Georgia Frontiere

Georgia Frontiere (born Violet Frances Irwin; November 21, 1927 – January 18, 2008) was an American businesswoman and entertainer. She was the majority owner and chairperson of the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams NFL team.

During her nearly three decades in charge (1979–2008), the Rams made the playoffs in 14 seasons, played in 25 postseason games, won 13 postseason games, reached the Super Bowl three times and won the championship game once in the 1999 season. Her commitment to the team earned her the nickname "Madame Ram".

Also a philanthropist, Frontiere created the St. Louis Rams Foundation, sat on the board of the local United Way chapter, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club, Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America and the American Foundation for AIDS Research and made numerous charitable contributions both to the arts and to other organizations in St. Louis and elsewhere.

Early life and education Frontiere was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Lucia Pamela, Miss St. Louis of 1926, KMOX radio's 'gal about town', and the leader of United States' first all-girl orchestra (Lucia Pamela and her band of musical pirates), and Reginald Irwin, an insurance salesman and businessman.

Frontiere had early aspirations to work as an opera singer and eventually traveled to Milan to train with the Milan Opera.

When she was fifteen, Frontiere's parents divorced, and she married a young U.S. Marine who was heading to Europe during World War II. The union was quickly annulled.

In the late 1950s, Frontiere moved to Miami and hosted her own television interview show. During this time, Frontiere met her fifth husband, a Miami television producer, to whom she was married for a short time. Rosenbloom and Frontiere were engaged in 1960, but it took Rosenbloom ten years to divorce his first wife. Rosenbloom and Frontiere married in 1966, though they had been together for eight years and had two children by that point.

National Football League Upon her husband's death, Frontiere inherited a 70% ownership stake in the Los Angeles Rams. Rosenbloom's five children inherited the other 30%.

Although she was often called the first female owner of an NFL franchise, Frontiere was actually the second female majority owner. Violet Bidwill Wolfner inherited the Chicago Cardinals after her husband's death in 1947 and owned the franchise until she died in 1962.

During her years as owner, Frontiere moved the Rams twice, first relocating from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1980 to Anaheim (a deal that Rosenbloom had struck in 1978), then to St. Louis in 1995. However, the team lacked organizational direction in the early stages of Frontiere's ownership. During the preseason, Frontiere drafted a position paper in which she asserted her role as the team's boss. Believing that a lack of direction was responsible for the Rams' inability to win a championship (despite fielding talented teams), she told Sports Illustrated, "Right now, we don't have much leadership. Oh, they played well—they're trying to earn their positions—and I'm not talking about the coaching. We have good coaching. I'm talking about the top. There are some things that have to be ironed out." After the Super Bowl, Frontiere increased her national profile by appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated and in an American Express commercial with Rams players. As the decade began, the 1970s Rams players gradually retired, but the team still reached the playoffs seven times between 1980 and 1989. In 1980, the team moved from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (a severely outdated facility that was too large to sell to capacity for most games, resulting in frequent local television blackouts) to the California Angels' Anaheim Stadium. In the early 1990s, the Rams suffered from poor attendance. Average attendance had fallen to 45,000 fans per game, well below a peak of 62,000. As a result, the Rams' finances suffered as well.

In 1986, Frontiere's seventh and final husband, composer Dominic Frontiere, stirred controversy after being arrested and jailed for ten months for lying to a government agent as part of a federal investigation related to the alleged scalping of 1,000 Super Bowl tickets. Although Frontiere was not implicated and received unfavorable media attention, she supported her husband during his trial and incarceration. The pair divorced in 1987. The NFL, which had decided that the city was unsuitable as a football market, initially voted to block the Rams' move to St. Louis. However, when Frontiere threatened to sue the league under antitrust laws, the league relented and approved the move, with Frontiere casting the deciding vote in a 23-6 decision (the Giants, Jets, Steelers, Cardinals, Bills and Redskins voted against the proposal and the Raiders abstained).

The city of St. Louis welcomed the Rams after having lost the Cardinals franchise to Phoenix, Arizona in 1988. After the announced move, the city hosted a rally downtown and thousands of fans chanted "Georgia, Georgia!" Later, Frontiere said, "St. Louis is my home, and I brought my team here to start a new dynasty."

On the night of the victory, Frontiere expressed her desire to succeed, saying: "From the time my late husband died, it has been a constant effort to do what he expected me to be able to do. He said: 'If anybody can, you can. You always stick to your ideas. And nobody pushes you around.'"

Two years after the Super Bowl XXXIV win, the Rams again reached the Super Bowl but lost to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI, 20–17.

Upon her death in 2008, Frontiere's son Chip Rosenbloom and daughter Lucía Rodríguez inherited the 60% ownership stake in the team. In May 2010, the owners expressed that they hoped the team would be sold to longtime minority owner Stan Kroenke. On August 25, 2010, Kroenke received unanimous approval from league owners as the new owner of the Rams. The Rams returned to Los Angeles after the 2015 NFL season.

Philanthropy Throughout her career, Frontiere was devoted to a range of philanthropic causes. Speaking of Frontiere's endeavors, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said, "Her philanthropic work was legendary and wide ranging."

Frontiere was also an outspoken supporter of the NFL Alumni Association. She rallied for the "Pre-'59ers", the 1,000-plus NFL players who retired prior to 1959 and didn't qualify for the league's pension plan. She also started a "Dire Need Fund" for the Los Angeles chapter of the NFL Alumni Association, which spawned the league-led NFL Alumni Dire Need Fund for players. Always a patron of the arts, in 2000, Frontiere donated $1 million to help build a 5500-seat amphitheater, the Frontiere Performing Arts Pavilion, located in the Sedona Cultural Park in Arizona. As well, she produced the Tony-nominated August Wilson play "Radio Golf"

Also in 2008, the Rams partnered with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to host "Georgia's Drive Fore the Kids", a golf tournament to honor Frontiere and benefit the charity.

Sixth Street, between Convention Plaza and Washington, outside of the Edward Jones Dome, is now known as "Georgia's Way" to memorialize Frontiere.

Frontiere was awarded an honorary doctor of philanthropy from Pepperdine University.

Personal life and death Frontiere married seven times. She married her first husband, a young military man, at age 15; the marriage was soon annulled. Her second husband, Francis J. Geiger, died in an auto accident in San Francisco. In the 1940s and 1950s, she married three more times: to Bruce B. Johnson, a fellow actor at the Garrick Little Theater in Fresno, California; to Wallace Hayes, a stage manager at the Sacramento Music Circus; and to William J. Wyler, a Miami television personality. In 1957, she met her sixth husband, then-Baltimore Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom; they had two children before marrying in 1966: Dale "Chip" Rosenbloom and Lucia Rosenbloom Rodriguez. Rosenbloom, who traded ownership of the Colts to Robert Irsay in exchange for his ownership stake in the Rams, died in 1979. In 1980, she married her seventh husband, composer Dominic Frontiere; they divorced in 1988 but she kept his last name. She spent the last 19 years of her life with Earle Weatherwax although they never married. She had homes in Malibu, California, St. Louis, and Cornville, Arizona.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, Frontiere spent the rest of the year undergoing treatment, but her condition rapidly deteriorated and she died in UCLA Medical Center on January 18, 2008. She was 80 years old. A statement put out by her children read, "Our mom was dedicated to being more than the owner of a football team. She loved the Rams' players, coaches and staff. The warmth and generosity she exuded will never be forgotten."