Miss Rona Regrets

Rona Barrett’s follow-up to her popular 1974 autobio “Miss Rona,” which dealt with her early years, is dead at Macmillan Publishing. “We’ve taken the book back,” Rona told us of her saga of the TV-film biz, ‘50s through the ‘80s. She had “a lot of research” and about 100 pages completed when “Macmillan decided to pull the plug on books in that area.”

A spokeswoman for Macmillan said, “We have no comment about our decision not to go ahead with the book.” But she added that Macmillan is not ceasing publication of nonfiction titles pegged to entertainment. Macmillan will release “Imagine: John Lennon,” a photo bio tied to the Warner Bros. documovie this fall. And Scribners, a Macmillan division, has Lawrence Grobel’s “The Hustons” also coming out autumnish, among others.

Miss Rona said she has no plans to place her book proposal elsewhere--”It’s a book whose time has not yet come”--and is still without a new radio or TV gig. But she promised to call us first when she gets one!