Dina Merrill
Encyclopedia
Early life
Merrill was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton in New York City, New York, the only child of Post CerealsPost Cereals
Post Foods, LLC, also known as Post Cereals is a food company that was founded by C.W. Post in 1895 with the first Postum, a "cereal beverage," developed by Post in Battle Creek, Michigan. The first cereal, Grape-Nuts, was developed in 1897. Post has its headquarters in the Bank of America Plaza...
heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post
Marjorie Merriweather Post
-External links:******...
and her second husband, Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
stockbroker Edward Francis Hutton
Edward Francis Hutton
Edward Francis Hutton was an American financier and co-founder of E. F. Hutton & Co....
. She was educated at Miss Porter's School
Miss Porter's School
Miss Porter's School, sometimes simply referred to as Porter's or Farmington, is a private college preparatory school for girls located in Farmington, Connecticut.- History :...
and George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
.
Career
When Merrill informed her father that she wanted to become an actress on the New York stage, he was outraged. He did not want the "good name" of Hutton paraded on the Great White WayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. She asked her father whom he disliked more than anyone else in the world, and he replied Charlie Merrill
Charles E. Merrill
Charles Edward Merrill was an American philanthropist, stockbroker and co-founder, with Edmund C. Lynch of Merrill Lynch & Company .-Early years:...
, founder of Wall Street competitor Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
. Out of spite, Nedenia Hutton became Dina Merrill.
Merrill has thus far acted in twenty-two motion pictures, including 1957's Desk Set
Desk Set
Desk Set is a 1957 American romantic comedy film directed by Walter Lang and starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn...
, 1959's Operation Petticoat
Operation Petticoat
Operation Petticoat is a 1959 comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, and starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. It was the basis for a television series in 1977 starring John Astin in Grant's role...
(with Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
, who was married to her cousin, Woolworth
F. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...
heiress Barbara Hutton
Barbara Hutton
Barbara Woolworth Hutton was an American socialite dubbed by the media as the "Poor Little Rich Girl" because of her troubled life...
), 1960's The Sundowners
The Sundowners
The Sundowners is a 1960 film that tells the story of an Australian outback family torn between the father's desires to continue his nomadic sheep-herding ways and the wife's and son's desire to settle down in one place...
and Butterfield 8
BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8 is a 1960 Metrocolor drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor, then 28 years old, won an Academy Award for her performance...
, 1961's The Young Savages
The Young Savages
The Young Savages is a 1961 crime drama film directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Burt Lancaster, and written by Edward Anhalt from a novel by Evan Hunter....
, 1963's The Courtship of Eddie's Father
The Courtship of Eddie's Father (film)
The Courtship of Eddie's Father is a 1963 romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Glenn Ford as a widowed father, with a young son to care for, played by Ron Howard....
, 1977's A Wedding
A Wedding
A Wedding is a 1978 black comedy film directed by Robert Altman, starring Carol Burnett, Lillian Gish, Geraldine Chaplin, Vittorio Gassman, Mia Farrow, Lauren Hutton, Craig Richard Nelson, Pam Dawber, Desi Arnaz, Jr., Paul Dooley, Dennis Christopher, and Howard Duff...
, 1991's True Colors
True Colors
*Unreleased tracks:**"Heading for the Moon" appeared as the B-side of "True Colors".**"Heartbeats", which was just an extended mix of the "Change of Heart" bass & drums, appeared on the 12" single of "Change of Heart"....
, and 1992's The Player
The Player
The Player is a 1992 American satirical film directed by Robert Altman from a screenplay by Michael Tolkin based on his own 1988 novel of the same name....
.
Merrill appeared regularly as a guest star on numerous television series in the 1960s, notably as villainess Calamity Jan in a 1966 episode of Batman
Batman (TV series)
Batman is an American television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin — two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham City. It aired on the American Broadcasting Company network for three seasons from January 12, 1966 to...
alongside her then-husband, Cliff Robertson
Cliff Robertson
Clifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III was an American actor with a film and television career that spanned half of a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly...
.
On Your Toes
On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939....
, starring Russian prima ballerina Natalia Makarova
Natalia Makarova
Nataliya Romanovna Makarova is the legendary Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina. The History of Dance, published in 1981, notes that “Her performances set standards of artistry and aristocracy of dance which mark her as the finest ballerina of her generation.” She has also won awards as an...
. In 1991, she appeared in the rotating cast of the off-Broadway staged reading of Wit & Wisdom
Wit & Wisdom
Wit & Wisdom is a play conceived and put together by Vivian Gornick and Nora Eisenberg and done by the Colleagues Theatre Company which premiered at the Off-Broadway Arclight Theatre in New York City, New York. It ran from March 5 to March 30, 2003.-Plot:...
.
Merrill has been married three times. In 1946, she wed Stanley M. Rumbough, Jr.
Stanley M. Rumbough, Jr.
Stanley M. Rumbough, Jr. was born in New York City and attended Yale University. For many years he worked for a variety of manufacturing companies. Rumbough also had an interest in Republican politics. In 1951 he was co-founder of the Citizens for Eisenhower movement, which helped develop grass...
, an heir to the Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American diversified multinational corporation focused on the production, distribution and provision of household, health care and personal products, such as soaps, detergents, and oral hygiene products . Under its "Hill's" brand, it is also a manufacturer of...
toothpaste
Toothpaste
Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush as an accessory to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it serves as an abrasive that aids in removing the dental plaque and food from the teeth, assists in suppressing...
fortune and an entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
. They had three children: Stanley, David (1950–1973) and Nedenia ("Nina"). They divorced in 1966. Later that year, she wed Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson. In 1969, Merrill gave birth to their daughter, Heather, who died of cancer in 2007. Merrill has six grandchildren: Denia and Welyn Craig, David Colgate (Cole), Allegra Hutton, Siena Post, and Kiera Basten Rumbough.
In 1989, Merrill married former actor Ted Hartley
Ted Hartley
Ted Hartley has been a US Navy fighter pilot, an investment banker, an actor, producer, and is currently CEO of RKO Pictures. He is married to actress Dina Merrill. He has one son, Philippe Hartley .- Early life :...
. In 1991, the couple merged their company, Pavilion Communications, with RKO to form RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
(which owns the copyright to the films and intellectual property of RKO Radio Pictures movie studio).
Merrill is a presidential
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
appointee to the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
, a trustee of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Foundation
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
, and a vice president of the New York City Mission Society. She served on the board of directors and the compensation committee of Lehman Brothers for over 18 years.