Ted Field

Field was born on June 1, 1953 in Chicago, Cook County, 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.[3]

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,[1] graduating in 1979.

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 1978 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 Ongias gave the car one last start at Indy but that too ended with an accident.

In 1984, 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 1990, he co-founded Interscope Records. After leaving Interscope in January 2001, he formed ARTISTdirect Records with the backing of BMG. Ted Field is currently chairman and CEO of Radar Pictures.

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.[4][5] Field is a tournament chess player who sponsored the 1990 World Chess Championship in NYC between Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. He is currently developing a movie about the current world chess champion Magnus Carlsen.

He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.

• Madsen, Axel. The Marshall Fields: The Evolution of an American Business Dynasty. Wiley: 2002.

• Ted Field at IMDb
• Filmbug: Ted Field biography