NEW YORK (AP) — John Randolph Hearst Jr., a grandson of
media titan William Randolph Hearst and heir to the family fortune, has
died, the company said Saturday. He was 77.
Hearst died Friday in New York City, the Hearst Corp. said in a statement on its website. The cause of
death was not disclosed.
John
R. "Bunky" Hearst spent most of his career at the company his
grandfather founded. Besides serving on the board, he was a trustee of
The Hearst Family Trust and a director of the Hearst Foundations.
"John
was always very devoted to the company founded by his grandfather,"
said Frank A. Bennack Jr., CEO of Hearst Corp. "Those of us who served
with him on the various Hearst Boards remember his great wit and
interest in everything the company and Foundations were doing. Bunky
will be greatly missed."
He also worked for Hearst publications,
including as a news photographer for the New York Daily Mirror in the
1950s and as an editor for Motor Boating & Sailing magazine.
He
suffered a debilitating stroke in 1989, but several months later, he
married 50-year-old Barbara Hearst. The marriage lasted until 2004, when
Barbara Hearst filed for divorce, accusing him of constructive
abandonment and cruel and inhumane treatment.
In 2007, in the
midst of legal proceedings, Barbara Hearst asked a state Supreme Court
judge to increase her monthly support from $26,000 to $90,000.
But
the judge instead reduced it to $20,000, suggesting Bunky Hearst’s wife
had looted his estate by going on a spending spree with her husband’s
money and investment accounts. The judge also recounted how, according
to court papers, Hearst’s wife entered his bedroom with two process
servers and told him, "We can do it ugly, or we can do it nice. …
Remember one thing, I’m much smarter than you are."
The New York Post put it on a list of the city’s nastiest divorces.
Bunky
Hearst was born in New York City on Dec. 8, 1933, to John Randolph
Hearst and Gretchen Wilson. He spent his youth at Hearst Castle in San
Simeon, Calif. He said his nickname came from a character in one of his
grandfather’s newspapers, the New York Journal-American. He is survived
by his daughter, Lisa Hearst Hagerman, and three grandchildren.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.