Dina Merrill

Are you watching The Courtship Of Eddie's Father on TCM right now? I am. Anyway, I was never much of a fan....

R1, yep. LOL.

She had the life. Just being rich, looking gorgeous, and gong to high class functions every night.

If I could trade places with anyone (and live in their prime) it might be her.

Her best role was as Calamity Jan, Shame's girlfriend, in a two part Batman episode.

"Who's Dina Merrill" would be my answer.

R5 = simply pathetic

Because no one wants her to die, OP.

Dina Merrill's mother is Marjorie Merriweather Post.

Too rich to die

[quote]Dina Merrill's mother is Marjorie Merriweather Post.

Marjorie's apartment pretty much gave rise to the term floorplan porn. 54 rooms on 3 floors with sleeping porches overlooking central park.

Saw her in a Madison Avenue hair salon about 3 years ago. She was in bad shape--severely stopped over and shuffling along But she's still so rich she could afford a white nurse/home health care attendant who was with her. Think she lives in River House.

She's wonderful in Just Tell Me What You Want as Alan King's alcoholic wife, Connie.

She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's many years ago. Her mother died of the disease. And yes, despite her current husband's efforts to spend every penny she has, she still has plenty of money left.

[quote] Think she lives in River House.

She left East 52nd Street about 20 years ago and last I heard is living on Fifth Avenue.

Love her as the drugged-up mom in A Wedding

She had a weird Hollywood career--she was stunningly beautiful and not untalented, but she mostly just played the rich bitch all the time, which is what she was in real life. It must have been fun for her to break the role on Batman as a cowgirl supervillain.

Wasn't she married to Cliff Robertson?

[quote] Wasn't she married to Cliff Robertson?

Yes, proving that money usually marries money.

[quote]Wasn't she married to Cliff Robertson?

Yes, she had my leftover.

Yes, R16. They had a daughter who died a few years ago of cancer. She had a son who died in a boating accident in his early 20s. Her niece, whom she raised as her own, was murdered by a boyfriend about two years ago.

R15, "rich" describes her. "Bitch" does not.

Dina Merrill was my mother's patron saint. She adored her, but she loathed Grace Kelly who she called a trashy prostitute. The Kellys were new money.

DL cannot permit a reference to "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" go by without the mandatory mention of "the delicate, the flower-like Miyoshi Umeki."

I love the fact that she took the last name of Merrill from Merrill Lynch because she knew it would rankle her stepfather - E.F. Hutton.

She had more money than God being from those two lineages.

Hutton was her father, not her stepfather.

She was perfect in Butterfield 8. A fantastic film BTW!

Anybody see her in ON YOUR TOES?

Met her randomly in Vail late '80s and she was charm personified.

No but I saw her ON HER BACK quite a few times.

Dina Merrill with her grandson, singer Cole Rumbough.

[quote]Hutton was her father

So did she listen?

Two years ago.

Does that nerdy Cole guy in R28's pic get all her money?

His last name is Rumbough, R31, so he's sharing it with siblings, parents, aunts/uncles/cousins. But Rumbough (his grandfather) is also rich as hell. The kid can afford to dress like that and be a singer. He can afford any damn thing he wants.

I still think of her as a substitute panelist on all those Goodson/Todman game shows of the 1960s. That's where she really shined. Er....shone.

[His last name is Rumbough, [R31], so he's sharing it with siblings, parents, aunts/uncles/cousins. But Rumbough (his grandfather) is also rich as hell. The kid can afford to dress like that and be a singer. He can afford any damn thing he wants. ]

I think it's nice that his socially prominent and old wealth family has not cut him off for being a fairy.

OP: Dina Merrill is not the poor man's Grace Kelly or the poor man's anyone else for that matter. While in the late '50s, she was intentionally marketed as the new Grace Kelly. She was stunning, cool, classy and wealthy beyond words. She probably worked when she wanted. After all, she was the only child of POST Cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and Wall Street stockbroker E.F. Hutton. Dina's cousin was Woolworth heiress, Barbara Hutton. Quite the family.

Dina appeared in 22 motion pictures, and in April 2005, she received a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Dina Merrill was one gorgeous woman. The didn't come any cooler or classier than this:

In the 1950s, Coty launched an upscale cosmetics line under her name. It was at a time when Coty was losing its status in upscale retailers and becoming more mass market. Revlon (which was also sold at Saks Fifth Avenue) countered by creating Princess Marcella Borghese, and Max Factor developed a premium line called Geminesse.

Yes, r25, I saw her in that splendid George Abbott-directed revival of "On Your Toes", and she was great. The whole show was pretty entertaining to boot.

Yes, I saw her in the revival of "On Your Toes." Loved her and it. You can see the pretty apple , top of the tree….

