John Hay Whitney

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John Hay Whitney (August 27, 1904 in Ellsworth, Maine – February 8, 1982), colloquially known as "Jock" Whitney, was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and a member of the Whitney family.

Contents 1 Family 2 Sporting life 3 Business ventures 3.1 Freeport Texas Co. 3.2 Technicolor 3.3 J.H. Whitney & Co. 4 Personal life 5 Military career 6 Political life 7 Philanthropy 8 Links

[edit] Family

Whitney was a descendant of John Whitney, a Puritan who settled in Massachusetts in 1635, as well as of William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower, and his two grandfathers were presidential cabinet members. His father was Payne Whitney, and grandfather was William C. Whitney.

The Payne Whitneys lived around the corner from James B. Duke, and his wife and daughter Doris. Whitney's uncle, Oliver Hazard Payne, a business partner of John D. Rockefeller, arranged the buyout of Duke's competitors to create the American Tobacco Co..

"Jock" Whitney attended Yale College. He also joined Delta Kappa Epsilon, as his father had, grandfather, and great-uncle had all been oarsmen at Yale, and his father was captain of the crew in 1898. He was a member of Scroll and Key. While at Yale, he allegedly coined the term "crew cut" for the haircut that now bears the name.

After graduating in 1926, Whitney went to Oxford University, but the death of his father necessitated his returning home. He inherited a trust fund of $20 million (approximately $210 million in 2005 dollars), and later inherited four times that amount from his mother.

[edit] Sporting life

Whitney inherited his family's love of horses, a predilection he shared with his sister, Joan Whitney Payson. Jock and his sister ran Greentree Stables, owned by their mother. In 1928, he became the youngest member ever elected to the Jockey Club.

He owned Easter Hero who won the 1929 and 1930 editions of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. In the 1929 Grand National, his horse twisted a plate and was beaten by a nose at the finish. Alhough Whitney entered the Grand National annually, he never again came close to winning.

He entered four horses in the Kentucky Derby in the 1930s, "Stepenfetchit," which finished 3rd in 1932, "Overtime," which finished 5th in 1933, "Singing Wood," which finished 8th in 1934, and "Heather Broom," which finished 3rd in 1939. Jock was an outstanding polo player, with a four-goal handicap, and it was as a sportsman that he made the cover of the March 27, 1933 issue of Time magazine.

[edit] Business ventures

[edit] Freeport Texas Co.

In 1929, Whitney was hired as a clerk at the firm of Lee, Higginson, where he met Langbourne Meade Williams, Jr., the son of the founder of Freeport Texas Co., a sulfur mining company. Williams enlisted his aid in ousting the chairman of his family's company by buying shares of the company. Whitney soon was Freeport's biggest shareholder, enabling Williams to sack the chairman and his management team. Williams became Freeport's president in 1933 and Whitney was appointed Chairman of the Board.

[edit] Technicolor

Whitney invested in several Broadway shows, including Peter Arno's 1931 revue Here Goes the Bride, a failure that cost him $100,000, but was more successful as one of the backers of Life with Father.

An October 1934 Fortune article on the Technicolor Corporation noted Whitney's interest in pictures. He had met Technicolor head Herbert Kalmus at the Saratoga race track. In 1932, Technicolor achieved a breakthrough with its three-strip process. RKO Pictures' Merian C. Cooper approached Whitney with the idea of investing in Technicolor. They joined forces and founded Pioneer Pictures in 1933, with a distribution deal with R.K.O. Whitney and his cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney bought a 15% stake in Technicolor.

Whitney was also the major investor in David O. Selznick's production company, putting up $870,000 and serving as Chairman of the Board. He put up half the money to option Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind," then invested more money for the making of "Gone With the Wind" and "Rebecca."

[edit] J.H. Whitney & Co.

J.H. Whitney & Co. is the oldest venture capital firm in the U.S. (Whitney's business partner, the Benno Schmidt, in fact, coined the term "venture capital".) In 1958, while he was still ambassador to the United Kingdom, his company Whitney Communications Corp. bought the New York Herald Tribune, and was its publisher from 1961 - 1966. Whitney Communications also owned and operated other newspapers, plus magazines and broadcasting stations.

[edit] Personal life

Although married to Mary Elizabeth Altemus, he was romantically linked to Tallulah Bankhead, Paulette Goddard and Joan Crawford. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard met at one of Whitney's parties. He divorced Mary, and in 1942, married Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney, ex-wife of James Roosevelt, son of Franklin D. Roosevelt. They had two daughters.

Jock purchased "Llangollen" in 1930 as a bridal gift for his fiancee, Mary Elizabeth "Liz" Altemus. It was a 2,200 acre historic equestrian estate just outside Middleburg, Virginia. The couple divorced in 1940, but Liz Whitney, a socialite and internationally renowned horse breeder, retained the estate and went on to marry three more times and made Llangollen party central for the hunt set. At the time of her death in 1988, she was known as Liz Tippett, after marrying Col. C.J. Tippett in 1960

During the 1970s, Jock Whitney was listed as one of the ten wealthiest men in the world. The residences at his disposal over the years included an estate on Long Island; a plantation in Georgia; a town house and an elegant apartment in Manhattan; a large summer house on Fishers Island, near New London, Connecticut; a 12-room house in Saratoga Springs, which the Whitneys used when they attended horse races; a golfing cottage in Augusta, Ga.; and a spacious house in Surrey, England, near the Ascot racecourse. In addition, the Whitneys shared a renowned Kentucky horse farm with Whitney's sister.

[edit] Military career

Whitney served in the United States Army Air Forces as an intelligence officer during World War II, assigned to the Office of Strategic Services. He was taken prisoner by the Germans in southern France, but escaped when the train transporting him to a POW camp came under Allied fire.

[edit] Political life

Whitney was the major backer of Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Eisenhower appointed him Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He played a major role in improving Anglo-American relations, which had been severely strained during the 1956 Suez Crisis, when Eisenhower demanded that the British, French and Israelis terminate their invasion of Egypt.

[edit] Philanthropy

Payne Whitney made substantial gifts to Yale, to the New York Presbyterian Hospital, and the New York Public Library. After his father's death, the family built the Payne Whitney Gymnasium at Yale in his honor. The family also financed Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 1932.

Whitney created the John Hay Whitney Foundation for educational projects in 1946. The Foundation provided fellowships to the racially and culturally deprived. He become a major contributor to Yale University, where he served as a Fellow of the Corporation.

In 1951, he and his wife Betsey Cushing Whitney donated land from their "Greentree" estate in Manhasset, New York toward the building of North Shore Hospital. Currently called North Shore University Hospital, it is the flagship hospital of the 3rd largest not-for-profit secular healthcare system in the United States, the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.

In 1953, Whitney received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York."

[edit] Links

• Philadelphia Inquirer Obituary 9 Feb 1982 [1]
• Internet Movie Database biography [2]

Preceded by Winthrop W. Aldrich

U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom 1957–1961

Succeeded by David K. E. Bruce