Ray and joan, p.24
Ray & Joan, page 24
As grand as she was, she could be equally parsimonious. Keeping her plane at the ready cost a million dollars a year, but she was stingy with benefits for the crew and secretaries. Yet she’d gift staffers or friends cars and houses and pianos the way anyone else might pick up lunch, and, on a whim, dash off a million dollars to a charitable cause she knew or cared little about.
She gambled like, well, like a woman once ranked forty-ninth richest in the world. She might win or lose a million dollars in a night, and if she won, the money would trickle down to both her entourage and the dealer. After a Ronald McDonald House event in Philadelphia, she made her way via hired limo to Atlantic City and stayed up all night at the blackjack table, winning a quarter of a million dollars before she had to appear bright and early to talk about the charity in the New York studios of the Today show.
She’d progressed beyond the need to suffer through social obligations. Like a bad girl cutting class, she ducked out of the opera to puff away in the ladies’ room and said she’d give the company a million dollars if she could just skip the show and go to dinner. (She did both.)
Though she stuck to her proclamation that marriage was of no interest, she did manage to carry on a decade-long, on-again, off-again romance with Phil Bifulk, a businessman from back in her native Minnesota. They’d first met as teenagers in St. Paul, when Joan played piano at the Golden Rule Department Store in the service of selling sheet music, and Phil was a salesclerk in the men’s department. After they’d reconnected in 1991, he became Joan’s steady escort. The pair even tooled around the country in Joan’s new motor home for a while. Yet she’d kept him at arm’s length. A full-time man underfoot was too much of a distraction.
She was playful as a cat, though she preferred dogs. Once, she found a lost dog outside a restaurant, took it home, offered a reward to find its rightful owner, then, to help her deduce any clues to its provenance, enlisted the services of a therapist who believed she could converse with animals. Something about the new Gulfstream IV she bought herself in 1990 didn’t feel quite right, so she sold it after a week—and bought another. Impromptu functioned like a pickup truck, cruising the skies in the service of joyful errands, frivolous ones, missions of sorrow. When Norman Cousins died of a heart attack at a hotel near UCLA in 1990, where he’d gone to meet a young concert pianist, Joan made Impromptu available to transport his remains to the family plot in New Jersey. When a friend from whom she sought spiritual guidance, the mystical priest Father Henri Nouwen, expired on a visit to his native Holland, Joan sent the plane to return his body to Canada, where he’d lived in a community of disabled adults.
She had been introduced to Father Nouwen through another such friend, Fred Rogers, the cardigan-wearing star of children’s public television. Mr. Rogers had earned his ordination as a Presbyterian minister in the early years of his on-air career. His life’s work had been a response to his dismay with the gross commercialization of the medium; he’d long crusaded against advertisements targeted to kids. Still, he’d accepted an offer to write an essay for McDonald’s 1988 annual report, and later won a $100,000 award from Ronald McDonald House Children’s Charities. It was there that he’d met with Joan, who began to send his production company handsome checks of support. Joan even consented to do something she typically didn’t: serve on the board of his nonprofit production company. Phil joined her.
Mr. Rogers. Father Henri. Jimmy Carter. Father Ted. Men of rock-solid faith, earthly manifestations of her higher power, from whom she sought solace, wisdom, and counsel. Was allying with these sages a protective shield? Did these friendships fortify her from her own transgressions? Help her make peace with the tremendous wealth she’d been handed? Assist her in reconciling the pain of her youth, the complications of her adulthood? Associating with these holy souls imbued a sense of equilibrium, of equanimity to her free-ranging life. Though she was deeply spiritual, and said she believed in God, she didn’t identify with any one faith in particular—a true maverick. (One of the books she enthusiastically gifted to friends was titled When Religion Becomes Evil.) She was as ecumenical in her devotion as she was in the way she doled out the fast-food fortune.
