Both activities went against her mother’s wishes, the first because she felt it was unladylike to sweat, the second because it signalled career aspirations other than marriage and motherhood.After the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, Dina, having adopted the stage name of Merrill, landed a small role on Broadway in the short-lived comedy The next year, she married Stanley Rumbough, an industrialist and heir to the Colgate-Palmolive fortune. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss real-world solutions, and more.
The Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton was a cousin.From a young age, Merrill was determined to pursue acting despite scepticism from her family – she said her father called her a fool. Merrill was married three times. Dina Merrill and her husband, RKO chairman Ted Hartley in 2004
Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium. Our journalists will try to respond by joining the threads when they can to create a true meeting of independent Premium. “But after eight years I had gotten antsy. They acquired a majority stake in what was left of the old Hollywood movie studio RKO Pictures.Merrill, who is survived by her husband and by two children from her first marriage – another son died in a boating accident and a daughter died of cancer – sat for years on the board of her father’s Wall Street investment firm. Start your Independent Premium subscription today.Ignoring family scepticism, she became an actress and went on to gain Hollywood fame for playing upper-class parts and became a socialite of her time
Due to the sheer scale of this comment community, we are not able to give each post the same level of attention, but we have preserved this area in the interests of open debate.
They can’t, but we can. You can also choose to be emailed when someone replies to your comment.The existing Open Comments threads will continue to exist for those who do not subscribe to Independent Premium. Her family's Manhattan apartment had 66 rooms, and their retreat on the North Shore of Long Island had 59. The most insightful comments on all subjects will be published daily in dedicated articles. Men think we can’t do two things at once. She did some modelling while raising their three children but harboured unfulfilled acting desires that caused the marriage to rupture.“Stan wanted me to be a housewife and mother,” she recalled.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Dina Merrill, the rebellious heiress who defied her super-rich parents to become a movie star, often portraying stylish wives or "the other woman," has died at age 93. Women are more resilient.”In 1966, she married the actor Cliff Robertson. “But I also had good training from both parents about the work ethic, about the fact that I was lucky, as they were.
Her wealth, including more than $50m inherited from her parents, allowed her the freedom to go months and years without work and survive scathing.Her financial independence also made her more willing to single out wrongdoing by Hollywood’s powerful. They had three children, Nedenia Colgate Rumbough, David Post Rumbough, and Stanley Rumbough III before divorcing …
In 1946, she wed Stanley M. Rumbough Jr., an heir to the Colgate-Palmolive toothpaste fortune and entrepreneur.
On advice from her half-sister's (then) husband, she adopted the During the late 1950s and 1960s, Merrill was believed to have intentionally been marketed as a replacement for Merrill appeared in numerous television series in the 1960s, such as playing the villain "Her stage credits include the 1983 Broadway revival of the In 1991, Merrill and her third husband, Ted Hartley, merged their company, Pavilion Communications, with RKO to form In the 1960s and 1970s, Merrill was a recurring guest on several network television game and panel shows including American actress, socialite heiress, businesswoman and philanthropist Ignoring family scepticism, she became an actress and went on to gain Hollywood fame for playing upper-class parts and became a socialite of her timeWant to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? At Merrill’s urging, Robertson took his charges public, leading to Begelman’s temporary downfall but also the actor’s unofficial blacklisting for years to come.After she and Robertson divorced, she married actor-turned-businessman Ted Hartley in 1989. The popular boss of Columbia Pictures, David Begelman, had been forging Robertson’s names on checks as part of an embezzlement scheme.
She bore a skin-deep resemblance to Grace Kelly but never smouldered with passion or conveyed wrenching emotional vulnerability.After some TV work, her Hollywood breakthrough came in 1957 as a library reference clerk in Instead, in 1959 she played a Navy intelligence officer opposite Jerry Lewis in the farce From there, it was back to largely forgettable comedies and dramas, although she later joined the crew of family eccentrics in Robert Altman’s social satire
Merrill was the daughter of financier E.F. Hutton, the founder of the Wall Street firm by the same name, and heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post of the Post cereal fortune. She also helped raise money for a diabetes charity, and she helped lead an abortion rights coalition within the Republican Party.“I was very fortunate that I did have everything I wanted handed to me on a silver platter, so to speak,” she said in 1988.
Studio executives and entertainment journalists chalked up her ambition to a lark, asking why she didn't buy a studio instead of bothering with auditions.She was described as the “Social Register Cinderella” during a Hollywood publicity drive in the late 1950s. And that a lot of that had to be put back into the world.”Dina Merrill, born 29 December 1923; died 22 May 2017Dina Merrill, obituary: Heiress who broke into Hollywood She was also the cousin “poor little rich girl” Barbara …
Dina Merrill and her husband, RKO chairman Ted Hartley in 2004
She was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton in New York in 1923. She spent decades as a philanthropist and fund-raiser and was often described as an exemplar of fashion and elegance.Her parents were the financier Edward Hutton and the breakfast foods heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who married into additional fortunes and became a dominant Washington socialite of her era.