Rita Rooney

Rita Rooney, the writer, has died at age 89. She was known to readers for her no-nonsense journalism, and to friends and family for how well she could tell a funny story.

Rita was born in Brooklyn on April 6, 1934, to Luke L. and Nellie Rooney. Her early years were spent in Brooklyn, but her favorite childhood memories were of visits with her maternal grandmother, Maggie Alford, at a small summer house in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey.

She went to a Catholic boarding school on Long Island. Supposedly half the graduates of this school became nuns. She was in the other half and moved to Los Angeles. There she attended UCLA.

In the 1960s, she worked in the movie industry as a publicist. One production company sent her to live for months on a film shoot in India. On a morning there, she woke to find a cobra swaying at the foot of her bed. Nearly paralyzed by terror, she managed to press a button that rang the hotel desk. A moment later, a bellhop burst in, saw the snake, laughed—and walked out carrying it in his bare hand.

Returning from India, Rita stopped to visit Ireland, the first of several visits she would make to that country. Her father and grandmother both immigrated from Ireland, and as a result, she remained close to her Irish heritage. She stayed in contact with family there her whole adult life.

She left the movie business and became a writer in the field of health care in 1966, and in the 1970s, she became a freelance journalist. Her most prominent accomplishment as a journalist was probably the difficult investigative article “Innocence for Sale,” which appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal in April 1983. It prompted Senator Arlen Specter to sponsor a bill strengthening federal laws against child pornography. For the rest of Rita’s life, a photo hung over her desk that showed her seated in the Rose Garden, watching President Reagan sign into law the bill she inspired.

Rita was generous to everyone she loved. She encouraged the interests of her niece and three nephews starting in early childhood, and loved to take them on what she called “excursions.” Her excursions were often extravagant adventures in which she would bring a nephew at age 10 to a Broadway show, or at age 12 on a week-long tour of California, or take her niece at 13 to Ireland.

In 1982, she left her home on Balboa Island, California, to return to New Jersey to be closer to family. There she helped take care of her mother, who died while staying with her in November 1985. She became active at St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Long Valley, where she sang in the choir, and later at Holy Family in Middletown, Md. She taught Sunday School for almost two decades.

She continued to make her living as a writer on magazines for hospitals, translating complex science into clear terms for a general reader. She loved working, and her intent was “to work until the final bell.” She did not stop writing until her mid-eighties.

Rita loved classic musicals such as Meet Me in St. Louis, the opera of the Three Tenors, dramas by Tennessee Williams, and movies by Hitchcock. She also had a great enthusiasm for murder mysteries, baked enormous apple pies, and made fudge every Christmas.

She died on May 7, 2023. She is survived by her brother Gavin and his wife Edie, her sister-in-law Judy Rooney, and her nieces and nephews, Gavin Jr., Luke W. Rooney, Mary Beth McIntyre, and Patrick Rooney, as well as five grand-nephews and three grand-nieces. She was predeceased by her brother Luke M. Rooney.

On July 19, 2024, Rita will be inurned alongside her parents at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover, NJ. In lieu of flowers, you can remember her by pouring yourself a glass of red wine, listening to some opera, and reading Agatha Christie.

To plant a beautiful memorial tree in memory of Rita Rooney, please visit our Tree Store.