But she never forgot her modest roots. When the recipient of a multimillion-dollar gift from Joan got the seven-dollar wire-transfer fee waived, she was delighted. When Father Ted turned eighty-five, she sat at her kitchen table and made out a check for $5 million, instead of the usual million-dollar birthday gift. She wanted to knock his socks off. She sent a maid scrambling through the house to find a stamp with the new postage rate on it, so she didn’t have to overpay by using two of the old ones.
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No matter how much she gave, or how grandly, Joan still had this nagging sense she wasn’t doing enough. One day in 1997, she asked Maureen to go for a ride to check out the rougher parts of town. Maureen hadn’t been mayor for five years, but she still put stock, as she had when she posed as a homeless woman, in field experience. To serve as their squire, they enlisted a veteran beat cop, Police Sgt. Mike O’Neill. He took them out in his Ford Aerostar.
The two heiresses halted the car frequently so they could get out and chat up their fellow San Diegans. They learned about their daily tribulations: The yard sales that brought them much-needed extra cash. Parents who worried where their kids could safely spend time after school while they toiled at second jobs. How unexpected expenses, like illness or repairs, upended the family’s monthly budget. These struggles hadn’t been Joan’s or Maureen’s realities for years, but they were realities baked into them from their youth. Coming face-to-face with them gave them pause.
For months afterward, Joan thought long and hard about what she could do to help. In search of a coconspirator, and for reasons that were never entirely clear, she contacted the local chapter of the Salvation Army. To the average person, this was a charity whose members rang bells at Christmas to raise money for the poor; maintained thrift stores where bargain clothing and housewares could be found; and swooped in to help a community at the time of a disaster. Some might know the Army for its work in addiction treatment, or in sheltering the poor. At its essence, though, the Army was an evangelical Christian church—as well as one of the most skillful fund-raisers in the nation. Members adhered to a rigid hierarchical structure. They did not smoke, drink alcohol, or gamble. They lived modestly, and wore uniforms to show their commitment to saving the world, believing they’d been called as God’s people. Their reasons for being were simple: saving souls, growing saints, and serving suffering humanity.
At least on that last count, Joan’s interests intersected with the Army’s. She admired their resolve, and their lifestyle choices, and their dedication, even if formal religion wasn’t her cup of tea. Over the years, Joan had sent in modest (for her) donations to the group to subsidize holiday meals. The Army had a reputation for fiscal prudence. She needed a coconspirator she could trust.
Everyone in town lived in hope of getting a call from St. Joan. By now, most knew not to bother asking. If they did, they’d be denied. The Army prepared to answer this mysterious call.
Her intentions became clear over lunch with local leaders of the group, as she recalled her childhood, the impact of a skating competition she’d worked hard to win in the frozen Midwest. Then, she revealed her assignment: Draw up plans for a recreation center where kids who need it can go. “Think big,” she told them. “Bigger than you’ve thought before.” The Salvation Army wasn’t exactly in the business of dreaming about building a community center, but they didn’t say no.
Options were prepared, and presented at the next series of meetings. The most expensive one featured an ice rink. That was the one she chose. Her pledge of $80 million to build and maintain it was the largest gift the Army had ever received.
Just as Ray’s minions had scouted out locations for the early McDonald’s based on proximity to families they’d hope to convert to customers, the church’s team charged with executing Joan’s vision now scouted for an appropriate parcel for her center. The criteria were similar: Go where the families are. Army brass zeroed in on a run-down lot in an old San Diego neighborhood eight miles east of the water. The area’s undulating topography had long ago inspired the name, with a pinch of Spanish lilt as a nod to the nearby Mexican border: Ro-lan-do. Forces seemed to be conspiring in their favor. The purchase price was half what had been budgeted. More good news: This plot of land—about the size of her own home—had no houses on it, and therefore, no one would need to be displaced. “That’s the working of the Holy Spirit,” said Joan, swept up in the magic of how her wishes were falling into place.
At the groundbreaking, she jumped into the tractor and gleefully scooped up the first dirt. The long process of excavation and building tried her patience. “For god’s sake, put up a shack or something,” her staff advised Army brass in charge of the project. The project organizers complied by getting area kids to paint murals on plywood that were tacked up around the site to mask the gigantic hole in the ground. Even before it was complete, Joan was so sure it would serve as a beacon for the community that she whispered to the man in charge of the project her plans to give a billion dollars so that ten more could be built just like it around the country.
