Theodore Ringwalt Hartley (born November 6, 1924)[1][2] is an American retired U.S. Navy fighter pilot, investment banker, actor, film producer, and CEO of RKO Pictures. He was married to heiress, actress and philanthropist Dina Merrill[3] until her death in 2017. His last acting credit was 2012 and his last producing credit was in 2015.
Hartley was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the elder of two children born to Eugene and Dorothy Hartley and raised on a farm in Iowa. He had a younger sister, Mary. When he was five years old, Ted's father died, causing financial hardships for the family. At the age of 14, he entered a contest sponsored by Warner Bros., wrote a 50-word essay on “Why I like to fly”, and won some flying lessons. Hartley attended Shattuck Military School in Minnesota, and, by the age of 16, he had won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, entering the Navy in 1942. After flight training, among other tours, he served as a carrier-based fighter pilot, flying F-11s following their introduction in 1956.
Career
As a Navy officer, Hartley had tours as a congressional liaison for the Pentagon, as a Presidential aide, as well as a carrier-based fighter pilot. In May 1964, his F9F8 fighter crashed during a carrier landing accident. He was thrown from the jet, suffered a broken back, and was medically retired from the Navy. After Hartley's military career prematurely ended, he attended Harvard Business School and pursued a career in investment banking, becoming Vice President for First Western Financial Corporation.[4] His next career was in Hollywood, as an actor, where he took on the role of Reverend Jerry Bedford on the 1960s television series Peyton Place. Hartley had featured roles in films with Cary Grant, Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood, and then in the late 1970s was cast in his own series, Chopper One (on ABC), about helicopter flying police officers. The series was short lived, and thereafter Hartley moved to Aspen, Colorado, where he volunteered as the Managing Artistic Director of the local theater, and then turned to commodity trading full-time.[citation needed]
In 1987, Hartley became involved with Pavilion Communications Inc., a company designed to acquire smaller entertainment companies. Through this, Hartley learned of an opportunity to take over RKO Pictures. He and wife Dina Merrill purchased 51% of the company and merged Pavilion Communications with RKO Pictures Corporation in 1991, forming RKO Pictures, LLC. Their first major project was the 1998 remake of Mighty Joe Young. As chairman and chief executive officer of RKO Pictures, Hartley has led RKO's worldwide development and production activities in movies and television as well as the expansion of the RKO brand to stage and other entertainment and distribution venues. He produced a remake of Mighty Joe Young (1998) with Disney, Ritual (2000) with Miramax, a remake of The Magnificent Ambersons (2002), and Shade (2003). For RKO Stage, he produced the musicals Never Gonna Dance (2003), Curtains (2007), Gypsy (2008), 13 (2008), all on Broadway, and Top Hat (2012) in the West End, winner of the 2013 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical.[5]
In 2013, Hartley was elected chairman of the board of Orbis International, a nonprofit eye-healthcare organization dedicated to saving sight worldwide that he has been involved with since 2010.[6]
Hartley belongs to a number of motion picture and television guilds and associations, is a board member of the Steadman Philippon Research Institute (formerly, Steadman-Hawkins Sports Medicine Foundation), and serves as director of the Harvard Business School Association of Southern California. He and Merrill founded the Story Project to promote literacy among inner-city youth, beginning in the Santa Monica Boys and Girls Club. Hartley is a frequent lecturer and is published periodically in business journals. He is a published poet as well as a creator of stories for the screen.[4]
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