They came by the hundreds from all across the country and within Hollywood. Every senior PR professional and most entertainment journalists but also composers, executives and movie stars -- to pay respects to Ronni Chasen, laying to rest the beloved publicist just five days after she was killed.
The primary message at the packed midday funeral service in the bright, fall air was of shock and loss. Elegant eulogies conveyed how fresh the grief was -- not yet a week removed from her senseless killing at the hands of a person or people still at large.
"My heart is broken," said Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, her client and friend, in his brief eulogy. Later composer Elliot Goldenthal, who had just flown in and arrived late, fell on his shoulders and they embraced, grieving together.
It was a scene repeated many times during the day at a gathering that answered a need for a community in shock. The violence of the act -- five gunshots, the markings of a professional hit -- against someone who was both beloved and in such close touch with people across the movie world made the funeral a moment of communal catharsis.
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"She would be shocked by this outpouring," said producer Lili Fini Zanuck. "The industry came to a standstill out of love for this woman."
In their eulogies and in myriad side conversations, Chasen's friends said they were convinced that she could not possibly have seen anything like this coming.
“She was the most innocent of us all,” Zanuck said during her eulogy. “She had no enemies.”
Those who might suggest she was leading a double life, obviously didn’t know her very well, said Zanuck: “Ronni would’ve been happy to have had a life, let alone a secret one,” she said in her eulogy, a reference to Chasen’s tireless work ethic.
Chasen's friend and fellow publicist Kathie Berlin added that her friends who spoke to her daily would have known if Chasen were involved in anything sinister.
"If someone was following her, we all would have known it," she said in her eulogy.
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The speakers and pallbearers were from Chasen's 40 years inside the industry. The eulogists also included her partner at Chasen & Co Jeff Sanderson, her dearest friends Vivian Mayer-Siskind and Heidi Schaeffer, both publicists who considered Chasen a mentor.
There were laughs as well as tears. "Ronni came to me last night and was pissed as hell," said Mayer-Siskind through her tears. "She said, 'Now you get me a free Armani suit?'"
There were many jokes about Chasen's sensitivity to not telling her age. Her friends said she'd be angry that people knew she was 64 (and had recently celebrated a birthday).
