Meta Rosenberg, an Emmy-winning producer, agent, writer and director whose career spanned 65 years, was a dynamic individual who was acquainted and collaborated with many of the most renowned literary and entertainment-industry figures of the 20th century.
Rosenberg grew up in the Hollywood Hills, where one of her neighborhood friends as a girl was silent-film legend, Rudolph Valentino. Such was the Zelig-like sweep of Rosenberg's life that while working at the Stanley Rose bookstore during her years at Hollywood High School, she often shared opinions about literature and life with such authors as Nathanael West and John O'Hara, who were customers of the store. A precocious student, Rosenberg skipped grades and graduated from Hollywood High at 15, after which she found a job in the story department at Fox. She then moved to New York to work for the Small-Landau Agency. Upon returning to Hollywood, she became head of the story department at Paramount Pictures, where she worked with some of the most admired writers of Hollywood's Golden Age. While at Paramount, Rosenberg, who at one point was the only female executive on the lot, prevailed upon director Billy Wilder to hire her friend Raymond Chandler to write the screenplay for the film-noir classic Double Indemnity.
Rosenberg, who went on to become an agent for Berg-Allenberg, cemented her position in the agency business with her 1947 marriage to fellow agent George "Rosey" Rosenberg, with whom she shared a fulfilling professional life that was surpassed only by the personal life the couple shared together until his death in 1969. True to her origins as a lover of literature, among those she represented as an agent were authors Christopher Isherwood and Bertold Brecht, as well as many screenwriters and actors, among them Robert Redford, James Mason and James Garner. When she believed in material, Rosenberg was known to fight for it tirelessly, regardless of detractors. Her determination allowed her to overcome great resistance from the networks to sell groundbreaking series like Julia, starring Diahann Carroll as an African-American nurse and single mother; Hogan's Heroes, a comedy about a WW II prison camp; and Ben Casey, a drama about doctors, a milieu previously avoided on TV because of its association with illness and death.
Meta branched into a producing when she partnered with client James Garner on a number of series, including the award-winning The Rockford Files, which aired on NBC from 1974-1980. It was there that she nurtured new writers like David Chase, Stephen J. Cannell, and Juanita Bartlett, and took great pride in watching their own careers flourish. Years later, with David Chase, Meta would win an Emmy for their movie "Off the Minnesota Strip." Meta directed a number of Rockford episodes as well. "I was extremely fond of Meta," said Garner, upon learning of her passing. "Our working relationship was a great success, and I will always cherish the wonderful memories." Sidney J. Sheinberg, a partner of the entertainment company The Bubble Factory, and President of MCA/Universal when Rockford was in production, added, "My recollection of Meta Rosenberg is that she was a person of great integrity, stamina and talent. I admired her courage in changing her career from talent agent to producing in an era when women producers were a rarity. Those who knew her will miss her greatly."
One of the most moving tributes to Rosenberg's memory came from David Chase, creator, writer and producer of The Sopranos. Reflecting on his Rockford years and subsequent close friendship with Rosenberg, Chase described her as "a complete original. And totally, absolutely fearless. Those snarling Universal apparatchiks that had the rest of us on the lot cowed, she ate them for breakfast. She led an extraordinary adventure of a life through the force of her personality, her genius and her charm. She was a successful woman in a 'man's' industry, on her own terms, long before there was Women in Film or any of that. I miss her already, my wife and I both. She was more than a friend. A teacher, for sure, and probably also a second mother. I learned so much from Meta—about having standards and staying with them, keeping a sense of humor in the face of disaster, certainly about good writing, what made for good actors. And also about important things like food, and Paris."
Not surprisingly, Rosenberg's impressive professional achievements marked her as a pioneer for opportunities for women in the entertainment industry. Iris Grossman, President of Women in Film, said, "She was involved with Women in Film from the very beginning. If it weren't for women like Meta, a lot of us wouldn't have begun the careers we now have." Although her production responsibilities kept her extremely busy, Rosenberg never lost her acute aesthetic sense, and she maintained a lifelong interest in black-and-white photography, which began when she bought a Leica at age 25. Her favorite subjects were everyday people, especially children at play. She was also a serious collector of such world-class photographers as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams, Irving Penn, W. Eugene Smith and Andre Kertesz. Rosenberg's own work was so accomplished that at 86 she exhibited her photographs in a successful one-woman show at the prestigious Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica, which specializes in the works of internationally famous photographers.
