John Hay Whitney
John Hay Whitney (born August 17, 1904 in Ellsworth , Maine , † February 8, 1982 ) was an American entrepreneur , diplomat , publisher , art patron and art collector .
Life
His father was the entrepreneur Payne Whitney and his mother was the art patron Helen Hay Whitney . His sister was Joan Whitney Payson . Whitney studied at Yale University and served in the United States Army during World War II.
In the 1930s he invested in several Broadway shows, including Peter Arno's 1931 revue Here Goes the Bride . He invested in the US company Technicolor . Together with Merian C. Cooper he founded Pioneer Pictures . Whitney was from 1961 to 1966 publisher of the American newspaper New York Herald Tribune , which he had acquired through his Whitney Communications Corporation , founded in 1946 . He politically supported the Republican politician Dwight D. Eisenhower . From 1957 to 1961, Whitney was the successor to Winthrop W. Aldrich as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
In 1930 Whitney married the racehorse owner Liz Whitney Tippett, from whom he divorced in 1940. Whitney married Betsey Cushing Whitney , the daughter of the American neurologist Harvey Cushing and divorced wife of James Roosevelt . The couple adopted two girls. Fred Astaire was one of his close friends .
In the 1970s, Whitney was considered one of the ten richest people in the world. His extensive possessions included, for example, an estate on Long Island, the Greenwood Plantation in Georgia, a city apartment and another townhouse in Manhattan , a property on Fisher Island near New London, Connecticut, and a 12-bedroom house in Saratoga Springs and a house in Surrey, England, near Ascot Racecourse. In Augusta, Georgia, he was a member of the Augusta National Golf Club .
Among other things, Whitney supported the New York Presbyterian Hospital and the New York Public Library with financial donations . In 1946 he established the John Hay Whitney Foundation for educational projects. As an art collector, he owned, among other things, the Renoir painting Bal au moulin de la Galette , which his wife auctioned off at Sotheby's in New York City in 1990 after his death.
literature
Kahn Jr., EJ: Jock: The Life and Times of John Hay Whitney , Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1981, ISBN 0-385-14932-8 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Whitney, John Hay |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American entrepreneur and publisher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 17th August 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ellsworth , Maine , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 8, 1982 |
| Place of death | United States |