Merrell H. Hambleton, fundraiser who helped run Phoenix Theatre, dies

Merrell H. Hambleton, a fundraiser who assisted her husband legendary producer T. Edward Hambleton in the operation of his Phoenix Theater in New York, died Saturday at her home in the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville from complications of a fall. The daughter of Albert Hopkins, an insurance executive, and Nettie Beall, a homemaker, Merrell Hopkins was born in New Rochelle, N.Y., and raised in Pelham Manor, N.Y. She was a graduate of Warrenton Country School, in Warrenton, Va., and spent summers at the Perry Mansfield Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colo., where her mother ran an adult camp and made costumes for the theater school.