| R. J. Reynolds Jr. | |
| Birth Name: | Richard Joshua Reynolds Jr. |
| Birth Date: | 4 April 1906 |
| Birth Place: | Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Lucerne, Switzerland |
| Office1: | Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee |
| Term Start1: | January 4, 1941 |
| Term End1: | October 4, 1942 |
| Predecessor1: | Oliver A. Quayle Jr |
| Successor1: | Edwin W. Pauley |
| Office2: | Mayor of Winston-Salem, North Carolina |
| Term Start2: | May 12, 1941 |
| Term End2: | June 1942 |
| Predecessor2: | James R Fain |
| Successor2: | J. Wilbur Crews |
Richard Joshua Reynolds Jr.[1] (April 4, 1906 – December 14, 1964) was an American entrepreneur and the son of R.J. Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.[2] [3]
Reynolds was an American businessman, politician, activist and philanthropist.
In 1934, he acquired Sapelo Island on the Atlantic coast of Georgia[4] and, following the death of Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston in 1938, the Butler Island Plantation[5]
Reynolds was appointed treasurer of the Democratic National Committee in early 1941 before being elected mayor of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a few months later.[6] [7] He took a leave of absence from his mayoral duties and resigned his treasurer post in 1942 when he began military service as a lieutenant at the Naval Combat Intelligence School in Quonset Point, Rhode Island.[8] [9]
As a businessman, he did not work at R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company except as a young teenager. and was involved in creating Delta Air Lines. He was also a yachtsman (having the 125 ton ketch Aries built for him in 1952[10]), pilot, aviator, and philanthropist.[11]
Reynolds had four sons with his first wife, socialite Elizabeth McCaw Dillard: Richard Joshua Reynolds III (1933–1994), John Dillard Reynolds (1935–1990), Zachary Taylor Reynolds (1938–1979),[12] [13] [14] and William Neal Reynolds (1940–2009). From his second marriage to the Hollywood stage and movie actress, Marianne O'Brien, his sons were: the activist Patrick Reynolds, and Michael Randolph Reynolds (1947–2004).[1] His third marriage was to Muriel Marston Greenough, the younger sister of Anthony Heselton Marston, who was a major Canadian industrialist. His first three marriages ended in divorce. His fourth marriage, in 1961, was to Dr. Annemarie Schmitt, a psychiatrist.
Reynolds was diagnosed with emphysema in 1960 and died four years later in Switzerland.