Frederick Woodruff "Ted" Field (born June 1, 1953) is an American media mogul, record executive, entrepreneur and film producer. He co-founded

Interscope Records Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Atlantic Records of Warner Mu ...

with

Jimmy Iovine James Iovine ( ; ; born March 11, 1953) is an American entrepreneur, record executive, and media proprietor best known as the co-founder of Interscope Records. In 2006, Iovine and rapper-producer Dr. Dre founded Beats Electronics, which prod ...

and founded

Interscope Communications Interscope Communications (also known as Interscope Pictures) was a motion picture production company founded in 1982 by Ted Field. It soon became a division of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. History Interscope Communications was founded in 1982 ...

to develop and produce films in 1982, and produced his first hit, ''

Revenge of the Nerds ''Revenge of the Nerds'' is a 1984 American comedy film directed by Jeff Kanew and starring Robert Carradine, Anthony Edwards, Ted McGinley, and Bernie Casey. The film's plot chronicles a group of nerds at the fictional Adams College trying ...

'', the same year. He is an heir of the

Marshall Field Marshall Field (August 18, 1834January 16, 1906) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and custome ...

family.

Early life

Field was born on June 1, 1953 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

, the son of Marshall Field IV, who owned the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' 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 Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring ...

. Field's mother and Larry Fanning purchased the ''

Anchorage Daily News The ''Anchorage Daily News'' is a daily newspaper published by the Binkley Co., and based in Anchorage, Alaska. It is the most widely read newspaper and news website (adn.com) in the state of Alaska. The newspaper is headquartered in Anchorage, ...

'' 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 The McClatchy Company, commonly referred to as simply McClatchy, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law and based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in fourteen states an ...

. She remained as publisher until 1983. Field attended

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it beca ...

Claremont, California Claremont () is a suburban city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of downtown Los Angeles. It is in the Pomona Valley, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As of the 2010 census it had a popu ...

, graduating in 1979.

Career

Field's Interscope Racing started off entering Danny Ongais in

Formula 5000 Formula 5000 (or F5000) was an open wheel, single seater auto-racing formula that ran in different series in various regions around the world from 1968 to 1982. It was originally intended as a low-cost series aimed at open-wheel racing cars tha ...

in 1975, graduating to USAC racing and the

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of India ...

in Parnelli chassis. Field also funded Ongais to make occasional

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship ...

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

. This was intended to take a turbocharged six-cylinder Porsche engine (similar to the one Ongais and Field were using in their

Porsche 935 The Porsche 935 was a race car developed and manufactured by German automaker Porsche. Introduced in 1976 as the factory racing version of the 911 (930) Turbo and prepared for FIA- Group 5 rules, it was an evolution of the Carrera RSR 2.1 turbo ...

) but a dispute with USAC over turbo boost meant the program was abandoned. The car was eventually fitted with a conventional Ford

Cosworth Cosworth is a British automotive engineering company founded in London in 1958, specialising in high-performance internal combustion engines, powertrain, and electronics for automobile racing (motorsport) and mainstream automotive industri ...

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. In 1982, Field founded

, which produced more than 50 major films. In 1984, Field was a leader of a group that bought

movie camera A movie camera (also known as a film camera and cine-camera) is a type of photographic camera that rapidly takes a sequence of photographs, either on an image sensor or onto film stock, in order to produce a moving image to project onto a movie s ...

manufacturer

Panavision Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1953 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses duri ...

. In 1987, Panavision was sold to Lee International. In 1990, he co-founded

. After leaving Interscope in January 2001, he formed ARTISTdirect Records with the backing of

BMG BMG may refer to: Organizations * Music publishing companies: ** Bertelsmann Music Group, a 1987–2008 division of Bertelsmann that was purchased by Sony on October 1, 2008 *** Sony BMG, a 2004–2008 joint venture of Bertelsmann and Sony that wa ...

. Ted Field is currently chairman and CEO of Radar Pictures. Field and Radar Pictures have faced legal action in recent years 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.''

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

'', August 1998, p. 3
Los Angeles (magazine)
/ref> 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 the current world chess champion

Magnus Carlsen Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the reigning five-time World Chess Champion. He is also a three-time World Rapid Chess Champion and five-time World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen has ...

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

References

External links

* * Filmbug
Ted Field biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Field, Ted 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