EXCLUSIVE: She broke the news of Elvis and Priscilla's marriage AND divorce, was first on the scene of the Sharon Tate murder and dubbed a 'rat' by Frank Sinatra: How Rona Barrett spent 40 years as the top gossiper in Hollywood

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Rona Barrett is tiny, but in her day she packed a lot of wallop. 

The gossip guru,  who turns 80 on October 8, spent almost four decades at the top of her game, exposing the secrets behind the public lives of celebrities and entertainment industry movers and shakers.

At a young age she became a confidante for her school friends - a title that he held on to closely when she entered the world of Hollywood.

She was known for her tenacious and hard-hitting reporting style, but also for her intimate interviews, where she once kissed the hand of heartthrob Rock Hudson after talking about death and chatted with Cher while sitting together on a bed.

But in 1991, Barrett abruptly bid adieu to Hollywood and made a permanent move 125 miles north to the peaceful Santa Ynez Valley in California.

Rona Barrett,  pictured in 1976 with David Bowie,  spent almost four decades at the top of the gossip world in Hollywood

Rona today is every bit as elegant as she was in her gossip heyday. The dormer GMA correspondent was known for her tenacious and hard-hitting reporting style, but also for her intimate interviews

Her first business following the move was as a lavender farmer, with a percentage of the profits going to her Rona Barrett Foundation, and she now spends all of her time championing causes that involve projects aimed to help low-income seniors.

On August 28, Barrett was spotted at an outdoor wine and music festival in Santa Ynez, and she quickly became the subject of gossip.

'She's so tiny!' one guest told the DailyMail.com, 'It's hard to believe this little woman with the oversized sunglasses was such a powerhouse in the entertainment industry, she looks frail and like she wouldn't hurt a fly.'

Her life today is different from the days of her magazine gossip column - Rona Barrett's Hollywood - and TV interviews with celebs as a contributor for Good Morning America.

One friend of Barrett told the DailyMail.com: 'Rona is now friends with some of the local celebrities like Bo Derek, David Crosby, and Olivia Newton John - and there's definitely no tattling!

'She exercises at the local YMCA, runs errands around town, and no one really bothers her. It's like she had a totally different life before.'

Her life 'before' was definitely an era of swimming with sharks. She was once mailed a live tarantulas by Ryan O'Neal and was dubbed 'Rona Rat' by the Frank Sinatra.

She had a bottle of champagne dumped on her head by Mia Farrow, after she reported a late night slow dance between Farrow and her then ex-husband Frank's longtime valet George Jacobs.

At 80, Rona has mellowed, but Johnny Carson once quipped, 'This woman doesn't need a steak knife - she cuts her food with her tongue'

In one interview kissed heartthrob Rock Hudson on the hand after they discussed his heart attack and the thought of dying

In another intimate interview, Barrett sat on a bed with Cher, as the singer talked about Sonny

Late night talk show titan Johnny Carson once quipped, 'This woman [Rona] doesn't need a steak knife - she cuts her food with her tongue.'

Some of her 'scoops' included breaking the news of Elvis Presley's 1967 marriage to Priscilla Beaulieu, and through her extensive network of sources in the industry, she even broke news of their divorce six years later.

She has claimed to be the first reporter at the scene of the Sharon Tate murder in 1969 after the Manson family slaughtered the pregnant actress and four of her friends at a home in Benedict Canyon.

At the peak of her career, Barrett lived in a stunning 4,500-square-foot, Hal Levitt-designed villa in Beverly Hills, and drove a Rolls Royce with 'Ms Rona' on her license plate - a nickname she piced up while working for ABC.

But these days home is a small townhome in Solvang that she shares with her second husband Daniel Busby, and her passion is helping seniors.

Her Golden Inn and Village - a 7.3acre, 150 unit living facility for lower-income seniors at various levels of medical needs - broke ground in Santa Ynez in April of 2015, and is now in the final phase of development.

Born Rona Burstein in New York City in 1936, the five-foot-tall woman with a layered bob - dyed platinum silver - took a tough and powerful approach to her writing.

But she told Buzzfeed in an interview earlier this year that she is who she is because she was born with muscular atrophy.

