Draft:Ronnie Haran: Difference between revisions

60’s female photographer and band manager

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• Comment: Random boldings, chatgpt source left in refs, written like AI, largely unsourced. No. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:30, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

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Introduction

Ronnie Haran (her-ən), born August 9,1939, is a figure known for her contributions as an actress, photographer, publicist, and booking manager, particularly noted for her role in discovering, nurturing, and managing musical talent in the latter half of the 1960’s.

Her journey into the world of entertainment began in 1959 as an actress, finding roles in some of the most quintessential episodic television series of that era.^[1] In the mid-1960s, Ronnie transitioned from acting to behind-the-scenes roles, first as a publicist and then as a booking manager for the venue, The Whisky a Go Go. Ronnie had a role in discovering, supporting, and managing the careers of emerging musical talents The Doors, Love, and Van Morrison.^{[2] [3]}

In addition to her work in the music industry, Ronnie integrated herself into the art scene of Los Angeles, where her passion for photography grew. She captured moments of now-renowned actors (Stuart Whitman, Tuesday Weld, Dudley Moore), musicians (Donovan, Moby Grape, The Doors, Michelle Phillips, The Byrds, David Bowie, a young Michael Jackson, James Brown), and visual artists (Andy Warhol & Paul Morrissey, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski).^[4] Her photographic work extends beyond documentation, as her images found their way onto album covers, publicity posters, magazine spreads, and memorial tributes. Ronnie’s journey took her beyond borders, including a trip to China in the late 1970s, preceding diplomatic efforts alongside luminaries from the film and music industries.

Lucy Bell, co-owner with photographic printer Robin Bell, of the Lucy Bell Gallery in East Sussex, England, calls Ronnie Haran “the best unknown rock and roll photographer of that time”.

Early Life

Ronnie was born on August 9, 1939. Her parents were Gertrude and Harry Rosenthal. Mr. Rosenthal manufactured women’s suits. Ronnie’s father, Harry, gave her a camera at a young age, which began her lifelong love of photography. Her father took 8mm home movies and they would splice the film and create subtitles together. Ronnie’s first business was setting up a comic rental in an orange crate in front of her building, out of which she rented out and sold first-rate Marvel comics.

When she was ten years old, a cousin’s death prompted Ronnie to raise money for the March of Dimes by selling her own baked goods door to door, accompanied by a neighbor’s dog, and raised $180. After receiving 10-year-old Ronnie’s Donation, the March of Dimes shared her contribution and age, eliciting newspaper coverage and requests for interviews. Her story created interest from Wall Street and inspired an additional $1000 donation. She found herself being invited to do personal appearances and talk shows. She was a guest on the Betty Crocker Show, whose products she used to create her baked goods.

She was recognized by the acting mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri as “publicity gold” and was appointed the first chairman of the Mother’s March on Polio for the borough of Manhattan. This led to more notoriety and parades, and eventually 3 million dollars was raised. Ronnie’s interests and outlook at the time drew her toward other charitable pursuits, including dog rescue and several years with the Godmothers’ League, caring for wards of the court, along with other volunteer work.

Ronnie has a lifelong love of musical theater and often attended first-run Broadway productions such as The Pajama Game, My Fair Lady, Carousel, and Oklahoma!. She was invited frequently to go backstage to meet the cast. She became close friends with many cast members of the original West Side Story, especially David Winters, as Baby John. This is also when she met Tuesday Weld.

Ronnie skipped third grade and graduated high school at fifteen years old. As a teenager, she worked for her uncle as a photographer at Sterling Publications. She attended Boston University, studying Theatre Arts at the School of Fine Arts.

Acting Career

In the mid 1950’s, Ronnie was signed by the William Schuller Agency and began landing roles on episodic television, traveling frequently between New York and Los Angeles for work. While in Los Angeles, she lived with Rona Barrett, who at the time was a gossip columnist and president of the Eddie Fisher Fan Club. Rona worked for her uncle’s magazines at Sterling Publications, where Ronnie photographed some of the first British groups to reach American audiences, including the Dave Clark Five, The Rolling Stones, and Peter and Gordon.

