Reba Churchill, 53, Hollywood Columnist and Broadcaster, Dies

Reba Churchill, half of the sister team that wrote about Hollywood for about 285 newspapers worldwide and a frequent contributor to many Los Angeles newspapers, among them The Times, died Monday at UCLA Medical Center of respiratory complications.

She was 53.

Born in Chicago, she attended Hollywood High School and graduated from UCLA. She was in her teens when she became associate society editor of the Hollywood Citizen News and a contributor to the former youth section of The Times.

She and her sister, Bonnie, became co-editors of Silver Screen and Screenland magazines and later began a series of syndicated newspaper columns and Hollywood-oriented radio broadcasts heard over Doubleday and Westinghouse stations.

The daughter of an ophthalmologist, she founded Project Advance, a program that donates instruments to help sightless children at a variety of schools.

At her death, she was working with her sister, her only immediate survivor, on an autobiography, “Babes in the Holly-Woods.”

A funeral service will be held Wednesday at 1 p.m. at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, Glendale.