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 Slobodynskyj 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 Dr. Dre and 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 2000, Field is currently chairman and CEO of Radar Pictures. The company initially used Interscope's library for the company's development slate.

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

A Porsche 935 in Interscope Racing's livery

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Template:Tooltip	Template:Tooltip
Template:24hLM	Template:Flagicon Interscope Racing	Template:Flagicon Milt Minter Template:Flagicon John Morton	Porsche 935/79	IMSA GTX	154	DNF	DNF
Template:24hLM	Template:Flagicon Kremer Racing Template:Flagicon Team Malardeau	Template:Flagicon Jean-Louis Lafosse Template:Flagicon Danny Ongais	Porsche 935-K3/80	Gr.5 SP 2.0+	89	DNF	DNF
Template:24hLM	Template:Flagicon Porsche Kremer Racing Template:Flagicon Interscope Racing	Template:Flagicon Bill Whittington Template:Flagicon Don Whittington	Porsche 935-K3/81	Gr.5 SP 2.0+	57	DNF	DNF
Template:24hLM	Template:Flagicon Kremer Racing Template:Flagicon Interscope Racing	Template:Flagicon Danny Ongais Template:Flagicon Bill Whittington	Porsche Kremer C-K5	Gr.C	25	DNF	DNF
Template:Center

Filmography (producer)

He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.

Film

Year	Film	Credit
1984	Revenge of the Nerds
1985	Turk 182
1987	Critical Condition
	Outrageous Fortune
	Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise
	Three Men and a Baby
1988	The Seventh Sign
	Cocktail
1989	Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure	Executive producer
	Collision Course
	Renegades	Executive producer
	An Innocent Man
1990	The First Power	Executive producer
	Bird on a Wire	Executive producer
	Arachnophobia	Co-executive producer
	Three Men and a Little Lady
1991	Class Action
	Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey	Executive producer
	Paradise	Executive producer
1992	The Hand That Rocks the Cradle	Executive producer
	The Cutting Edge
	FernGully: The Last Rainforest	Executive producer
	Jersey Girl	Executive producer
	The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag	Executive producer
	Out on a Limb	Executive producer
1994	The Air Up There
	Terminal Velocity	Executive producer
	Imaginary Crimes	Executive producer
1995	Roommates
	Separate Lives	Executive producer
	Operation Dumbo Drop	Executive producer
	The Tie That Binds	Executive producer
	Two Much	Executive producer
	Jumanji	Executive producer
	Mr. Holland's Opus
1996	The Arrival	Executive producer
	Boys	Executive producer
	Kazaam	Executive producer
	The Associate	Executive producer
1997	Gridlock'd	Executive producer
	Snow White: A Tale of Terror	Executive producer
1998	The Proposition
	Very Bad Things	Executive producer
	What Dreams May Come	Executive producer
1999	Runaway Bride
	Teaching Mrs. Tingle	Executive producer
2000	Pitch Black	Executive producer
2002	They	Executive producer
2003	How to Deal	Executive producer
	Le Divorce	Executive producer
	The Texas Chainsaw Massacre	Executive producer
	The Last Samurai	Executive producer
2004	The Chronicles of Riddick	Executive producer
2005	The Amityville Horror	Executive producer
	Zathura: A Space Adventure	Executive producer
2006	Waist Deep	Executive producer
2007	The Heartbreak Kid
2008	Swing Vote	Executive producer
2009	Horsemen	Executive producer
	All About Steve	Executive producer
	The Invention of Lying	Executive producer
	The Box	Executive producer
	Everybody's Fine
2010	Twelve
2012	Spring Breakers	Executive producer
2013	Riddick
2014	Acid Girls	Executive producer
2016	Kickboxer: Vengeance
2017	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle	Executive producer
2018	Beirut
2019	Jumanji: The Next Level	Executive producer

Thanks

Year	Film	Role
1990	The Man Inside	Special thanks
2001	Kissing Jessica Stein
2009	Veronika Decides to Die	The production would like to thank

Television

Year	Title	Credit	Notes
1986	American Geisha	Executive producer	Television film
1987	The Real Adventures of Sherlock Jones and Proctor Watson
	Murder Ordained	Executive producer	Television film
	The Father Clements Story	Executive producer	Television film
1988	Crossing the Mob	Executive producer	Television film
1989	My Boyfriend's Back	Executive producer	Television film
	A Mother's Courage: The Mary Thomas Story	Executive producer	Television film
1990	The Secret Life of Archie's Wife	Executive producer	Television film
1993	Foreign Affairs	Executive producer	Television film
1995	Body Language	Executive producer	Television film
1997	Snow White: A Tale of Terror	Executive producer	Television film
2000	Into Pitch Black	Co-executive producer	Television special
2015	Winter Dragon	Executive producer	Television pilot
2017	Under the Bed		Television film
2018	Lead
2021	The Wheel of Time	Co-executive producer Executive producer
TBD	The Last Herald-Mage	Executive producer

As an actor

Year	Title	Role
1983	Saturday Supercade	Tex Toadwalker

See also

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

External links

• Template:IMDb name
• Filmbug: Ted Field biography