Chicago advertising and marketing executive, son of Miehle Printing Press & Manufacturing Company CEO Arthur Bentley.

Robert Ford Bentley was born in Chicago in 1909 to Arthur and Cherry Ford Bentley. He attended the Asheville School in North Carolina, and then Brown University where he studied philosophy and was active in the college's dramatic society. Bentley faced a personal crisis when his father sent him to Europe between his sophomore and junior years at Brown. Arthur Bentley intended for R. Ford to learn French and gain business experience, but Ford had other ideas. He wished to pursue a career in the humanities, in writing or teaching. While he was allowed to return to Brown and finish his degrees in English and Economics, he eventually landed in the family business. After working for two years in Washington, D.C. at the National Recovery Administration and the U. S. Treasury, he joined the Miehle Printing Press & Manufacturing Company where his father held executive positions from. R. Ford Bentley ran several of his own businesses, including Bentley and Company, and R. Bentley and Associates, which did research and advertising for firms in the graphic arts industry. Over the years, Bentley was associated off and on with Miehle and remained a major stockholder of the company and its successors Miehle-Goss-Dexter and Rockwell International.

Bentley married Marjorie Drawbaugh in 1936 and had one daughter, Judy. They divorced in the early 1950s. He subsequently married Elizabeth Dyas in 1955 and they remained together until his death in 1994.