Lovely lady, no dead pool for Dina, OP.

R11,

that's pretty good if you can afford a WHITE homecare nurse LOL

I remember Bacall wanting her friend Dina to replace her when she was on vacation from WOMAN OF THE YEAR. They went with Raquel instead. Betty was not pleased.

She was in Operation Petticoat but I don't think she ended up with Cary Grant. Was it Tony Curtis??

All I remember about Operation Petticoat was how blindingly beautiful she was.

A shame she sold her soul to that pretentious crackpot Altman. She'd have done better with the devil.

What caused the divorce between her and Cliff Robertson and when did that happen?

More about the bizarrely formed Cole Rumbough. He is the Dorothy Kilgallen of singers with apparently no chin. See him often in NY Social Diary.

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We had a fantastic thread about her a few years ago:

I never understood why the year Cliff Robertson won the Oscar for Best Actor and he was unable to attend since he was on a film location, his award was not accepted by Dina, who was sitting in the audience and this was many years before they separated.

Marjorie Merriweather Post built Mar a Lago, Dina's childhood playground.

She only appeared in one episode, but could not have found anyone more perfect to play Maxwell's mother on "The Nanny".

[quote]She only appeared in one episode, but could not have found anyone more perfect to play Maxwell's mother on "The Nanny".

How about someone BRITISH?

"But she's still so rich she could afford a white nurse/home health care attendant who was with her. "

Time to get an insurance policy, R11.

Dina was excellent in A Wedding (1978) directed by Robert Altman.

She was also wonderful in an episode of Roseanne's final season.

With her pedigree lines and marriages , she is worth a cool 5.2 Billion dollars, fraus!

R11 she lives in one of those 60s/70s era buildings by the UN. 860 I think.

The family hates her latest husband.

Another intersting factoid: all the grandkids went to public school. Granted it was Greenwich High School, but still most people I know who live in Greenwich who come from far less either attended or sent their children to either GA or Country Day.

Given who they are they aren't pretentious.

I don't think she inherited that much of her parents' money. I think she's talked about this in interviews. I mean she very wealthy, but not Madonna or Streisand wealthy.

Dina is divine.

Dina could buy and sell both Madonna and Streisand. Marjorie Merriweather Post was said to have divided her estate equally between her 3 daughters. Dina and her current husband bought a movie studio and she lives in the Hamptons. She is very generous to the museum that her mother founded and has a lot of thing on loan there. If you haven't been to Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens then you owe it to yourself. Streisand would salivate over the collection and envy the jewels especially the emeralds.

Sixty-one positive posts about a woman on DataLounge. Gentlemen, the next time someone asks you what "class" is ...

R62 well, she IS a Republican. Of the old school Eastern Establishment variety, not the crazy kind - nonetheless, I would think that would be enough for certain DLers to tar and feather her.

Of course, these past few years, she hasn't known what's flying, so it's a bit moot anyway.

She definitely has some sort of dementia. But I'm not sure it is Alzheimer's. She also shakes, so maybe she has Lewy Body Dementia or something along those lines.

Also, the studio she and her husband bought - that's considered a big joke.

A grand lady from a grand time.

No, Dina is not as wealthy as Madonna or Streisand, who are both estimated to be worth around $600 million. Post left most of her fortune to charities, including her impressive real estate properties. Dina never had ownership of her mother's big properties, and has stated such in interviews.

She has Alzheimer's. That's a fact. And she and her husband didn't buy the studio - SHE bought it. For him. The reason it's a joke is because he is a joke. An idiotic blowhard. No one knows what she sees in him. At the time they married and for many years after, she could have had any man she wanted. This buffoon is completely unworthy of her. Yes, her family hates him. And it's well deserved.

She was wonderful in "Operation Petticoat." Most people don't realize that the film was based on a true story. We really did have a pink submarine in the Pacific at the beginning of World War II. That was due to a mixup in the red-lead rust-proofing undercoat. It was supposed to be hidden by the usualy Navy gray paint but the war began before they got the gray paint. The hilarious letter that Cary Grant sent to a supply officer back in the States when they couldn't get toilet paper, is actually in Navy archives.

Did Dinah Shore steal her name?

[quote] Met her randomly in Vail late '80s and she was charm personified.

"If you shoved a silver spoon up a monkey's butt, they'd learn how to say please and thanks, too."

Did Merrill and her husband buy an actual studio (RKO?) or was it just the remake rights of RKO properties?

The "poor man's Grace Kelly?"

I think that Grace Kelly was the poor man's Dina Merrill.

Elegant. Loved her.

r65....funny, all souces say Merrill was worth 5 BILLION when she died.....so much for your fangurl facts.....she could buy both Babs and Madonna and have plenty left over to buy Beyonce and Celine as well.....and still be grossly rich.