Ted Field

Ted Field
Frederick Woodruff "Ted" Field (born June 1, 1953) is an American media mogul, record executive, entrepreneur and film producer.
He founded Interscope Communications to develop and produce films in 1982, and produced his first hit, Revenge of the Nerds, the same year. Seven years later, he co-founded Interscope Records with Jimmy Iovine in 1989.
He is an heir of the Marshall Field family.
Early life
Field was born on June 1, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Marshall Field IV, who owned the Chicago Sun-Times from 1956 to 1965, and Katherine Woodruff Fanning, who was later an editor of several newspapers.
Field's parents divorced when he was young. Field's mother then married Larry Fanning, who became Field's stepfather. Field, his sisters, his mother and his stepfather moved to Anchorage, Alaska. Field's mother and Larry Fanning purchased the Anchorage Daily News from founder Norman C. Brown in 1967. Larry Fanning died in 1971: Kay Fanning continued to operate the paper until 1979 when she sold it to The McClatchy Company. She remained as publisher until 1983.
Field attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, graduating in 1979.
Career
Interscope Racing
Field's Interscope Racing started off entering Danny Ongais in Formula 5000 in 1975, graduating to USAC racing and the Indianapolis 500 in Parnelli chassis. Field also funded Ongais to make occasional Formula One outings in a Penske during the 1977 season.
Field also backed the construction in 1980 of an Interscope chassis designed by Roman Slobodinskij for the Indianapolis 500. This was intended to take a turbocharged six-cylinder Porsche engine (similar to the one Ongais and Field were using in their Porsche 935) but a dispute with USAC over turbo boost meant the program was abandoned. The car was eventually fitted with a conventional Ford Cosworth DFX engine and entered in the 1981 500. Ongais led the race but crashed and was critically injured. In 1982 a recovered Ongais gave the car one last start at Indy but that too ended with an accident.
Interscope Communications
In 1982, Field founded Interscope Communications, which produced more than 50 major films. In 1984, Field was a leader of a group that bought movie camera manufacturer Panavision. In 1987, Panavision was sold to Lee International.
In 1992, PolyGram bought a controlling interest in the film label. In December 1998, Seagram acquired PolyGram, merging its film division with Universal Pictures. As a result, Interscope Communications, October Films and Gramercy Pictures were sold off to Barry Diller, who owned HSN, which in turn, had a major stake in USA Networks. In 1999, the three labels were merged to become USA Films. In 2001, Universal Pictures bought USA from Diller and in 2002, combined USA Films, Universal Focus and Good Machine Releasing to become Focus Features.
Interscope Records
In 1989, he and record executive Jimmy Iovine co-founded Interscope Records. The label sustained a distribution deal with Atlantic Records, but in 1995, became a free agent following controversy surrounding Interscope's signage of gangster rappers including Suge Knight's Death Row Records. The label was shortly bought by MCA Inc. for $200 million. In 1996, following a sale to Seagram by Matsushita Electric (parent company of Panasonic), MCA was rebranded as Universal Pictures, and its MCA Music Entertainment faction was renamed Universal Music Group. Then, in December 1998, Seagram acquired PolyGram and merged its music division of labels with Universal Music Group, resulting in Interscope, on January 1, 1999, being merged into Geffen Records and A&M Records to become Interscope Geffen A&M Records. He and Iovine were co-chairmen of IGA.
After leaving Interscope in February 2001, he and Marc Geiger formed Artistdirect Records with the backing of BMG's RCA Records. The label folded in 2003.
Radar Pictures
Since forming the company in late 2003, Field is currently chairman and CEO of Radar Pictures.
Field and Radar Pictures have faced legal action in years between 2007 and 2019 over allegations of fraudulent misconduct. In December 2016, Field and his company assigned profits from then-upcoming Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), to Filmula Entertainment, to satisfy a breach-of-contract over the unsuccessful reboot of Trauma Records.
Personal life
From 1984 to 1998, he owned a mansion formerly owned by Howard B. Keck located at 1244 Moraga Drive in the gated community of Moraga Estates in Bel Air, California. From 1986 through 1993, Field owned the Harold Lloyd Estate (also known as Green Acres) in Beverly Hills, California. Field is a tournament chess player who sponsored the 1990 World Chess Championship in NYC between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. He is currently developing a movie about former world chess champion Magnus Carlsen.
Racing record
24 Hours of Le Mans results
Filmography (producer)
He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.
Film
Thanks
Television
As an actor
See also
Madsen, Axel. The Marshall Fields: The Evolution of an American Business Dynasty. Wiley: 2002.
References
External links
Filmbug: Ted Field biography
1953 births
24 Hours of Daytona drivers
24 Hours of Le Mans drivers
Film producers from Illinois
Living people
Racing drivers from Chicago
Marshall Field family
Pomona College alumni
Formula One team owners
Field family
IndyCar Series team owners
Sports car racing team owners