Ted Ashley

Ted Ashley (August 3, 1922 – August 24, 2002) was a talent agent and media executive. Founder of the Ashley-Famous talent agency, he was later chairman of the Warner Bros. film studio from 1969 to 1980.

Biography Ashley was born to a poor Jewish family in Brooklyn in 1922 as Theodore Assofsky. He graduated from Franklin K. Lane High School. At the age of 20, he became an agent for the agency and changed his name to "Ashley" as it sounded dignified and English. In 1962, he purchased the Famous Artists Agency from Charles K. Feldman and renamed the agency Ashley-Steiner-Famous Artists. In 1964, Steiner resigned to form his own film production company and the agency was renamed Ashley-Famous. In 1967, the agency was sold to Kinney National Company in exchange for $12,750,000 in Kinney stock. He married his third wife, Page Cuddy, in 1987. He had two biological daughters: Fran Curtis Dubin and Diane Ashley; and two adopted daughters, Kim Balin and Banhi Sinclair, whom he and his third wife adopted after the death of actress Ina Balin.

Ashley was good friends with Bruce Lee.

He died aged 80 in New York of leukemia, after a long illness.