Barrie Brett

Barrie Brett, an Emmy Award-winning television producer and writer, died May 5th in hospice care in Palm Beach, FL, following a long illness. She was 76. The amazing strength and life force she showed battling to stay alive was an essential part of her being. Born and raised in The Bronx, Barrie lived in Silver Spring, MD, New York City, and Florida, but she always identified as a New Yorker at heart. During her youth, she was voted the best all-around female athlete every year at Camp Lakota in the Catskills. While obtaining her bachelor’s degree at American University, she interned for Senator Robert Kennedy. She was impressed that he took time from his busy schedule to explain issues to children. Barrie incorporated that type of generosity and kindness into her work, always mentoring younger colleagues. She also created courtesy training videos and collaborated with Tom Murphy and St. Thomas University to create the successful Miami Nice program, a sort of finishing school for cabbies. Within two years after implementing the program, complaints against taxi drivers dropped eighty percent in Miami. In the television field, she wrote and edited scripts, did celebrity interviews, and produced award-winning shows. She worked on news shows and PBS documentaries, however most of her TV work was lifestyle programming, ranging from relationships and parenting to design and exercise programs. Barrie liked to joke that “it is ironic that I ended up producing several shows about cooking and gardening, which are subjects I know nothing about.” Among the many shows that she produced were PM Magazine in Washington D.C. and Miami, The Main Ingredient with Bobby Flay, Rebecca’s Garden, Way to Grow, Late Date with Sari, and Living Better with Carrie Wiatt. The entire video collection of her work in South Florida is housed in the Wolfson Archives at Miami Dade College. Barrie was a loving mother, grandmother, sister, and aunt who laughed easily and enjoyed telling stories. She cared deeply about her family and was always the first to remember birthdays and remind family members how important they were to her. This was true for friends as well. Even celebrities gravitated to her kindness. From Burt Reynolds, Liza Minelli, and Baryshnikov to tennis stars like John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors to authors like Evan Rhodes and Tennessee Williams, Barrie always made the people she interviewed feel comfortable. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, she served as a volunteer for Cantor Fitzgerald and traveled to the Middle East where she produced a series highlighting the humanity of a region of the world targeted by stereotypes. She had a natural curiosity about people and was always starting up conversations with strangers and treating them like friends. Her book, Moments of Being, published in 2009, tells the stories of people whose lives were transformed by a single pivotal moment. In it, she shows readers how to map their moment by chronicling stories of courage, destiny, love, sacrifice, dreams, fears, and triumphs. Barrie lived her life open to that moment, wanting any moment spent engaging with another person to feel special. In addition to her beloved partner, Michael Faluotico of Delray Beach, she is survived by her two children, Dana Brett of Jacksonville, FL and Adam Brett of Connecticut, and their spouses, and her grandchildren Ilianna and Jace. She also leaves behind her brother, Andrew Goldstein of Concord, MA, her niece Lucy Goldstein of Concord, MA, and her nephew Max Goldstein of San Francisco, CA.