Several years, and over $50 million, later—including $40 million she tucked away to sustain the cost of operations—Joan’s world-class recreation center had risen where run-down old stores used to be. One hundred seventy-five thousand feet of fun: The regulation ice rink. An Olympic pool. A skateboard park. A wellness center. Fitness equipment. Meeting rooms. A library and performing arts venue. Fees would be low or no cost, depending on the means of the members. This wasn’t just a place where neighbors could come together. It was, in Joan’s estimation, a mini–peace center.
The “Corps” in the Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center was shorthand in Salvation Army–speak for “church.” The rest of the name spoke for itself. It was the first time since he’d died that Joan attached Ray’s name to a gift. This was something, Joan said, she was sure Ray would have wanted her to do.
To lend a celebrity touch to the gala grand opening, Joan flew in Fred Rogers. Residents of Rolando were as dazzled by the presence of a television star as they were with the gleaming new center. As he made his way to the podium, he swapped out his jacket for a cardigan emblazoned with the Salvation Army logo, then addressed the crowd in his trademark soft, deliberate tone:
“Many people in our time look at a neighborhood which could easily breed dope dealing, robbery, and murder,” he said. “Their reaction is to build bigger prisons. Not Joan Kroc. Her reaction is to build bigger swimming pools.”
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And buy pianos. A fancy six-figure Bösendorfer, one of the best instruments money could buy, similar to the one Joan had at home, was an essential part of the six-hundred-seat theater on the grounds. The Joan B. Kroc Performing Arts Center would host dance troupes, theatrical groups, and other performing artists when the Salvation Army itself wasn’t using it as a church—a tidy unintended consequence of Joan’s grand gift.
Nine months after the opening, the pall surrounding the once run-down plot had already begun to lift. Six thousand people had signed up for memberships. Fitness classes and swimming lessons and community meetings and preschool filled the campus with life. Housing prices in the neighboring area were beginning to rise; other businesses snapped up nearby real estate; proximity to the center was touted with pride. Before you knew it, there’d be a Starbucks in the neighborhood.
The night a famous singer came to play would give extra luster to this jewel. Stardom for singer Tony Bennett had grown ever larger since Joan entertained the diners at the Criterion with his music over forty years earlier. She and Ray had found themselves in the dazzling position of, over the years, being able to commission him for the occasional party. This time, she enlisted him to play at a special benefit concert.
The house was packed. The superstar Bennett thrilled the crowd with his standards, “Smile” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” With just a guitar as accompaniment, he gave a rousing performance of “Fly Me to the Moon.” When he shooed the band off the stage for a break, a surprise guest emerged from the wings to thunderous applause: the benefactress, Joan. She took a seat on the piano bench, and the storied singer began to croon her favorite song, “Our Love Is Here to Stay”—as she played along.
The impromptu performance lifted the crowd out of their seats.
12
St. Joan
On the occasion of her seventy-fifth birthday in the summer of 2003, Joan decided to throw herself a party. It would be a small, early afternoon affair, just a handful of guests, gathering for lunch and champagne at her grand 16,000-square-foot estate, which she’d built for herself after Ray’s death, in the exclusive Fairbanks Ranch community, the place she called Montagna de la Paloma.
Typically, when she hosted a group, Joan preferred to entertain at Rancho Valencia, the luxury resort down the hill. “The RV,” she jokingly called the five-star establishment, where she liked to entertain in the private dining room. Since her custom-designed Lalique crystal dining room table seated just fourteen people, it never worked to have a larger group for a sit-down at home. Besides, too much traffic on the grounds of her property aggravated her collection of dogs.
At this stage, though, home was easier. Everything needed to be as simple as possible.
