Nathan B. Spingold

Nathan Spingold (1886-1958) was a motion picture executive and a leading administrator in the game of contract bridge. Born in Chicago, Spingold started as a newspaper reporter but moved to New York in the early thirties where his career in the motion picture business with Columbia Pictures saw him rise to the Board of Directors in 1940 and vice president of the company in 1954. He and his wife, Frances, were patrons of the arts and had a significant art collection.

Active in contract bridge from its earliest days, he donated the Spingold Trophy in 1934 for the World Championship Masters Team-of-Four; the trophy is still among the most prized achievements in the game. Spingold was named American Bridge League (ABL) Honorary Member in 1936 and became president of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) in 1938, having been key to its creation by the merger of the ABL and the United States Bridge Association (USBA) the previous year. On the ACBL Board of Governors, its Board of Directors and also president of the Cavendish Club in New York, he was regarded as one of the most influential men in contract bridge administration in the thirties and forties.

• The Nate and Frances Spingold collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art