Rita Edelman; Philanthropist, Hollywood Socialite

Rita A. Edelman, who lived a life filled with celebrities and philanthropy, has died at the age of 90.

Edelman died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was the widow of prolific television and motion picture producer Lou Edelman, whose films included the 1951 biopic of songwriter Gus Kahn, “I’ll See You in My Dreams.”

Hollywood luminary Louis B. Mayer was best man at the couple’s wedding on Sept. 1, 1933. Lou Edelman brought many celebrities home for Rita’s cooking--Kahn, Jerome Kern, Morey Amsterdam, Harry Warren, James Cagney, Alan Ladd, Barbara Stanwyck, John Huston, Zero Mostel and Danny Thomas among them.

The classic song “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” was written in 1938 by Warren and Johnny Mercer for the Edelmans’ daughter, Rosemary.

Rita Edelman, a native New Yorker educated at National Park Seminary in Washington, D.C., devoted herself to philanthropy--particularly the United Cerebral Palsy Assn., which made her honorary lifetime president, and in 1986 recognized her for volunteer efforts on behalf of the United Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Children’s Foundation.

A major fund-raiser for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, she recently attended a benefit for the fund produced by Kevin Spacey at the home of her other daughter, Kate Edelman Johnson.

Survivors include daughters Rosemary and Kate, and one sister, Ruth J. Golding.

Services will be at 3 p.m. today at Hillside Memorial Chapel, 6001 Centinela Ave.

Memorial contributions can be made to United Cerebral Palsy, 7630 Gloria Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91406; the Motion Picture and Television Fund, 22212 Ventura Blvd. No. 300, Woodland Hills, CA; or Parkinson’s Institute, in care of Caroline Tanner, 1170 Morse Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1605.