Did Ronni Chasen's Fiery Temper Anger the Cyclist Who Shot and Killed Her?

by Dr. Lillian Glass

The day after Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was killed, her friends and colleagues sang her praises. They said she was the sweetest woman, who was loved by all. But as we read between the lines, their comments reveal a different story.

Their comments may give us more insight into her personality and perhaps why  Harold Smith, the person of interest, wanted her dead.  Smith ended up  committing suicide after police confronted him. Initially, police said he had  nothing to do with her murder. But now it has been discovered that he was indeed the murderer.

The Beverly Hills Police now say that Harold Smith killed her, while riding his bike, as Ronni was on Sunset Boulevard, turning left onto Whittier Drive. Apparently, Smith bragged to people that he killed Ronni and that is why they sought him out as a person of interest.

While police have said it looked to be a botched robbery, was she actually a victim of road rage? Did she cut cyclist Smith off or honk at him or yell at him? Was he so enraged by this that he pulled a gun and simply shot her?  He didn’t just shoot her once; he shot her five times. This meant he was furious with her and wanted her dead.

Ronni’s brother, Larry Cohen, even thought it was road rage. When he found out this happened, he remarked that his sister had a fiery temper and speculated that she may have angered the wrong person on the road while driving. He would certainly know his sister’s personality best.

Adjectives commonly used to describe Ronni by family and friends and colleagues were:  persistent, doggedly determined, fiercely protective, pushy, and very aggressive.

One colleague remarked that Ronni was known for her "fast-talking, old school, New York aggressiveness on behalf of her clients and was not a person one quickly forgot after meeting.”

Songwriter Diane Warren painted a picture of a publicist who was determined to get whatever she wanted no matter what. She described a situation when Ronni wanted a photo taken of Diane with some other celebrities in the photograph. Diane reported, “(Chasen) goes, ‘I don’t care what I have to do--I’m getting that picture,’ That was Ronni. She had something she wanted to do and she got that picture. She’d tell you what to do, and people listened to her.”

At Ronni’s funeral service, her relentless, turbocharged drive was mentioned by many. Those giving the eulogy each described Chasen’s forceful personality. Ronni’s close friend Vivian Mayer-Siskind’s comment about Ronni spoke volumes about Ronni when she stated, “Ronni came to me last night and was pissed as hell. ‘Now you get me a free Armani suit.’”

Perhaps the most compelling insight into Chasen’s personality came from producer Irwin Winkler of Rocky fame. He told the Los Angeles Times that when his 2004 film De-Lovely was not nominated for a Golden Globe, Chasen “was furious. She screamed and yelled at (members of) the Hollywood Foreign Press,” the group that puts on the annual awards show.

While Ronni may have been nice to her friends, colleagues, studio executives, and A-list celebrity clients who paid her large amounts of money, how did she treat others? When someone yells and screams at others, like producer Irwin Winkler reported Ronni did because her client didn’t get nominated for an award, it makes you wonder.

Did that aggressive, yelling, and relentless behavior transfer over on to the road? Did she scream and yell at the wrong person on the road who ended up shooting her? Obviously, there was someone in the last moments of her life who was angry. Harold Smith was so angry that he shot her five times in the chest.