Ronnie began her career working in both Los Angeles and New York. She was first represented by Bill Kelley of MCA and later by Bob Shapiro of the William Morris Agency. During this time, she appeared in a number of popular television series of the 1960s, including Ben Casey, Cheyenne, and The Fugitive, among others. She also appeared in the film Come September alongside Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Bobby Darin, and Sandra Dee.

Ronnie made her Broadway debut in 1962, when she replaced Joey Heatherton as Little Margaret in Step on a Crack.^[5] At the time, she was guaranteed a three-month salary, with her travel and rent covered. She continued pursuing acting and studied with David Pressman at the Neighborhood Playhouse and Martin Landau at the Actor’s Studio. Ronnie also attended acting improv lesions with Charles E. Conrad. She also studied with John Cassavetes, sharing the classroom with Jack Nicholson, Harry Dean Stanton, Benny Carruthers, Rupert Cross, Dennis Hopper, and many others.

Club Booker and Band Manager 1966-1969

The Whisky a Go Go: Los Angeles, Love & The Doors

In 1966, her friend, Elmer Valentine, offered Ronnie a position assisting his publicist at his new club, the Whisky A Go Go, for $50 a week. She was 26 years old. Within three weeks, her initiative earned her a raise to $75 a week. Ronnie quickly realized that if the Whisky began serving food, the club could lower its age requirement from 21 to 18. She took the idea to heart, creating a menu and presenting it to the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to support the change. Ronnie then found a designer to create a new Whisky logo and launched an advertising campaign to promote the club.

As the Whisky and her responsibilities grew, she was relied on to book “the happening” acts. This led her to manage some of the biggest LA groups.

Love

When Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) made its way to Los Angeles in 1966, stopping at the nightclub The Trip, Ronnie found herself in the midst of this avant-garde scene. She had the opportunity to photograph Warhol, Morrissey, and others within this artist circle. Around this time, Ronnie befriended Trina Robbins, the noted cartoonist and designer.

While attending the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Ronnie met Herb Cohen, who at the time was managing the band Love. Cohen had recently told Elmer Valentine that he needed someone to run Love’s fan club, which led to Ronnie being introduced to the group during one of their shows at Bido Lito’s.^[6] Not long after, during her first phone call with lead singer Arthur Lee, he surprised her by asking her to fire Cohen, and that was how Ronnie became Love’s manager. She took on the role without any formal contracts and was rarely paid.

Ronnie Haran’s photograph of the band was chosen for the back cover of Love’s 1967 album Forever Changes and also submitted many images to Crawdaddy magazine for publishing.

For a few years, Ronnie guided the band’s direction before choosing to take on a less active role.

The Doors

Meanwhile, one night in 1966, she visited London Fog with her friend, Peter Asher, to listen to a group called The Doors.^{[7] [8]} The band was fired that night, and was about to break up, when Ronnie offered them a job to be the house band at the Whisky.^[9][10][11] Ronnie soon formed a deep trust with Jim Morrison, going so far as to let him live with her for a 2 month period in Los Angeles.^[12] The Doors had aspired to be as big as Love, which was the band she was currently managing. With Ronnie’s assistance, the Doors slowly gathered momentum, opening for the headliners and playing two sets every night. At their final night at the Whisky, the Doors opened for Them, culminating in both Morrisons (Van and Jim) jamming onstage to “Gloria”. John Densmore reflects on the fact that “the Whisky was finally a gig that we could be proud of”.^[13][14] “I am here to tell you that Ronnie Haran is the person who discovered The Doors,” Ray Manzarek said in an interview decades after Ronnie first began assisting the band.^[15]

Ronnie Haran is also accredited for writing the liner notes for the 1966 London Fog album. Soon the house band developed a following of its own, and the Whisky became a destination for local counterculture types. Ronnie also connected Jim to Elektra Records, with producer Paul Rothchild and Bruce Botnick.

