Have time at the end for a q a session please line up at the microphone to the right so with that i will handed over to the interviewer the managing editor for the Chicago Tribune. Welcome to ruth printers row lit fest. I am pleased to be sitting here with lisa napoli with a fellow journalist who is the offer of ray and joan the man who made the mcdonalds fortune and the woman who you gave the ball away. We were working on a cover line for a magazine people dont put appreciate how long it can go. Reading the New York Post that this was different and i got lucky. It is a book about the man who made mcdonalds what it is and then the head spinning philanthropy of his wife joan kroc so liz taylor who was the Chicago Tribune editoratlarge in said a Business Editor should do the interview and then said it is more like a love story. I think it is a little more complex than that. Is. It is a love story and a hate story and about mid 20th century americana and that is what kept me going it took five years to research because it does plan to gather all of those things and makes us look at how but we take for granted in our Society Today with the characters and the people behind it girl ive loved it as a researcher because it would pull together so many things as a former technology and business supporter what he sold was hightech 100 years ago and of course, it also made me come to chicago lot. And what a pleasure that was even in the winter. So you were a tech reporter writing for the New York Times so how did you stumble onto this . Refer started people said you dont seem like the typical mcdonalds customer. Why do you care . It doesnt turn out that it is a mcdonalds but it was jones philanthropy more specifically for the public Radio Station in santa monica the california and i went to cover the fate of a giant sculpture of the late cartoonist conrad and they made this 26foot tall Mushroom Cloud out of chainlink but the city was going to knock it down because it didnt have the money to restore that and i said who will build this in the first place . Go to her and the activist said we can talk about it was anonymous but it was joan kroc so they would know that began she gave that massive gift when she died in 2003. So after sitting there talking with him to think she was a peace activist fund a sculpture nowhere near where she lived gave money to npr so what else . I started searching and i found obituaries but i could not find the biography so stupidly i appointed myself as the person push to do that i found very quickly why one never have been written some americans see how thick the book is. 260 pages of text and footnotes and a ledger of philanthropic giving is how many pages does that go on for . Of the web site think i have the whole thing i cannot recall but close at 20 pages it is strange like the Rosetta Stone entered her mind over the course of prolife because it is desperate and strange and little bits of money in an enormous sums. Sova footnotes a tip pride in those somebody asked if i had so many just to pad the book which is silly anybody that knows a biography knows that will fully they are fun to read. They are great when i saw the Salvation Army donation she gave close at 2 billion by the time it was all cash doubt that is a lot of money. So talk about the reporting process. So no one had done this story because it is very difficult. She gave to so many people. It was hard to so i started with mcdonalds and they would not help me they said there are two books already written one was written by a ray kroc for really his ghostwriter and i said that is the case but i need to find out more and they never helped me prepare the family of ray kroc and joan kroc, she was the third wife was left of the family was reluctant to work with me so it took was hard. So it was so much fun for the Research Process is to reverse in junior so first started to extract information and teams of people from the obituaries of other articles or all the archives and would hear the Harold Washington and library in san diego because they live their lives in san diego with the Public Library there in search of what was hard to find because it is modeled digitized. Now you go into the internet but it doesnt look work that way even looking the early 80s so i would have to sift through newspaper after newspaper to find the names of People Associated with them if they were still alive or paid visits to rapid city south dakota, all over the country because she was there as the early franchisee. Sometimes you bring your head against the wall but loved it when somebody had an unusual name. But even if i found out they were deceased i knew that i have found them. Like old datebooks so it was tough because there was not an archive so i joined an Amazing Group of biographers for guidance and a learned a lot going to their conferences there were a Pulitzer Prize winners there were experts in researching and mining information but i learned very quickly that those tracks dont necessarily work when people have not left behind information and neither one did so thankfully raise brother ran the foundation from the ranch and california but his job was a scientist the exact opposite and was a meticulous Record Keeper endued he was doing something important with a fortune in what it had made so there was a hardship assignment to keep myself and Uc Santa Barbara sifting through all of that and looking for clues was laborious but also a joy a sorry for the long answer but people always want to know. It is fascinating. So first lets talk about re. There is a strong chicago connection before he moved to the city and also the of home of mcdonalds number one. Was a truly the first mcdonalds . It is not for a hate to disappoint chicago but the first really was