Marshall Naify (March 23, 1920 – April 19, 2000) was a

motion picture A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

and media tycoon who was a long-term chairman of the board of

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...

and later became founder and co-chairman of the board of

Todd-AO Todd-AO is an American post-production company founded in 1953 by Mike Todd and Robert Naify, providing sound-related services to the motion picture and television industries. For more than five decades, it was the worldwide leader in theater sou ...

, the largest independent post-production sound studio in the United States which worked on ''

Apollo 13 Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted aft ...

'' and other major films.

Biography

Marshall Naify worked in the theater business nearly all his life. Marshall Naify and his brother

Robert Naify Robert Naify was an American businessman and motion picture and media tycoon known for his ownership of the movie theaters chain United Artists Theatres, the largest and most geographically diverse theatre circuit in the United States, today part of ...

were members of The

Forbes 400 The ''Forbes'' 400 or 400 Richest Americans is a list published by ''Forbes'' magazine of the wealthiest 400 American citizens who own assets in the U.S., ranked by net worth. The 400 was started by Malcolm Forbes in 1982 and the list is publ ...

beginning in 1987 with an estimated combined net worth of $4.3 billion. They merged the family's theater chain with United Artists Theater Circuit and eventually became the majority shareholders. They sold that company in 1986 to John Malone's Telecommunications Inc. (TCI) for cash and stock. The Naify brothers were also pioneers in the

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

industry, entering the business in the 1950s. Marshall Naify also invested in

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

gold stocks. An

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

lover, Naify became an art sponsor, contributor and collector. In 1999, Marshall Naify married Lily Cates, widow of director/producer

Joseph Cates Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

and mother of

Phoebe Cates Phoebe Belle Cates Kline (born July 16, 1963) is an American former actress, known primarily for her roles in films such as ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' (1982), ''Gremlins'' (1984) and ''Drop Dead Fred'' (1991). Early life Cates was born ...

Marshall Naify was married to Valerie Naify, a former actress, for 32 years with whom he had two children.

Thoroughbred horse racing

Marshall Naify owned and raced

Thoroughbred The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are c ...

horses. In 1991 he acquired a farm near

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...

. Formerly known as Pillar Stud, he renamed it 505 Farms and raced under that name. Among the best-known of his horses were Manistique and

Bertrando {{Infobox racehorse , horsename = Bertrando , image = , caption = , sire = Skywalker , dam = Gentle Hands , damsire = Buffalo Lark , sex = Stallion , foaled = 1989 , country = United States , colour = Dark Bay , breeder = Ed Nahem , ...

, the latter owned in partnership with Edward Nahem. Bertrando was a multiple

Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

winner and the 1993

American Champion Older Male Horse The title of American Champion Older Dirt Male Horse is an American Thoroughbred horse racing honor awarded annually to a stallion or gelding, four years old and up, for performances on dirt and main track racing surfaces. In 1971, it became part of ...

Following his death, his daughter, Marsha, sold the property and the horses through a Barretts Equine Ltd. dispersal sale

The farm was eventually acquired by its current operator, Horse trainer, trainer,

Kenneth McPeek Kenneth G. McPeek (born August 2, 1962 in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. Life and career Kenneth G. "Kenny" McPeek was born August 2, 1962 in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. ...

but Marsha Naify remains involved in racing as an owner.

References

Marshall Naify/505 Farms at the NTRA

*

List of billionaires ''The World's Billionaires'' is an annual ranking by documented net worth of the wealthiest billionaires in the world, compiled and published in March annually by the American business magazine ''Forbes''. The list was first published in March ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Naify 1920 births 2000 deaths American billionaires American people of Lebanese descent American racehorse owners and breeders 20th-century American businesspeople