To his friends and fellow classic movie buffs, Robert E. Rosterman was as unforgettable as his favorite film, “Gone With the Wind.”
A retired booking agent for two major film studios, Mr. Rosterman could also dial up a stories about famous actors like Cary Grant, Judy Garland, Bette Davis and Jane Powell.
“Bob was a walking encyclopedia of movie trivia,” said David Denwood, the former owner of Metro Golden Memories, a memorabilia shop on Chicago’s North Side. “But the really neat thing was that he actually knew stars from movies like ‘Gone With the Wind,’ which I know he’d seen 122 times.”
Mr. Rosterman, 80, who worked in the Chicago offices of Paramount and later MGM/UA Studios, died Thursday, June 30, in an Atlanta hospital after suffering a heart attack. He was a longtime Chicago resident.
An avid letter writer, Mr. Rosterman struck up friendships with celebrities like Vivien Leigh, who portrayed Scarlett O’Hara, as well as those who shared his passion for Hollywood’s Golden Age, including Turner Classic Movies network host Robert Osborne.
“Robert Rosterman knew more about movies than anyone else I’ve ever known,” said Osborne, who has served as host of TCM since the network’s debut in 1994. “He felt strongly about how lucky we are to have movies to teach us about history, life and culture.”
At the time of his death, Mr. Rosterman was attending festivities marking the 75th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Gone With the Wind,” his family said.
“Bob was an absolute gentleman who took the time to cultivate friendships,” said Connie Sutherland, director of the Gone With the Wind Museum near Atlanta. “He didn’t own a computer, so once a week he’d send me these wonderfully newsy letters. I’m going to miss those letters.”
Born and raised in Blair, Neb., Mr. Rosterman as a boy would take the bus several miles to the Orpheum Theater in Omaha to watch the newest movie releases. He kept detailed scrapbooks with newspaper clippings about his favorite celebrities and films.
“Even as a boy, he was a huge fan of ‘Gone With the Wind,'” recalled his older sister, Goldie Fleury.
After high school, Mr. Rosterman moved to Chicago to be near another sister and settled on the North Side. He started at Paramount in the early 1950s as an office boy but quickly impressed his boss, who gave him a shot at booking movies for theaters throughout the Chicago area.
Part of the bonus of that job was meeting actors from those movies, who came through Chicago by train to promote their latest work.
“He got to know Vivien Leigh over drinks in a Chicago bar and then corresponded with her for a while through letters,” Fleury said.
After a short stint at Paramount, Mr. Rosterman was hired away by MGM/UA, where he worked until his retirement in 1982. He continued to work as a freelance writer for publications including Playbill, Films of the Golden Age magazine and Films in Review.
“He was a very talented writer who usually ended up friends with the people he interviewed,” said his niece Diane Ellsworth.
Mr. Rosterman was a member of “The Windies,” a club of about 150 rabid “Gone With the Wind” fans from across the country who attend conventions and gather annually at the birthplace of Mitchell in Atlanta, and of “The Jolly Boys,” a dozen or so longtime Chicago-area friends who meet monthly to talk about old movies and songs.
“I once told him about an old movie I was searching for, and a few days later the DVD arrived in the mail,” said Denwood, a member of The Jolly Boys. “Bob found it at a convention he was attending and sent it to me that very same day.”
He is survived by his sister Ruth Schoeman.
Services were held.
