Bob Pranga and his friend Debi Staron met in New York as aspiring actors. They moved to L.A. in 1989 with a few hundred dollars and enough nerve to start a business decorating well-to-do homes for the holidays. There were no guidelines for “styling for the stars,” Pranga says. “I had to make everything up.”
Jeanette Marantos started writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1999, doing Money Makeovers until 2002. She returned to write for The Times’ Homicide Report in 2015 and the Saturday garden section in 2016, a yin and yang that kept her perspective in balance. In early 2020, she moved full time into Features, with a focus on all things flora. In June of 2023 she began writing the monthly L.A. Times Plants newsletter, which included a calendar of upcoming plant-related events. Marantos was a SoCal native who spent more than 20 years in central Washington as a daily reporter, columnist, freelancer and mom before returning to the land of eucalyptus and sage. She died Feb. 7, 2026.
Brenda Elizondo is an audience engagement fellow at the Los Angeles Times. She was previously a video content creator and reporter for L.A. Times Food and De Los, the Latinidad section. She received her bachelor’s degree in communications from Cal State Fullerton.