san bernadine no actually Riverside County and california. Mcdonalds was started by two brothers after World War Two who were looking to make a book like a hot dog business and Movie Theater business. And they started this food preparation of carhop restaurants doing . Survey not . As of brothers. Re what is he your year as a paper cup salesman than the multi spindled milkshake machine that derived from an early i. C. E. Cream stand here. So from that office here in chicago peas started to sell the of milkshake machine and that is that he met the of brothers mcdonald in San Bernardino and asked if he could franchise the system they had some early lock but they were not interested to go as big as ray wanted to because they knew how hard that would be. So what happened when he decided to franchise or was allowed, he built his first mcdonalds in des plaines that is why it is erroneously referred to as number one for the corporation did not knowledge for many years that the brothers existed and that there were 10 before the one here in des plaines was built. That is interesting. That is the way he did business . And eventually the Mcdonald Brothers were no longer involved. Yes. He met then in the mid50s to store franchising than 1961 he bought them out 2. 7 million. The system was in a difficult place mcdonalds could have very easily tanked they had to keep raising money and had to buy out the brothers but they were trying to have a Long Distance business relationship that they would carry around us dictaphone machines sending tapes back and forth because they did not want to talk realtime on the phone because they were so angry so he said what would you like to go away . And they said 2. 7 million of the same year he divorced his first wife the brothers got a big check and rode off into the sunset. And did not get eight free until years later when one of the brothers who passed away after ray kroc died in 1984 and mcdonalds was advertising like crazy the of founder is deceased and Dick Mcdonald said we are the founder not him. Then that is where the whole drama between the mcdonalds feebly in the restaurants and then were made right by the acknowledgement acknowledgments. It happened to turn into in the world. Its interesting that you bring up the founder. So much of what you just relate was on the Silver Screen in the past year in a movie called the founder starring michael keaton. Your book was not involved in that movie at all . No. But much of the same topics are in there. How much was in there that they do not get right . Of many things that they took Poetic License with. Whats interesting is that it was hard to sell a book just about job. What we learned about the movie being made, by putting ray in the title and by acknowledging with a fast food fortune came from in a deeper way than i had initially hoped to that sold the book. So its interesting that many more attractive to tell. I think it is a better book to have told the story of where the fortune that ultimately john giveaway came from. But its interesting that joan alone even though shes one of the greatest 20th century philanthropist wasnt enough of a draw. She is as or more of a compelling figure than ray. Maybe that will be your movie. and the actresses out the there, her story is dynamite. Shes a strong interesting woman who came from nothing. To your point in the founder and the People Associated with the movie have been angry for saying this but the founder gets to make things wrong and i have a list of my website, rancho. Com. The number one thing is the brothers ive not been able to establish the movies assertion that the brothers were cheated out of a continued royalty from ray. They took their money and went off, theyre happy to have their money. They did not like ray, a lot of people did not like ray. But thats not something ive been able to substantiate. And i worked very hard to make sure that what im writing in the book is correct. The other thing is how joan is depicted. She is depicted as the second wife when she is the third. Shes depicted as a wife of a very successful restaurant tour. She was pretty much a Main Financial support for her first husband, rollie by plan and a elegant restaurant piano. She had several other jobs as well. Her husband, rollie was hired by a franchisee to manage an early franchise in st. Louis park, minnesota that joan was behind the scenes on. So you dont get a sense of how hard joan and her first husband really worked and also they say that joan is the plot twist that convinces ray to use the milkshake mix and thats not true. Its interesting, its minutia but its factual minutia thats important historically especially turns out i still hear from people who are mcdonalds historians. If that information thats keen critical. Joan really was so important behind the scenes in the early days of mcdonalds. She wasnt just a trophy wife, she was working the french fryer with her husband who became an early franchisee. In the movie, she is not pretrade as much in the movie but there is the theme on the piano weather singing pennies from heaven, thats the night they met. Ray rices and its autobiography grinding it out from 1977 and other people cooperate that, ray was shopping around for franchisees around the midwest and he went to st. Paul to the criterion restaurant owned by a very successful entrepreneur in the area. He walked in and there was joan plan oregon. Were not clear that she played pennies from heaven, she was not a singers, never was apparently but ray walked in and was taken by what he said was her blonde beauty and hurt musical prowess because he too was a musician. Joan played music early on television back when there wasnt tape and television. But ray who is 26 years older played live on the radio in oak