TULLY F. RECTOR

RECTOR--Tully F., an award-winning producer and director of TV commercials during the 1950s and 60s, died on October 17th in Reston, VA. He was 90 years old. Mr. Rector was born in Adrian, TX, on June 25, 1924. After his family's cattle ranch was devastated by the Dust Bowl in 1931, he moved to Dearborn, MI, where his father and brothers found work in the Ford automotive plant. From 1943 to 1945, he served in the United States Army as a rifleman and combat engineer. Mr. Rector participated in the D-Day invasion and was later wounded in action. After World War II, he moved to Paris to attend art school at the Academie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts on the GI Bill. In 1953, Mr. Rector founded Group Productions with a partner. The company was one of the leading producers of animated and live-action television commercials for 18 years, some of which were included in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection of commercial media. Group Productions was sold to Westinghouse in 1971. Mr. Rector continued in semi-retirement to work as a free-lance producer and director. A keen horseman and fox hunter, he also imported sporting art from England and was involved in the restoration and sales of antique automobiles. Later he developed a line of leather luggage and helped start a retail clothier in Middleburg, VA, where he moved from New York in the mid-1980s and lived for the remainder of his life. He is survived by his beloved wife of twenty-five years, Karen Y. Jackson of Middleburg, VA, and three children from previous marriages: Kelly R. Klein, of New York City; Amy R. Hester, of Waxhaw, NC; and Tully F. Rector II, of Bonn, Germany.