Now that other, grander decisions had been made, the guest list fell into place. Only Maureen O’Connor, the youngest of the rat pack at age fifty-seven, was in good enough health to attend. Mercedes, now eighty-seven, and Helen, eighty, had both been suffering the consequences of age. Joan had confided to Helen on her peachy insignia letterhead a few weeks before that she herself had been diagnosed with a serious medical condition:
… since I don’t write the script I do not know how it will turn out.
I’ve had a walk-on part with a few positive words such as faith, hope, peace, love and justice.
She asked Helen to keep the this information confidential, which she knew she’d understand. Imagine the vultures swirling after hearing her news.
Another on Joan’s guest list was a new but cherished friend: The dashing chief of National Public Radio, Kevin Klose, would fly in from headquarters in Washington. He’d accompany the woman who’d introduced him to Joan, Stephanie Bergsma, a fund-raiser for KPBS, the San Diego affiliate of both PBS and NPR. Despite Joan’s deep affection for public television star Fred Rogers, she was not otherwise an overly devoted fan of public media. Like so many, she conflated PBS (TV) and NPR (radio) as one entity, and the confusion was aggravated by the station’s name. She’d given a tiny donation to KPBS years before, to support production of a film on child abuse. More recently, she’d contributed $3 million for equipment to furnish the station’s new building, but that was as much to support Helen and her son, who spearheaded the campaign. When Joan had finally consented to a tour of their new facility, administrators observed that she seemed more concerned about where in the building she could light up a cigarette without setting off an alarm than seeing the fruits of her donation.
Bergsma and Joan had connected for reasons that had nothing to do with radio or television. Bergsma’s husband had spent his last days in the magnificent hospice Joan had underwritten, and had sent a letter thanking her for providing such a beautiful, serene place to die. By the time Joan called to talk with him, he had passed away. The women had lunch, and, skilled fund-raiser that she was, Bergsma reached out to her counterparts on the network level to see if she might set up informational meetings with Joan. The PBS contacts never returned the calls, nor did they return separate inquiries from Joan’s advisors. NPR’s Klose, on the other hand, leaped at the chance to meet her. Over a breakfast meeting, he explained how the public radio network gathered news and charmed her with his eloquent discourse about the power and importance of journalism and a free press to democracy, how public radio played a critical role in keeping society informed. Dazzled, Joan stuck a check in a Christmas card to Klose for half a million dollars, a token for her, but only the third time the network had ever received a gift of that size from an individual.
The executive director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame, Scott Appleby, would attend the party to represent the university. So would his counterpart, Joyce Neu, the head of the second such center Joan had underwritten, housed at the University of San Diego. The 90,000-square-foot Joan B. Kroc Institute of Peace and Justice looked like a cousin of the Taj Mahal, perched high on a hillside. She had actually intended for it to be named after the Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi. (This was sure to ensure good “McKarma,” wags joked, noting the source of the donation and the fact that cows were sacred in Gandhi’s native land.) But Joan had had to settle for having her name attached to the institute as a substitution for the storied man. Certain higher-ups at the Catholic school squirmed over the name of a Hindu adorning one of their buildings.
With her name prominently attached to two major Catholic universities, people just assumed she was one herself. The Catholic bishop of San Diego was on her birthday guest list, after all. Others believed she must be a Salvationist. To represent her coconspirator in the recreation center, Joan invited Commissioner Linda Bond, the church’s recently installed territorial commander for the West. The two women had met earlier in the year, and there had been an immediate click. Joan had been impressed by this powerful woman, the thirteenth child of a Canadian miner, who’d risen through the ranks within the church hierarchy. Commissioner Bond, in turn, had been taken by how informed, how well read, how alive was this woman who had funded the incredible center in Rolando. In fact, the religious leader found herself wishing Joan weren’t so rich so they could have a normal friendship. Joan had suggested to her, when she admired her collection of dogs, that she get a pet for herself. Bond, who was single, explained she traveled too much to care for one. A package from Joan arrived a few days later containing a stuffed bear—covered in mink—to keep her company. It was a lavish possession for Bond, a woman who’d committed her life to God and community service.