Barrett wasn't, however, loved by all. She was once mailed a live tarantulas by Ryan O'Neal. here together before their falling out

Star Frank Sinatra once dubbed Barrett - who worked in the gossip business for 40 years - 'Rona Rat' because of her reporting

'The main thing in my life is that I was born with a disability,' Barrett once  told Buzzfeed. 'That made me feel different. And therefore, my curiosity factor was always up: 'did you say that?' I'd say. 'What did you mean by that?' And by high school, everyone came to me. 

'They'd say things like, 'Oh, I love this girl so much, Rona, she let me feel her titties!' Then another guy would come by and say something similar. And afterwards, I realized: I never want my name to be in any man's mouth like that.'

She said that as a girl, she became 'the confessor', 'the priest'.

The pint-sized dynamo quickly found her niche while organizing fan clubs for singers she admired like Eddie Fisher and Steve Lawrence.

That catapulted her into working on the management side for stars like Frankie Avalon and Fabian, and then into her own gossip column for the Bell-McClure newspaper syndicate in 1957.

She spent the next 35 years on television, most notably as the celebrity news expert on ABC's Good Morning America, being interviewed about celebrity gossip and doing sit down interviews with the stars.

By 1969, 40 per cent of the country could watch Barrett on an hour-long ABC segment. Throughout her career she was known for mixing hard news and soft news - combining the serious with the frivolous.

And over the course of her 40 years in the industry Barrett found sources across the world that would feed her information.

But Rona, pictured above with Caitlyn Jenner in 1983, had sources around the world and was known for breaking Hollywood news

Barrett's (pictured above with Michael Young in 1979) 'scoops' included breaking the news of Elvis Presley's 1967 marriage to Priscilla Beaulieu and their divorce six years later

She told Buzzfeed of a time when she was on Good Morning America when she fought with an executive after discussing what movies made at box office over the weekend.

She told him that 'There are only three things in life that people are interested in: money, sex, and power, and not necessarily in that order'.

'There were so many men who had wanted to help you go from the gutter to the sidewalk,' Barrett added. 'But once you hit the sidewalk, there were millions of them who wanted to shove you back down.'

Still, she was incredibly popular. She once told the Chicago Tribune that 'If a man had my job, he'd be making the same money for television alone that I make from TV, the magazines, books and lectures.'

One of her most memorable interviews was one she did on a bed with Cher in 1974.

'That interview with Cher!' Barrett exclaimed to Buzzfeed. 'That became such a famous one, and just because we sat on a bed!'

Barrett said that most of her gossip information came from things she overheard at parties.

'I always weighed my words carefully,' she said. 'I never broke confidence, never wrote to hurt anybody, believe it or not.'

She said that she was able to get celebrities to open up by showing them she was genuinely interested in their stories.

By 1969, 40 per cent of the country could watch Barrett (pictured in 1983 with Sidney Poitier and Joanna Shimkus) on an hour-long ABC segment

At the peak of her career, Barrett lived in a stunning 4,500-square-foot, Hal Levitt-designed villa in Beverly Hills, and drove a Rolls Royce with 'Ms Rona' on her license plate

'I could get them to open up because they always knew I cared,' she told Buzzfeed. 'I was always interested in the most basic of questions: What makes a person tick? How did you become who you became? I wanted to know! Would it help me?'

While her style alienated her male newsmen, she became changed the way entertainment news was reported on.

On August 28, Barrett attended at an outdoor wine and music festival in Santa Ynez, and she quickly became the subject of gossip

'She is really a hybrid that doesn't exist today,' says a Hollywood insider, 'She could break news, report, write, interview, do radio, television - she did it all and she did it on her terms.'

In 1974 the gossip pioneer penned her autobiography 'Miss Rona', which went on to sell half a million copies.

She now walks with a bit of a limp, perhaps due to her 'undiagnosed' muscular atrophy that she has had since childhood.

'Anyone walking into that party would have been shocked to know that one of the greatest gossip queens was sitting there, sipping wine, and minding her own business. Most of the guests there had no idea who she was!' the insider told DailyMail.com.

Barrett told Buzzfeed that she hopes to be remembered for how she treated others.

'I'd like to be remembered as more of a decent person who really cared about people,' she said. 'The best thing I ever did for myself was to move up here - to taste life in a different way than I had ever known as a child.

'And I hope others will take a look what we're trying to do here, with the Golden Inn, and think, We could replicate this in Omaha, or Atlanta, or Idaho. The need is everywhere.'