RONNIE HARAN

Ronnie Haran has had many careers over the course of her astonishing life – successful teenage actress, groundbreaking first female manager, publicist, promoter, and producer – but through it all one singular passion persisted. An avid photographer since childhood, Haran continuously documented her unique perspective, without the intention of creating an extensive collection capturing intimate photos of countless famous friends – musicians and actors, artists and writers, spanning Broadway to Hollywood, New York City jazz clubs to the rock ‘n’ roll heyday of LA’s Sunset Strip. Haran’s unintended knack for being in the right place at the right time, coupled with her photographic ability, enabled her to capture intimate and candid images of her many famous friends. Her photographs capture the essence of the 1960s and 1970s, featuring remarkable glimpses into the lives of numerous international icons including Jim Morrison, Arthur Lee, Dudley Moore, Jimi Hendrix, Dominick Dunne, Michelle Phillips, Alfred Hitchcock, Andy Warhol, Tuesday Weld, David Hockney, David Bowie, Buck Henry, Donovan, and Bob Marley.  For years, Haran’s incredible unseen images were completely disorganized, chaotically stored, and potentially lost forever. But now a dedicated team is searching, rescuing, digitizing, and curating her work both for posterity and major gallery debuts on both coasts.

Growing up in Brooklyn and Manhattan during the early 1940s, Haran was instilled with a strong work ethic from her father, a successful manufacturer and entrepreneur. Perhaps just as importantly, when she was just 5 years old, he gave her a camera with which she almost immediately began documenting her world on film. In no small part thanks to her father’s political and social connections, Haran was exposed to the greatest talents of the 1950s, seeing now-legendary first-run Broadway shows at a young, impressionable age and often being invited backstage to meet the cast. Much of her teenage years were spent frequenting famed New York jazz clubs like Birdland and Jimmy Ryan’s, where she encountered such luminaries as Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Chet  Baker, Ramsey Lewis, and Dave Brubeck, to name only a few.

 It was only natural that Haran became interested in acting, music, and the performing arts. She attended Boston University School of Fine Arts where she almost instantly received special permission to perform in Senior productions. She soon caught the attention of a talent scout who brought her to Hollywood to audition for the film version of The Diary of Anne Frank (though she was deemed “too healthy looking” for the role).

Haran began studying acting on both coasts, her nascent talent earning her a place in classes with 

John Cassavetes, Martin Landau, and famed acting coach Charles E. Conrad, who nicknamed the petite young performer, “Mighty Mouse.” She soon found herself working regularly in TV, stage productions, and films, one year clocking 26 round trips between New York to California.

After making a permanent move to Hollywood in the mid 1960s, Haran’s career flourished, with appearances on popular TV shows such as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Ben Casey, The Untouchables, Naked City, My Three Sons, The Munsters, and Death Valley Days, along with a featured role in the 1961 film, Come September, alongside Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Bobby Darin, and Sandra Dee. That same year she became one of the final two actresses considered for the title role in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Lolita. Kubrick stated she was in fact the best choice but personally warned her she would never work again if she took the part.

Haran fast rose to the upper ranks of teenage actors, including again placing for a prestigious lead role, this time in the 1965 sitcom version of Gidget. Frustrated by these near misses, she gave her agent an ultimatum – no more guest starring on other people’s shows. Either secure her own TV series or starring role in a movie or she would quit the business. 

 At the age of 21 and with her acting career still on an upward trajectory, when her agent failed to produce results Haran held true to her word and retired from acting. She decided to focus on her interest in everything that went on behind the cameras and reached out to producers and directors she knew in search of production work. The response, unfortunately, was “Can you type?” But Haran could not and more importantly, would not. Instead, she made herself available to friends, paying her dues and learning everything about the business by volunteering on projects as assistant wardrobe, craft services, casting director assistant, script continuity, set dresser, NABET still photographer, associate producer, and all-around willing gopher.

 At the same time, Haran found herself becoming involved in the music business. Having closely followed the British music scene since the early 1960s thanks to a friend across the Atlantic who sent her records by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones before they’d hit the States, she honed her skills with camera work for New York-based magazine company Sterling Publications, photographing British Invasion groups on their first visits to America.

Haran spent many of her LA evenings at PJ’s nightclub in Hollywood, joined by many of her well-known celebrity friends and becoming good friends with the owner, Elmer Valentine. When she told Valentine of her search for employment, he offered to hire her as assistant publicist for his new club on the Sunset Strip – the soon-to-be-legendary Whisky a Go Go.

