Duffield; USC All-American Quarterback

Marshall Dixon Duffield, a successful Southern California businessman fondly remembered as the All-American quarterback who led USC to its 1930 Rose Bowl victory, has died. He was 79.

Duffield died Friday at his home in Palm Desert of undisclosed causes.

“People have been kind to me and often have placed a great deal of trust in me purely on the strength of my name,” he once told The Times. “So I owe football and SC a lot.”

In Duffield’s three varsity seasons under fabled USC Coach Howard Jones, 1928-30, the Trojans were 27-4-1.

Captaining the USC team in his senior year, Duffield scored two touchdowns and passed for a third in the 1930 Rose Bowl to defeat unbeaten Pittsburgh, 47-14.

Considered a fair-haired All-American boy as well as football player, Duffield was born in Salt Lake City in 1911 and moved to Santa Monica with his family in 1914. At Santa Monica High School, he won 12 varsity letters in four major sports.

He graduated with honors from USC and was nominated for a Rhodes scholarship.

“The Rhodes examination was scheduled for the same day as the final game of our 1930 season and I couldn’t have deserted the team, even if I’d wanted to,” he said years later of abandoning his plum academic chance to study at Oxford University.

“Maybe it would have been better if I had,” he added candidly. “We got beaten 27-0.”

Duffield earned USC’s Trojan Diamond Medal for “notable athletic ability, excellent scholastic achievement and the highest type of sportsmanship.”

After USC, Duffield dabbled briefly in politics, announcing his candidacy for Santa Monica mayor and Los Angeles Board of Education, and briefly attended law school. He worked as an assistant movie director and in 1933 married a starlet, Dorothy Lee. They divorced two years later.

Duffield next worked for an import-export business and just before World War II founded his Duffield Distributing Co. of Culver City, which handled beverages.

During World War II, Duffield served as commander of the Navy minesweeper Starling, shipping out four weeks after his marriage to Donna Maguire of Los Angeles.

Returning to his business after the war, he expanded from five employees in 1946 to 150 with a sales volume of $10 million in 1957 when he sold the company.

Duffield then moved to Orange County and became president of the Newport Shoreside Co. boating concern, vice president of the Bayside Village trailer park and owner and general manager of the Duffield Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Long Beach.

Duffield remained an avid sportsman, primarily as a golfer. In 1975, he co-founded the Bing Crosby Southern Pro-Am golf tournament, benefiting Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach. The tournament is now called the Newport Classic.

Duffield is survived by his wife and children, Susan, Francy, and Marshall Jr.

The family has asked that any memorial contributions be made to the John Douglas French Center in Los Alamitos.