Dina Merrill

Dina Merrill (born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton; December 29, 1923 – May 22, 2017) was an American actress. She had more than a hundred film and television credits from the late 1950s until the 2000s.

Early life Merrill was born in New York City on December 29, 1923, but for many years, her date of birth was given as December 9, 1925. She was the only child of Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her second husband, Wall Street stockbroker Edward Francis Hutton, one of the founders of E. F. Hutton & Co. Merrill had two older half-sisters, Adelaide Brevoort Close (July 26, 1908 – December 31, 1998) and Eleanor Post Hutton (December 3, 1909 – November 27, 2006), by her mother's first marriage to Edward Bennett Close, grandfather of actress Glenn Close. Merrill was also first cousin—and first cousin once removed, respectively—to heiress Barbara Hutton and her son Lance Reventlow.

Merrill graduated from Miss Porter's School, then attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C. for one term, but then enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. She studied acting at HB Studio under Uta Hagen.

Acting career On advice from her half-sister's (then) husband, she adopted the stage name Dina Merrill, borrowing from Charles E. Merrill, a famous stockbroker like her father. Merrill made her debut on the stage in the play The Mermaids Singing in 1945.

During the late 1950s and 1960s, Merrill was believed to have been marketed as a replacement for Grace Kelly,

Merrill's film credits included Desk Set (1957), A Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed (1958), Don't Give Up the Ship (1959), Operation Petticoat (1959, with Cary Grant, who had been married to her cousin, Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton), The Sundowners (1960), BUtterfield 8 (1960), The Young Savages (1961), The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963), I'll Take Sweden (1965), The Greatest (1977), A Wedding (1978), Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), Anna to the Infinite Power (1983), Twisted (1986), Caddyshack II (1988), Fear (1990), True Colors (1991), The Player (1992), Suture (1993), and Shade (2003). She also appeared in made-for-TV movies, such as Seven in Darkness (1969), The Lonely Profession (1969), Family Flight (1972), and The Tenth Month (1979).

Merrill appeared in numerous television series in the 1960s, such as playing the villain Calamity Jan in two 1968 episodes of Batman with then-husband Cliff Robertson. She also made guest appearances on two Bonanza episodes as Susannah Clauson, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode "Bonfire" (1962), The Investigators, The Bold Ones, Wagon Train (1964), Mission: Impossible, The Love Boat; Quincy, M.E.; Murder, She Wrote; Roseanne, and The Nanny, as Maxwell Sheffield's disapproving and distant British mother. In 1971, Merrill appeared as Laura Duff in The Men from Shiloh (rebranded name for the TV Western The Virginian) in the episode titled "The Angus Killer".

Her stage credits include the 1983 Broadway revival of the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes, starring Russian prima ballerina Natalia Makarova. In 1991, she appeared in the rotating cast of the off-Broadway staged reading of Wit & Wisdom.

In 1991, Merrill and her third husband Ted Hartley merged their company Pavilion Communications with RKO to form RKO Pictures, which owns the intellectual property of the RKO Radio Pictures movie studio.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Merrill was a recurring guest on several network television game and panel shows, including Match Game, To Tell the Truth, What's My Line, and Hollywood Squares.

Board memberships Merrill was 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 Center, and a vice president of the New York City Mission Society. In 1980, Merrill joined the board of directors of her father's E. F. Hutton & Co., continuing on the board and the compensation committee of Lehman Brothers when it acquired Hutton, for over 18 years.

Personal life and death

Merrill was married three times. In 1946, she wed Stanley M. Rumbough Jr., an heir to the Colgate-Palmolive toothpaste fortune and entrepreneur. Later that year, she wed actor Cliff Robertson, with whom she had a daughter. The couple divorced in 1986.

Two of Merrill's four children predeceased her. One died in a boating accident and another died from ovarian cancer.

She was a registered Republican, and she headed a pro-choice group called "Republican Majority for Choice."

Honors Merrill received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award, in 1994, and a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in April 2005.

Filmography Feature films

Television films Year Title Role Notes 1961 Westinghouse Presents: The Dispossessed Annette DeGrande 1962 The Expendables Barbara 1968 The Sunshine Patriot Brancie Hagen 1969 Seven in Darkness Emily Garth ABC Movie of the Week The Lonely Profession Beatrice Savarona 1971 Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones Vivian Greher ABC Movie of the Week 1972 Family Flight Florence Carlyle ABC Movie of the Week1973 The Letters Penelope Parkington ABC Movie of the Week Running Wild Whit Colby 1979 The Tenth Month Cele 1983 The Brass Ring Mother 1986 The Alan King Show Nan Cooper 1989 Turn Back the Clock Maureen Dowd 1993 Not in My Family Claire Worth 1997 Something Borrowed, Something Blue Lydia D'Arcy - Monique's Mother 1998 A Chance of Snow Merilee Parker 2002 The Magnificent Ambersons Mrs. Johnson The Glow Phoebe Janusz

Television