Advertisement
Awards Tracker

Golden Globes: Diane Warren and the Ronni Chasen tragedy

By Steven Zeitchikwriter 
Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

There was something poignant about hearing winner Diane Warren pay tribute to late publicist Ronni Chasen backstage while seeing Jeff Sanderson, Chasen’s former associate, look on with a wistful expression. Chasen and Co., of course, represents Warren and worked on the campaign for the film. The songwriter was one of the last people Chasen spoke to before she was killed.

Warren was asked directly several times who she believed killed Chasen, but she handled it with aplomb, deflecting and saying, in a similar vein to her onstage comment, ‘I love Ronni. The saddest thing about this is that she’s not here to celebrate this with me.’

Advertisement

Warren also nodded to someone different entirely: The performer who gave voice to her song in ‘Burlesque.’ ‘We’ve never seen the last of Cher, and thank God we never will.’

Wonder what Ricky Gervais would say about that?

-- Steven Zeitchik

Awards Tracker
Steven Zeitchik

Steven Zeitchik is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer who covered film and the larger world of Hollywood for the paper from 2009 to 2017, exploring the personalities, issues, content and consequences of both the creative and business (and, increasingly, digital) aspects of our screen entertainment. He previously covered entertainment beats at Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, has contributed arts and culture pieces to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times and has done journalistic tours of duty in Jerusalem and Berlin. While at The Times he has also reported stories in cities ranging from Cairo to Krakow, though Hollywood can still seem like the most exotic destination of all.

Advertisement