Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen shot dead in car

Source: vigilantcitizen.com

Haroon Siddique and agencies
guardian.co.uk

Mystery today surrounded the murder of a prominent Hollywood publicist who was gunned down in her car after attending a film premiere.

Ronni Chasen, who promoted the Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy, was shot in chest in the early hours of yesterday near Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Her Mercedes Benz crashed into a lamp post after the attack.

Police said no threats against the 64-year-old had been reported and they were in the dark over a possible motive or suspects. Officers seized computers from her firm, Chasen and Co, for examination.

The shooting happened after Chasen attended the premiere of the film Burlesque, which the trade publication Variety said she was promoting for the Sony subsidiary Screen Gems in the hope of earning an Oscar nomination for its soundtrack.

Nahid Schekarchian said she heard gunshots from her flat overlooking the scene of the crime. Her daughter-in-law called police, and her son and a neighbour ran down to the car.

They found Chasen struggling to breathe and bleeding from her nose and chest. The front passenger window was shattered.

Amy Pascal, the co-chair of Sony Pictures, said Chasen had been “full of her trademark energy and love of life” at Tuesday’s premiere. “We are heartbroken, shocked and completely devastated,” she said.

Chasen’s fellow publicist Howard Bragman said the killing was bizarre. “She wasn’t a shady character,” he said. “It’s a small community, and she was one of the fixtures in it.”

Chasen had been a part of the Hollywood publicity circuit since the 1970s. She also promoted On Golden Pond, which won Academy awards for best actor, actress and screenplay, in 1981.

Morgan Freeman said he had had the “extreme pleasure” of working with Chasen on Driving Miss Daisy. “We’ve been friends ever since,” the actor said. “She is someone I greatly admired, and she will be remembered.”

Chasen had also been working with 20th Century Fox on a supporting actor Oscar campaign for Michael Douglas in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, Allen Berry, a publicist for the actor, said.

Her other clients included the film producers Irwin Winkler and Richard Zanuck. In recent years, she worked with a number of music clients including Janet Jackson, the composer Hans Zimmer, the producer Glen Ballard and Diane Warren, who wrote the song You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me, which Cher sings in Burlesque.

The crime scene was marked with yellow police tape stretched between two trees on a grassy parkway among the houses south of Sunset Boulevard. An orange cone marked the spot where the lamp post had stood, and a small bouquet of yellow and red flowers was left next to the kerb.

Bradley Turell, a long-time colleague of Chasen who went to the site to mourn his friend, described her as “a positive force of nature”. “She was just great at what she did, a supreme salesperson and a great lady,” he added.

Source: vigilantcitizen.com

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