Huntington Hartford - Biography

Biography

Huntington Hartford (1911–2008) (he did not use his first name, George) was born in New York City to Edward V. Hartford (1870–1922) and Henrietta Guerard Pollitzer (1881–1948) and was named for his grandfather, George Huntington Hartford, owner of the A&P grocery store chain.

Edward was a successful inventor and manufacturer who perfected the automotive shock absorber. Along with his brothers, George Ludlum Hartford and John Augustine Hartford, Edward was also an heir to the A&P fortune and served as A&P's corporate secretary as well as one of three trustees that controlled A&P's stock.

After Huntington's birth, the family moved to Deal, New Jersey, a wealthy community on the Atlantic shore.

When Huntington's father died when he was 11, his mother moved the family to a mansion in Newport, Rhode Island known as "Seaverge" next to Rough Point, the mansion owned by Doris Duke. The family also lived on a 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) plantation in South Carolina called "Wando" as well as an apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Huntington was sent to St. Paul's School then majored in English literature at Harvard University.

His mother intended Huntington to marry Doris Duke, the tobacco heiress, but in April 1931, Huntington married Mary Lee Epling, the 18-year-old daughter of a dentist from Covington, West Virginia. After his graduation from Harvard in 1934, he went to work at A&P headquarters in New York in the statistical department. He lived on a trust fund that generated about $1.5 million per year.

His wife, Mary Lee, began dating Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and they married in April 1939 after her divorce from Huntington become final. That same year, Huntington had a son, Edward Colt (1939–1967), with Mary Chastein Grundhoefer.

In 1940, Huntington invested $100,000 to help start a newspaper, PM, with Marshall Field III and worked as a reporter for the publication. An avid sailor, he donated his yacht to the Coast Guard at the start of World War II and commanded a supply ship in the Pacific. After the war, he moved to Los Angeles, California and attempted to purchase Republic Pictures and RKO Studios from Howard Hughes. Huntington also started a modeling agency, an artists' colony and opened a theater.

Huntington's second wife was Marjorie Steele (1930–), an aspiring actress who Huntington married in 1949. The couple had two children, Catherine Hartford (1950–1988) and John Hartford (1958–2011).

The family commuted between Hartford's numerous homes. He purchased a penthouse duplex on the 13th and 14th floors of One Beekman Place in the 1950s after moving from an apartment at the River House in New York City. He owned a home called "Pompano" on 240 El Vedado Drive in Palm Beach, a 150-acre (0.61 km2) estate in Wyckoff, New Jersey called "Melody Farm", a 160-acre (0.65 km2) Hollywood estate known as "The Pines" also known as Runyon Canyon Park, a townhouse in London, a home in Juan-les-Pins France and a house on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

Hartford owned Huntington Hartford Productions which produced several films including the Abbott and Costello film, Africa Screams, in 1949. In 1950, Hartford produced Hello Out There, the last film of James Whale, the acclaimed director of the 1931 version of Frankenstein. Huntington produced several films starring his wife and encouraged her to become an artist. The couple divorced in 1960.

In 1955, Hartford founded the Oil Shale Corporation, later known as Tosco, and was majority shareholder and chairman. Tosco was later acquired by ConocoPhillips. He also set up the Denver Research Institute at University of Denver to find alternate methods of oil extraction.

During this period, he also wrote and produced "The Master of Thornfield", a stage adaptation of Jane Eyre that ran for two weeks in Cincinnati starring Errol Flynn as Mr. Rochester. This partnership led to Flynn staying in Hartford's pool-house briefly in 1957–58 and is the origin of a legend that "The Pines" was Flynn's estate. Later, Hartford produced the play on Broadway.

In 1964, Hartford offered the Pines as a gift to the city but was turned down by Mayor Sam Yorty. As Lloyd Wright recalled in 1977, "Here was this very wealthy man, and he wanted to give something very stunning to Hollywood. The Chambers of Commerce, the hotel owners and the various businesses were jealous of the park and with the help of the city officials, the city refused to give us permits. Hunt was so angry that he wanted to get out immediately and sold the property to Berman who destroyed the mansion and let the place run down."

When George Ludlum Hartford died in 1957, his father's trust was liquidated and Huntington inherited the estate. The Chicago Tribune estimated his wealth in 1969 as half a billion dollars. Mike Wallace introduced him in 1957 when he interviewed him on Television as being worth half a billion dollars.

In 1959, he bought Hog Island in the Bahamas and renamed it Paradise Island and developed it over the next three years hoping to turn it into another Monte Carlo. One feature of his Ocean Club was a cloister built from the disassembled stones of a monastery that William Randolph Hearst stored in a Florida warehouse. The Ocean Club was featured in two James Bond films: "Thunderball," in 1965, and "Casino Royale" in 2006.

In an interview with David Frost on British television, Hartford stated that the flag he created for Paradise Island was in the shape of a "P" and that he wanted to put it on the moon as a symbol of peace for the world. Hartford was responsible for getting the Gambling License for Paradise Island by hiring Sir Stafford Sands a Bahamian Lawyer.

Hartford owned an extensive art collection. In an interview by Edward R. Murrow on his show Person to Person he gave a tour of the collection at his Beekman Place apartment including Rembrandt's "Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo", which sold at Christie's auction house in London on December 8, 2009 for $33 million, a world record for a Rembrandt.

To house his extensive collection of 19th and 20th century art, Hartford built the Gallery of Modern Art at 2 Columbus Circle in Manhattan which opened in 1964. Pointedly, it did not include Abstract Expressionism which Hartford panned in his book, "Art or Anarchy." Hartford was a patron of the architect Edward Durell Stone who designed the modernist marble-clad structure often derided as the "lollipop building". Stone had previously designed the Museum of Modern Art for the Rockefeller family. Hartford commissioned Salvador Dalí to paint The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus for the museum's opening. The museum also included Hartford's paintings by Monet, Manet, Degas, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Hartford closed the museum after five years. Later the building housed the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and was recently rebuilt with a new facade to house the Museum of Arts and Design. That year, Hartford produced the Broadway show "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" which opened at the Belasco Theater starring the then-unknown actor Al Pacino. Pacino won a Tony for his performance. He himself was portrayed by John McMartin in the 2004 film Kinsey, directed by Bill Condon.

In October 1962, Hartford married Diane Brown at "Melody Farm" in Wyckoff, New Jersey. They had a daughter, Cynara Juliet before divorcing in 1970. Five years later, he married Elaine Kay but was divorced again in 1981. At the end of his life, Hartford lived in Lyford Cay in the Bahamas with his daughter Juliet.