Beverly Hills, California:
Left with more questions than answers a day after a well-known movie publicist was shot to death on a winding side street here, a stunned Hollywood started scripting possible scenarios of its own.
Was Ronni Chasen, a veteran press agent and Oscar strategist, simply the victim of a carjacking gone terribly wrong? Had the killer followed her as she drove home from a premiere party for the movie "Burlesque"? Did somebody want Ms. Chasen dead? Was the person (or people) responsible in the car with her?
Detectives were investigating all of those questions and more on Wednesday but appeared as lost as Ms. Chasen's friends and clients when it came to making sense of the crime.
Early Tuesday, Ms. Chasen, 64, was shot repeatedly in the chest while driving on palm tree-lined Whittier Drive, often used as a cut-though between Sunset and Wilshire Boulevards. Her black Mercedes-Benz crashed into a street light, and the air bags deployed. She was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 1:30 a.m.
Although witnesses reported hearing five gunshots, the police on Wednesday would say only that Ms. Chasen suffered "multiple" gunshot wounds, pending the results of a coroner's report.
Adding to the mystery: despite a shattered passenger window, "there's no damage to the car that I'm aware of from the gunshots," said Sgt. Lincoln Hoshino of the Beverly Hills Police Department. "The person could have been in the car, outside the car, could've walked up to the car, driven up -- we don't know at this point."
Sergeant Hoshino said investigators were collecting security camera images from home and business cameras along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard Ms. Chasen had driven before turning onto Whittier.
The killing -- one of only three this year in Beverly Hills, according to the police -- stunned a clubby film industry in which Ms. Chasen had been a fixture for three decades, getting her start as a bit player on soap operas before quickly making the transition to the dark arts of publicity and Oscar campaigning.
On Wednesday the Palm Springs International Film Festival, a client of Ms. Chasen's, offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of her killer. About 150 people turned out for an impromptu memorial at the Four Seasons hotel here on Tuesday night; the Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin was helping to plan a similar gathering in New York City for Wednesday night.
The death of Ms. Chasen -- whose hard-charging and abrupt style was softened by a petite frame, quick smile and perfectly blown-out blond hair -- hit a nerve in Hollywood in part because she was seemingly everywhere: lunching at industry watering holes (where she would always pluck a tiny bottle of sweetener from her purse for the iced tea) and attending virtually every awards dinner, charity event and premiere.
Unmarried and without children, Ms. Chasen focused all of her attention on her clients. Just six minutes before her death, she left a voice message at her office with a to-do list for her lieutenants to tackle when they arrived at work the next morning.
Alan Citron, a former reporter for The Los Angeles Times, recalled a vintage moment from 1990, when Ms. Chasen was working on behalf of Giancarlo Parretti, an Italian investor who took and ultimately lost control of M.G.M. Ms. Chasen met Mr. Citron for lunch at the Polo Lounge and playfully "threatened to kill me if we didn't lay off him," Mr. Citron said. When he laughed, Ms. Chasen picked up her butter knife and jokingly pressed it against his chest.
"When she represented you she was an unshakable support," said the producer Donald De Line, whose credits include "Burlesque." Vivian Mayer-Siskind, a fellow publicity veteran, noted that Ms. Chasen, a close friend, had a charming sense of self-awareness.
"She was the first one to point out that she was pushy or could drive people crazy, and that was part of her success," Ms. Mayer-Siskind said.
Armed with a New York accent and a dry wit, Ms. Chasen was one of a handful of elite strategists employed by studios to influence the Oscars. In a clever business move, she cornered the publicity market for composers and songwriters, thus making herself an indispensable part of the best song and best score niches of the Oscar race.
"I'm really almost paralyzed by this," said the producer Richard D. Zanuck, who, backed by a campaign orchestrated by Ms. Chasen, won an Oscar for "Driving Miss Daisy."
Ms. Chasen grew up in the Washington Heights and Riverdale sections of New York, the daughter of a real estate broker and a homemaker. As a child, Ms. Chasen was athletic and gregarious, entering and winning yo-yo contests organized by the Duncan Toys Company, according to her brother, Larry Cohen.
It was Mr. Cohen, a director and writer of B movies, who gave Ms. Chasen one of her first publicity jobs: promoting his 1973 blaxploitation movie "Hell Up in Harlem."
"She played in one or two soap operas -- I can't remember which -- but the rejection of acting wasn't for her," Mr. Cohen said. "She was a natural publicist, though. Oh, how she loved to throw a party."