Haran soon became the Whisky’s house booker, transforming it from a discotheque into an iconic club on the Strip (and the first live music venue ever to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). She supported local bands, including The Byrds, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Buffalo Springfield, The Turtles, and others. Ronnie eventually created her own company, Promotional Management, through which she partnered with talents such as Van Morrison, Moby Grape, Taj Mahal, Them, and Donovan (with help from Ashley Kovacs), providing guidance, visibility, and direction.

As publicity director at the Whisky, Ronnie collaborated with record and film companies on promotional tie-ins, arranged national features for Life, Look, and The Saturday Evening Post, and organized fashion shows and private events at the club. Haran kept her camera close, snapping photos that would later find their way onto some published album covers — like Love’s Forever Changes, Moby Grape’s Wow/Grape Jam, Mitch Ryder’s Too Many Fish in the Sea, and The Gentle Soul’s self-titled debut, among others. Ronnie also contributed her photography to local underground publications, including World Countdown. World Countdown was a biweekly underground music newspaper published in California by editor and compiler, Richard Morton Jack, from August 1966 to July 1969.^[16] The publication gained recognition for its extensive coverage of the Californian music scene and is now regarded as rare and highly collectible.

After leaving the Whisky, Ronnie worked under a licensed talent agent, Dave Otto. She worked in that role for several months before moving on to new ventures.

San Francisco: Moby Grape & the Monterey Pop Festival

In this period, Ronnie was active across California, establishing connections with several musicians, including members of Moby Grape, a band from the San Francisco Bay Area. She supported the group near Boulder Creek during 1967 and 1968, informally managing them for approximately six months around the release of their self-titled debut album, Moby Grape (1967). Ronnie is also credited with taking the photograph featured on the back cover of their 1968 album Wow/Grape Jam.

Ronnie attended the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 with Michelle and John Phillips.

Photography

From the age of five or six, Ronnie had an interest in photography, which stems from her father. He often came home with the latest industry gadgets, starting with a Minox, then a Rolleiflex, a Hasselblad, 16 millimeter movie cameras, and projectors, and he was constantly creating home movies. Ronnie would help him edit clips and add captions, developing a lifelong love for capturing and shaping images. Much of this early material still exists in New York.

By the early 1970s, she continued to pursue photography as her professional career interest, working on sets for both television and film. She took a masterclass in the UCLA Photography Department under Robert Heinecken, photographing subjects including Tuesday Weld, Olivia Hussey, Michelle Phillips, Alfred Hitchcock, Mick Jagger, and David Bowie. She also worked on album photography for major labels such as Epic, Elektra, and Columbia, and contributed as a West Coast editor for Show Magazine. Additionally, Ronnie worked with Marilyn Grabowski (Playboy), photographing authors who wrote interviews and essays in the magazine. Furthermore, because of her friendship with Maurice Tuchman (the youngest curator of modern contemporary art at LACMA) Ronnie photographed and was exposed to everyone from Masami Teraoka, Max Bill, David Hockney, and more. Simultaneously, she worked in publicity for Film X for many years, during which time she worked on the 1972 concert film of Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic. Ronnie primarily used her Pentax camera.

Ronnie continued her photography and became a location scout and producer in Santa Barbara, opening her own company. She worked with Harold Ramis, Michael Bay, Oliver Stone, Andy Davies, Bruce Weber and many commercial directors. For over three decades, she managed this business with distinction before concluding this chapter.

Ronnie Haran married Chase Mellon on February 14, 1970. She currently resides in Montecito, California, where she lives with her dog companions.^[17]

While reviewing her personal archive of photographs, art collections, and memorabilia, she and her team have expressed hopes of developing a documentary to chronicle her life, work, and creative legacy.

References