Ron Hudspeth, a popular entertainment columnist in the late 1970s and 1980s for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, died at age 82 in Costa Rica.
A car accident had hurt his neck and led him to use a wheelchair, and he later died of sepsis, said Lisa Rhinehart, his former wife.
Hudspeth was known for many years as a man about town when Atlanta was smaller and a newspaper columnist’s influence was bigger. He covered quirky local characters, celebrities visiting from out of town, big events like the Ramblin’ Raft Race on the Chattahoochee River and the comings and goings of restaurants, lounges and nightclubs.
“He had the pulse of the nightlife in Atlanta,” said his longtime friend, Tom Houck. “He gave some oomph, if you will, to the paper.”
Credit: AJC FILE
Credit: AJC FILE
Hudspeth grew up in South Florida, the son of a Florida cattleman and farmer. After graduating from Florida State University, he had a brief foray in law school before pursuing journalism. He worked at the Miami Herald before landing a sports writing job in 1969 at the Atlanta Journal. He covered the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta Braves, including Hank Aaron’s 1974 chase to beat Babe Ruth’s home run record.
He started a sports column, then segued in 1977 to writing a broader daily column that eventually landed on the front of the lifestyle section. He name-dropped everyone from Herschel Walker and Deborah Norville to Ted Turner and Dominique Wilkins.
Hudspeth wrote about popular nightspots like Studebaker’s, Limelight and Johnny’s Hideaway. Characters in town he nicknamed the Pig Man, the Phantom from Buckhead, Lucky the Famous Stockbroker and Pete the Northside Barkeep made appearances in his musings.
He himself became a character in the nightlife scene. “He wasn’t just an observer; he was a participant,” said Steve Nygren, who owned the Peasant restaurants in Atlanta for more than 20 years and now runs the wellness community Serenbe.
Hudspeth’s favorite watering hole for a time was Harrison’s on Peachtree, a popular bar in Buckhead that drew the movers and shakers. “The joke used to be that’s where he got his mail,” wrote his buddy and fellow AJC columnist, Lewis Grizzard, in 1986.
A 1980 interview Hudspeth did for WSB-TV, now available on YouTube, was shot at Harrison’s. “People are different but so much alike,” he said. “But if you can write things that people identify with, that’s important.”
His bowl-cut hairstyle and bushy mustache became so distinctive that locals would dress like him for Halloween, and Krazz, a local disco, held a look-alike contest in 1979. The ad cheekily noted Hudspeth’s similar appearance to two iconic TV and advertising characters “Captain Kangaroo and Buster Brown are not eligible to enter.” He often wore Hawaiian shirts and, for a time, drove a DeLorean, the car made famous in the “Back to the Future” films.
Credit: AJC FILE
Credit: AJC FILE
Maria Saporta, a veteran journalist who runs the online SaportaReport, said Hudspeth once wrote a column about her hitchhiking across America that she greatly admired. “People kind of dismissed him as this party guy hanging out in bars,” she said. “He was one of those people that kind of played into the caricature. But I realized he was really a worthy and talented journalist and easy to be underestimated.”
George McKerrow, a longtime Atlanta restaurateur who opened his first Longhorn Steaks restaurant across from Harrison’s in 1981, recalled Hudspeth thinking it was a chain and disparaging it in his column. McKerrow freaked out. “Ron’s word could make or break a business,” he said.
He called Hudspeth to explain he was opening a local restaurant. Hudspeth not only apologized but visited and put in a good word in his column. “Every time he mentioned our place, it was a boost to business,” McKerrow said. It was so successful that Longhorn Steaks did become a huge chain: LongHorn Steakhouse.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Hudspeth, though married three times, spent most of his life as a confirmed bachelor.
“He was kind of hard not to like,” said Mimi Bean, founder of Jezebel magazine. “Low-key, great smile, great laugh, great human insight. He loved women.”
Bill Crane, a political commentator and strategist who knew Hudspeth in the 1980s, recalled that “he had a coterie of girls who followed him around town. Always blonde, always tan.”
Rhinehart snagged him for his third and final marriage from 1997 to 2003. “He had a lot of self-confidence,” said Rhinehart, who was 24 years younger than Hudspeth. “He was always so open-minded and welcoming. His column was a lot about bringing people together. You felt like you belonged.”
Credit: AJC FILE
Credit: AJC FILE
In 1987, new management at the AJC fired Hudspeth.
At the time, Cathy Brown recalled hanging with Hudspeth at Jim White’s Half Shell at Peachtree Battle. “We’d had two or three bottles of wine,” she said. “We came up with the idea of a newsletter about restaurants and entertainment. I had previously done layout for Penny Pinchers, the Craigslist of the day. The next thing you know, we bought an Apple computer and Ron started writing.”
The Hudspeth Report was born. He shocked her by giving her a 50/50 partnership in the business, though his name was plastered on the cover. It started with 2,000 monthly copies, which grew to more than 100,000 in the 1990s.
Around that time, Hudspeth discovered Costa Rica as a vacation destination. He loved the country and its people so much he purchased property and built a home overlooking a bay. For several years, he split time between Atlanta and Costa Rica, ceding control of the Hudspeth Report to Brown. By the mid-2000s, he lived in Costa Rica full time. Until five years, ago, he’d make an annual sojourn to Atlanta around the Atlanta Braves' home opening game, Brown said.
Credit: CONTR
Credit: CONTR
Rhinehart, who later remarried, stayed in touch with Hudspeth after their divorce.
In his final days, she said, he reminisced about a life well spent. “He was very much at peace,” she said. “He said he was in God’s waiting room and was ready to go.”
Credit: LISA RHINEHART
Credit: LISA RHINEHART
He is survived by his daughter, Christy Hudspeth Hendricks; two grandchildren; and his sister, Joey Carter.
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