Ronnie took the job at a salary of $50 a week.  Within three weeks, it became clear that she was performing better than the publicist she was hired to assist.  That publicist was let go, and her salary was raised to $75 per week.  The Whisky struggled at first until Haran discovered that if they served food, the age of admission could be lowered from 21 to 18, opening up the venue to a younger audience.  More significantly, she encouraged Valentine to feature live music, convincing him to bring in bands like The Young Rascals, who were then exploding in New York.

Haran soon became the Whisky’s house booker, transforming it from a struggling discotheque to the most iconic club of the Strip (and the first ever live music venue to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame). She especially pushed for up-and-coming local bands, including but not limited to The Byrds, The Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, The Buffalo Springfield, The Turtles, and more. Her efforts in recruiting and exposing talent led to her promoting and managing (without written contracts) two of LA’s top young bands, Love and The Doors. 

In the male-dominated world of talent management, Haran proved a pioneer as she arguably became one of the first female rock band managers in 1965 with Love.  Ronnie “didn’t take crap from anyone,” said Love’s Johnny Echols. “She was spirited and dynamic, and we knew she was on our side.  She acted as manager, publicity agent, mother hen… you name it.” 

Haran first saw The Doors playing at a dive bar called The London Fog and immediately offered them a spot as house band at The Whisky. The Doors, on the verge of breaking up having been fired the very night she came to check them out, were saved from obscurity by Haran’s offer. Jim Morrison, had been sleeping under the boardwalk in Venice without a car, became a guest at her Hollywood bungalow, walking distance from the club. Haran continued to play a significant role in The Doors’ career as they rose to massive popularity in America and around the world. Among her astonishing collection of memorabilia, Haran treasures such items as a handwritten, 42-page notebook given to her by Morrison (who told her, “Someday this will make you rich”) and a 1/4  inch tape that may well represent the first known sound recording of the band in its infancy and includes original music for a Ford industrial training film as well as two songs which were likely never recorded again.

In addition to Love and The Doors, Haran and her self-named Promotional Management company worked with such top artists as Moby Grape, Taj Mahal, Them, and Donovan, assisting what proved to be superstar careers with exactly what the company’s name stated – promotion and management. “That’s actually what I did,” says Haran.

Through it all, Haran took photos, some of which made their way to iconic album covers including Love’s Forever Changes, Moby Grape’s Grape Jam, Mitch Ryder’s Too Many Fish in the Sea, The Gentle Soul’s self-titled debut, and more. Her work was published in magazines and periodicals like Vanity Fair, Playboy,Crawdaddy, Tiger Beat, Photoplay, Show Magazine, and countless others, more often than not with no credit. Haran never thought of herself as a professional photographer – she simply loved  taking pictures of her friends.

Haran moved to Montecito, CA at the end of the 1970s, where she still resides today with her three beloved dogs. There she started her own production entity, Location Production Coordination (a.k.a. Santa Barbara Location Services,) and for over 30 years took care of filmmakers and fellow photographers who came to  work in the Santa Barbara area, putting her in an orbit with names like Oliver Stone, Jane Russell, Harold Ramis, Michael Douglas, Bruce Weber, Michael Bay, Matthew Ralston, Peggy Sirota, Ralph Lauren, Victoria Pierson, Sheila Metzner, and literally hundreds of others.

Ronnie Haran’s story is truly unique – her diverse, often revolutionary journey and stunning reservoir of experience made even more memorable viewed alongside her remarkable collection of photographs. Her personal collection includes close to half a million photographs, most of which have been stored in drawers and boxes with little to no thought of organization, much less preservation. Haran admits to not being motivated in this technological age where “everyone has a camera and anyone can take a picture,” but recently serendipity brought a well-known gallery owner to her, hoping to secure a signed copy of an iconic image of Love’s Arthur Lee. When curiosity made her ask to see more, Haran shared some of her other images, most in a cheap 60-year old photo album on the verge of falling apart. The work was met with unbridled enthusiasm and Haran was encouraged to locate, edit, and curate her extraordinary images.

In addition, not unlike her friend Andy Warhol, Haran has been an inveterate collector over her lifetime, accumulating over 3,000 pieces of California art pottery, thousands of vinyl albums, 8-tracks, cassettes, and CDs, as well as over a thousand rare, original photographs by many of the Masters including Margaret Burke White, Man Ray, Cartier Bresson, Lewis Hine, Edward Weston, Eugène Atget, Edward Steichen, Eadweard Muybridge, and more. Her collection further includes a range of Art Deco furniture, Chinese Nichols rugs, French perfume bottles, Hawaiian shirts, and vintage clothing, plus many more collections.

Dubbed by the aforementioned gallery owner to be “the world’s most unknown, famous photographer,” Ronnie Haran  and her team of archival experts are currently hard at work sorting through her voluminous collection of images with plans for a landmark gallery showcasing and sharing her work with the world at last.

JULY 2024