1950s as a stay-at-home mother.
HUAC testimony
Along with her first husband Irving Reis, Rosenberg was a member of the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
for seven years, but eventually came to regard the party as intellectually intolerant and prone to using intimidation tactics to enforce conformity. "The minute you disagree, they begin to call you names, and this is a form of intimidation, this is a form of fear."
In April 1951 she testified before the
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
as a friendly witness, identifying other party members whom she had seen at party meetings. Among the names she put forward were actress
Dorothy Tree and her husband Michael Uris, writer
Francis Faragoh
Francis Edward Faragoh (born Ferenc Eduárd Faragó; October 16, 1898 – July 25, 1966) was a Hungarian-American screenwriter. He wrote for 20 films between 1929 and 1947. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 4th Academy Awards, 1931 f ...
, agent George Willner, screenwriter
Madeleine Ruthven
Madeleine Ruthven (October 26, 1893 – February 20, 1978) was an American screenwriter and poet active from 1923 to 1936.
Biography
Born to Dwight Skinner and Catherine Bingham in Hornick, Iowa, Madeleine Dwight Skinner was raised in Houston ...
, artist
Edward Biberman
Edward Biberman (October 23, 1904 – January 27, 1986) was an American artist active in the mid-twentieth century. His work ranged from stylised portraits to history-inspired murals, and drew on the emerging urban landscapes of southern Californ ...
, and screenwriter
Carlton Moss
Carlton Moss (February 14, 1909 – August 10, 1997) was an African-American screenwriter, actor and film director. Moss directed the documentary ''Frederick Douglass: The House on Cedar Hill''.
Biography
Moss was raised in both North Carolina ...
.
Rosenberg's decision to supply names to HUAC led to social ostracism and derision from former friends.
Nunnally Johnson sent her a telegram stating, "I trust this will convince you that politics is no business for a fetching girl. Politics is for flat-chested girls."
On another occasion she was derided as a "stool pigeon" while walking down La Cienega Boulevard.
Her former friend
Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including ''Roman Holiday'' (1953), ''Exodus'', ''Spartacus'' (both 1960), and ''Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo'' (1944) ...
criticized her for having
named names selectively: "
hebehaved like most informers when called before HUAC: she gave the names of communists she probably did not like, and withheld the names of communists she probably did like".
Television career
She returned to working as a talent agent in 1960, and represented actors including
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the List of awards and nominations received by Robert Redford, recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Awards, Academy Award from four nomi ...
and
James Garner. During this period she persuaded networks to buy the television series ''
Julia'', ''
Hogan's Heroes
''Hogan's Heroes'' is an American television sitcom set in a Nazi German prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during World War II. It ran for 168 episodes (six seasons) from September 17, 1965, to April 4, 1971, on the CBS network, the longest broadcast ...
'', and ''
Ben Casey''. In 1963 she created ''
Breaking Point'', a spinoff of ''Ben Casey'' which starred
Paul Richards as a resident psychiatrist at a fictional New York City hospital.
After representing James Garner for several years, she became a partner in his production company Cherokee Productions, which produced the TV series ''
Nichols Nichols may refer to:
People
*Nichols (surname)
*Nichol, a surname
Places Canada
* Nichols Islands, Nunavut
United States
* Nichols, California, an unincorporated community
* Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, California
* Nichols, Connecticut
* Nic ...
'',
''
The Rockford Files
''The Rockford Files'' is an American detective drama television series starring James Garner that aired on the NBC network from September 13, 1974 to January 10, 1980, and remains in syndication. Garner portrays Los Angeles private investigator ...
'', and ''
Bret Maverick''. Rosenberg was nominated three times for an
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
for her work on ''The Rockford Files'', and won once.
In addition to producing ''The Rockford Files'', she also directed six episodes.
Personal life
Rosenberg was married twice: to director
Irving Reis, and to talent agent George Rosenberg. She had one child, an adopted daughter named Amy.
In her later years, Rosenberg was an enthusiastic amateur photographer whose works were exhibited at the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica.
In the late 1990s, she began to experience blindness as a result of
macular degeneration
Macular degeneration, also known as age-related macular degeneration (AMD or ARMD), is a medical condition which may result in blurred or no vision in the center of the visual field. Early on there are often no symptoms. Over time, however, som ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenberg, Meta
1915 births
2004 deaths
American communists
Television producers from California
Hollywood High School alumni
American women television producers
American talent agents
People from San Francisco
People from Los Angeles