Marshall Field IV (June 15, 1916 – September 18, 1965) was the owner of the Chicago Daily News from 1956 to 1965.
Early life and education
Marshall Field IV was born in New York City on June 15, 1916, to Evelyn (née Marshall) Field and Marshall Field III.[1][2] Among his siblings was Barbara Field, who also married three times (to Anthony Addison Bliss, Robert Kenneth Boggs, and George Peter Joseph Benziger, grandson of James Joseph Brown).[3] Through his father's second marriage to Ruth Pruyn (the first wife of
Ogden Phipps), he was the elder half-brother to Fiona Field, who married Jean Eugene Paul Kay.[4]
Field was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy in June 1942. He served as a gunnery officer aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in a number of engagements in the Pacific and was wounded during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. His conduct in the engagement won him the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, and the Presidential Unit Citation. He was discharged with the rank of Lt. Commander in 1944.
He learned the newspaper trade as a reporter for the Chicago Sun, owned by his father, from 1946 to 1948. He had a nervous breakdown and was briefly institutionalized following his father's death in 1956, then took up the reins as the owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and Field Enterprises. He also owned Parade magazine from 1956 to 1958 and purchased the Chicago Daily News in 1959.
His third marriage, to Julia Lynne Templeton, who previously worked in public relations, was in 1964,[20] and ended with his death the following year. The couple had one child:
Corinne Field (b. 1965).
Marshall Field IV died at his home in Chicago on September 18, 1965.[2][10] While it was rumored that he had died of an accidental overdose, the Cook County Coroner's office ruled his death as result of natural causes.[21] His estate was valued at $25,500,000.[22]
There are two professorships at the University of Chicago named after him, the Marshall Field IV Professor in Psychology and the Marshall Field IV Professor in Urban Education.
^"[Untitled]". TIME. July 14, 1947. Archived from the original on July 15, 2011. Divorced. Marshall Field IV, 31, who is learning to be a journalist on his father's Chicago Sun; by Joanne Bass Field, 31, daughter of New Hampshire's onetime Governor Robert P. Bass; after nine years, two children; in Manchester, N.H.
^"Field's death natural, says jury's report". Chicago Tribune. December 2, 1965. p. D12. An inquest by the Cook county coroner's office has shown that Marshall Field IV, who headed Field Enterprises, Inc., died as a result of natural causes...