Rona Jaffe | |
|---|---|
 Jaffe in the 1970s | |
| Born | (1931-06-12)June 12, 1931 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | December 30, 2005(2005-12-30) (aged 74) |
| Alma mater | Radcliffe College |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Years active | 1958–2003 |
Rona Jaffe (June 12, 1931 – December 30, 2005) was an Americannovelist who published numerous works from 1958 to 2003. During the 1960s, she also wrote cultural pieces forCosmopolitan.
Jaffe was born into a Jewish family in 1931Brooklyn, New York City.[1] She was the only child of Samuel Jaffe, an elementary-school principal, and his first wife, Diana (née Ginsberg). Her grandfather was a construction magnate who built theCarlyle Hotel. Growing up in affluent circumstances on theUpper East Side of Manhattan, she attended theDalton School before graduating fromRadcliffe College in 1951.[2]
Jaffe wrote her first book,The Best of Everything (1958), while working as anassociate editor atFawcett Publications in the 1950s. It was quickly adapted into a film starringHope Lange and a group of actresses includingJoan Crawford, also calledThe Best of Everything (1959).[2] The book has been described as distinctly "pre-women's liberation" in the way it depicts women in the working world.[citation needed]Camille Paglia noted in 2004 that the book and popularHBO seriesSex and the City had much in common in that the characters in both (who have similar lives) are "very much at the mercy ofcads".[3]
During the late 1960s,Helen Gurley Brown hired Jaffe to writecultural pieces forCosmopolitan, with a "Sex and the Single Girl" slant.[citation needed]
In 1981, Jaffe publishedMazes and Monsters, which depicted aDungeons & Dragons-like game that caused disorientation and hallucinations among its players and incited them to violence and attemptedsuicide. Written at a time of emerging anxiety over the effects ofrole-playing games (RPGs), the book might have been loosely based on press accounts of the 1979 "steam tunnel incident" involving the disappearance of Michigan State University student and D&D aficionadoJames Dallas Egbert III.[4][5] With both concerns over and interest in role-playing games further stoked by the efforts of anti-RPG campaigners such asPatricia Pulling, founder of the advocacy groupBothered About Dungeons & Dragons (B.A.D.D.), within a year of publicationMazes and Monsters was adapted byCBS into amade-for-TV movie calledMazes and Monsters (1982), featuring a 26-year-oldTom Hanks in one of his earliest appearances.
In 2005, Jaffe died ofcancer while vacationing in London, aged 74.[2]
