Birthday profile

Rona Jaffe

Rona Jaffe, American novelist (died 2005)

Born
June 12, 1931
Died
December 30, 2005
Zodiac sign
Gemini
Birth year
1931

About Rona Jaffe

Rona Jaffe (June 12, 1931 – December 30, 2005) was an American novelist who published numerous works from 1958 to 2003. During the 1960s, she also wrote cultural pieces for Cosmopolitan. == Early life and education == Jaffe was born into a Jewish family in 1931 Brooklyn, New York City. 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 the Carlyle Hotel. Growing up in affluent circumstances on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, she attended the Dalton School before graduating from Radcliffe College in 1951. == Career == Jaffe wrote her first book, The Best of Everything (1958), while working as an associate editor at Fawcett Publications in the 1950s. It was quickly adapted into a film starring Hope Lange and a group of actresses including Joan Crawford, also called The Best of Everything (1959). The book has been described as distinctly "pre-women's liberation" in the way it depicts women in the working world. Camille Paglia noted in 2004 that the book and popular HBO series Sex and the City had much in common in that the characters in both (who have similar lives) are "very much at the mercy of cads".

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Rona Jaffe timeline

  1. Jaffe was born into a Jewish family in 1931 Brooklyn, New York City.
  2. Jaffe wrote her first book, The Best of Everything (1958), while working as an associate editor at Fawcett Publications in the 1950s.

The world when Rona Jaffe was born

Rona Jaffe was born in 1931. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1931

  • #1 song"Stardust" – Artie Shaw
  • Top movieFrankenstein
  • Best-selling bookThe Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentKnute Rockne dies in plane crash
  • Top headlineAl Capone convicted of tax evasion
  • Technology milestoneEmpire State Building completed
  • Defining fadJigsaw puzzles
  • Notable inventionElectric razor
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population124.0M

1931 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Rona Jaffe's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19312026
Gas$0.17$3.45/gal
Average home$5,500$435,000
Average income$3,000$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population124.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.