Rebecca Cathcart contributed reporting.
Was Ronni Chasen, a veteran press agent and Oscar strategist, simply the victim of a carjacking gone terribly wrong? Had the killer followed her as she drove home from a premiere party for the movie "Burlesque"? Did somebody want Ms. Chasen dead? Was the person (or people) responsible in the car with her?
Detectives were investigating all of those questions and more on Wednesday but appeared as lost as Ms. Chasen's friends and clients when it came to making sense of the crime.
Early Tuesday, Ms. Chasen, 64, was shot repeatedly in the chest while driving on palm tree-lined Whittier Drive, often used as a cut-though between Sunset and Wilshire Boulevards. Her black Mercedes-Benz crashed into a street light, and the air bags deployed. She was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 1:30 a.m.
Although witnesses reported hearing five gunshots, the police on Wednesday would say only that Ms. Chasen suffered "multiple" gunshot wounds, pending the results of a coroner's report.
Adding to the mystery: despite a shattered passenger window, "there's no damage to the car that I'm aware of from the gunshots," said Sgt. Lincoln Hoshino of the Beverly Hills Police Department. "The person could have been in the car, outside the car, could've walked up to the car, driven up -- we don't know at this point."
Sergeant Hoshino said investigators were collecting security camera images from home and business cameras along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard Ms. Chasen had driven before turning onto Whittier.
The killing -- one of only three this year in Beverly Hills, according to the police -- stunned a clubby film industry in which Ms. Chasen had been a fixture for three decades, getting her start as a bit player on soap operas before quickly making the transition to the dark arts of publicity and Oscar campaigning.
On Wednesday the Palm Springs International Film Festival, a client of Ms. Chasen's, offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of her killer. About 150 people turned out for an impromptu memorial at the Four Seasons hotel here on Tuesday night; the Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin was helping to plan a similar gathering in New York City for Wednesday night.
The death of Ms. Chasen -- whose hard-charging and abrupt style was softened by a petite frame, quick smile and perfectly blown-out blond hair -- hit a nerve in Hollywood in part because she was seemingly everywhere: lunching at industry watering holes (where she would always pluck a tiny bottle of sweetener from her purse for the iced tea) and attending virtually every awards dinner, charity event and premiere.
Unmarried and without children, Ms. Chasen focused all of her attention on her clients. Just six minutes before her death, she left a voice message at her office with a to-do list for her lieutenants to tackle when they arrived at work the next morning.
Alan Citron, a former reporter for The Los Angeles Times, recalled a vintage moment from 1990, when Ms. Chasen was working on behalf of Giancarlo Parretti, an Italian investor who took and ultimately lost control of M.G.M. Ms. Chasen met Mr. Citron for lunch at the Polo Lounge and playfully "threatened to kill me if we didn't lay off him," Mr. Citron said. When he laughed, Ms. Chasen picked up her butter knife and jokingly pressed it against his chest.
"When she represented you she was an unshakable support," said the producer Donald De Line, whose credits include "Burlesque." Vivian Mayer-Siskind, a fellow publicity veteran, noted that Ms. Chasen, a close friend, had a charming sense of self-awareness.
"She was the first one to point out that she was pushy or could drive people crazy, and that was part of her success," Ms. Mayer-Siskind said.
Armed with a New York accent and a dry wit, Ms. Chasen was one of a handful of elite strategists employed by studios to influence the Oscars. In a clever business move, she cornered the publicity market for composers and songwriters, thus making herself an indispensable part of the best song and best score niches of the Oscar race.
"I'm really almost paralyzed by this," said the producer Richard D. Zanuck, who, backed by a campaign orchestrated by Ms. Chasen, won an Oscar for "Driving Miss Daisy."
Ms. Chasen grew up in the Washington Heights and Riverdale sections of New York, the daughter of a real estate broker and a homemaker. As a child, Ms. Chasen was athletic and gregarious, entering and winning yo-yo contests organized by the Duncan Toys Company, according to her brother, Larry Cohen.
It was Mr. Cohen, a director and writer of B movies, who gave Ms. Chasen one of her first publicity jobs: promoting his 1973 blaxploitation movie "Hell Up in Harlem."
"She played in one or two soap operas -- I can't remember which -- but the rejection of acting wasn't for her," Mr. Cohen said. "She was a natural publicist, though. Oh, how she loved to throw a party."
Rebecca Cathcart contributed reporting.
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