Jody Jacobs, 82; Times Editor Covered Changing L.A. Society

Jody Jacobs, the society editor of the Los Angeles Times for 14 years at a time when Los Angeles was rapidly changing and expanding, died Wednesday at her home in Atascadero, Calif. The cause was congestive heart failure, said her husband, Bernard Leason. She was 82.

Widely considered the last and one of the best society reporters of the era, Jacobs covered the social life of the city from 1971 to 1985.

She started her beat a few years after the Los Angeles Music Center, which opened in 1964, had turned the downtown area into a center for the arts. At the same time, the city’s first black mayor, Tom Bradley, and his wife, Ethel, broadened the city’s social network beyond the “old money” families.

The state’s high-profile governor, Ronald Reagan, a Los Angeles resident whose “kitchen cabinet” members were mostly Angelenos, added another dimension to Jacobs’ coverage. And there was “Hollywood society,” which included elegant senior citizens like Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ann Miller and others of their generation through the 1970s.

Jacobs followed the disparate groups from the annual opening of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s season at the Music Center to the major fundraising dinners attended by the mayor and governor to the private parties in tented backyards of Pasadena, Hancock Park, Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. A graceful woman, she blamed her constant battle with weight on the social events she covered nearly every night.

“Jody was a perfect society reporter,” said Jean Sharley Taylor, who was The Times’ associate editor in charge of feature news when Jacobs’ column ran in what was then called the View section. “Her sources were impeccable and she was respected, trusted and liked. That’s how she got her tips.”

Among her more important exclusive interviews was one that came after Reagan was elected president in 1980.

The evening before his inauguration, over tea with Reagan and his wife, Nancy, at Blair House in Washington, D.C., Jacobs took notes as Reagan hunted through luggage for his mother’s Bible, which he had brought from California to use during his swearing-in ceremony. She also reported that Reagan wanted an inauguration eve dinner of macaroni and cheese, a favorite of his.

Carrying only a tiny notebook that she kept on the chair beside her, except to jot the occasional note, Jacobs covered parties by night and worked on profiles by day.

“She did her homework before an interview,” said Helen Chaplin, who as a member of the executive staff of the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel from the early 1960s until 1987 saw Jacobs interview prominent guests. “If the person she was meeting liked to do needlepoint, Jody would talk about needlepoint. And she was always smiling.”

Born Josephine Caceres in Margarita, Venezuela, in 1922, Jacobs moved to New York City with her family at age 6. She attended Hunter College in New York City, majoring in journalism, and joined Women’s Wear Daily in 1957, working first in Los Angeles and later in New York and London for the fashion trade paper before joining The Times.

After her marriage to Russell Lee Jacobs ended, she married Leason in 1972. She is survived by him; her daughter with Jacobs, Jessica Salet; three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

“She loved being society editor,” said Leason, who often escorted Jacobs to events she was covering. “She liked the idea that she was pulling the big, diffuse city together in her columns.”

Jacobs wrote one novel after her retirement, “The Right Circles” (1988), about a young woman embroiled in the not-always-nice social scene.

Contributions in Jacobs’ name can be made to the Braille Institute of America, Development Department, 741 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, Calif., 90029.