Current husband, Ted Hartley, was a regular on the "Peyton Place" (1964) television series. In 1989, they bought RKO Pictures, which they run today. The studio's recent hit was Mighty Joe Young (1998).
Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1994.
Her mother's first husband, Edward Bennett Close, later became the grandfather of actress Glenn Close.
Spent her winters growing up at Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida's largest and most elaborate estate. Today, Mar-a-Lago is owned by Donald Trump, who runs the estate as a private club and residence. Trump rescued the estate from condemnation in 1985, and painstakingly restored it to its former glory.
On Broadway in the 40s before moving to film, she was hardly ever stretched during her career, typed rather severely as a tactful, altruistic wife in family fare or elegant socialite and patron of the arts in sophisticated fluff.
When one of her children was diagnosed with diabetes, she became one of the founders of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, which is dedicated to diabetic research. She is also a director of Project Orbis, a flying eye hospital which teaches advanced eye care and surgical techniques all over the world.
On the artistic side, she is a trustee of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and a director of the Museum of Broadcasting. She was also a presidential appointee to the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
As an actress, socialite and model, she made the cover of Life magazine on January 11, 1960.
In April of 2005, she received a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Her cousin was heiress Barbara Hutton who at one time was married to Cary Grant, who later co-starred with Merrill in Operation Petticoat (1959).
Dina Merrill Detailed Biography
Nedenia Marjorie Hutton (born December 9, 1925) is an American actress known as Dina Merrill.
Born in New York City, she is the daughter of Wall Street wizard Edward Francis Hutton and Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post.
Using the stage name Dina Merrill her first film was Desk Set (1957), in which she played Sylvia Blair, one of the researchers whose supervisor was Bunny Watson (Katharine Hepburn).
Dina Merrill has been married three times. Her first husband was Stanley Rumbough, Jr., an heir to the Colgate toothpaste fortune. Married in 1946, they divorced in 1966. They had three children. Her second husband was the American actor Cliff Robertson (married 1966, divorced 1986). They had one daughter, Heather Robertson.
Her current husband is former actor Ted Hartley; they have been married since 1989.
A corporate remnant named RKO Pictures was purchased by Merrill and Hartley in 1989 with a plan to resurrect it as a motion picture production company.
On April 6, 2005, in New York City, at the Museum of Television and Radio, of which she is a member of the Board of Directors, Ms. Merrill introduced a screening of Budd Schulberg's 1959 TV production What Makes Sammy Run?. She was in this production. Mr. Schulberg was also at the screening.
Dina Merrill is a significant shareholder and director of Lehman Brothers and serves as the chairman of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee and is a member of the Bank's Compensation and Benefits Committee. Ms. Merrill is a presidential appointee to the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a trustee of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Foundation, a vice president of the New York City Mission Society, and serves on the Board of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. She is also a member of the Board of ORBIS International, a global, nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing blindness through education and transferring the medical skills to treat and prevent blindness in developing countries.
She is a pro-choice Republican.