park where he was from where he was raised at the oak park arms hotel where there is a live orchestra every night. People at dance. That was radio back in the early days. He had this kinship with her that carry throughout the life with music. I love that united them. He was married to fl, his first wife and clearly smitten with joan. But he got divorced from ethel and then he and joan were not immediately together after that. Joan wasnt ready to marry him. There was an aborted attempt at marriage. They finally did mary in 1969. Conveniently ray married a woman named jane in the meantime because he cannot handle being a bachelor. When mcdonalds went public and 65 he bought this ranch and he called it the j r double arch mcdonalds ranch. When he jettisoned jane to the side of the j r double our ranch worked when he married joan. One of the crazy stories of their men in this book was when he left his second wife and he didnt even tell her, so please set the scene for where they were headed, they were jet setting and having a good time before the. When mcdonalds on public and 65 ray had been scraping along and doing well at different points in his career. But all the sudden he was one of the richest men in the country. He was also older and so he and his second wife chain had this ranch and were running all over the country, the world cruises and enjoying themselves. They were about to go off on their for fifth anniversary on a cruiser on the world when ray had his lawyer delivered the bad news to jane at a bon voyage party. All of these guys and their wives to my mcdonalds executives had come to see them off on their cruise and their lawyer went to jane and said, very sorry but ray is leaving you. Heres what were going to give you and i hope thats okay and if not its too bad. Thats the deal. So apparently she burst into tears. That is how she learned that the marriage was over. Ray ran off with joan to vegas which is where people went in those days for quickie divorces. They got there quickie divorces and got married not long after. That is a heckuva breakup. Says a lot about who ray was. He was very good at assigning the delivery of bad news. Thats something joan learn to do two. Whats the good of having people if they cant tell your bad news for you. I want to talk more about the connection to chicago. You wrote it article for curve and i wanted to have you highlight a few of the significant landmarks. So 515 East Fairview and arlington heights. Thats where he enough will have their first home when they were first able to buy home after his years of toiling. Ray had his office first for cattle sales and then for what he took over as the mcdonalds corporation. They kept getting more and more office space in their. The Whitehall Hotel . Thats where ray went when joan kicked him out of the house once and in between marriages. Its a place he hang out and drink, drink, and drink. He did that quite a bit. Really times. Yes. Toe 42 north lake shore . That was another air in the movie by the way. The 1242 north lake shore . Thats where ray and joan lived when they first got married. They bought the duplex apartment in the beautiful building and had it retrofitted with an organ and piano and other opulent things. They had tremendous parties there. And this is a doozy, the ray Crockett Community center. Joan had left 2 billion to the Salvation Army posthumously. Before she died she built a crack Community Center in san diego in a poor neighborhood. The story behind why i wont tell you now, she built a beautiful 80 milliondollar recreation center. In her will she left the bequest to the Salvation Army to replicate the center in as many places across the country as they could. Fittingly what is on the south side of chicago. If youve not been you have to see it. They are all spectacular stateoftheart facilities, low cost to lowincome people in the neighborhood. Their transformative as recreation and Community Centers. Its quite a legacy she left. It is the only gift she left posthumously that had race in a minute. That is interesting. Ray was a baseball fan as well. A big cubs fan. At one point as the businessman made do out of that workout . It didnt. He heard a news story, both ray and joan were big news junkies before recall people that. There is the deal with the San Diego Padres and they were lousy team. But he heard they were available so he had his people call. He plunked down 10 million and that change the course of both their lives. Now there center of gravity was in san diego since he on the team. Suddenly it was a rich mans plaything. He was angry that the team is bad but he was just happy to be a baseball. The first time they played a home game ray was sitting proudly in the owners box drinking his early times and getting more incensed as how terrible the game is going. At a certain point he went to the announcer booth and asked if he gets a few words to the people in it was a sellout crowd. Ray was a hero for buying this team. He announced, i have never seen such lousy ball playing in my life. And of course imagine that in the age of twitter. It took a while for that comment to reverberate. At the exact moment he was speaking in the streaker if you remember and so it was a crazy night and it set the stage for who ray was. Anyone who knew for a new he is quite bombastic before that. That was his big welcome to san diego. Is welcome to majorleague baseball and some people loved it but a lot of people were not happy including many of the players, even if they agreed it was lousy ball playing. Fisher. As you mention ray was bombastic. He was a bit of a drinker. And that took a toll on their marriage. Seem like he was pursuing her through all this time and theyre finally together. It seem like a love story but it was not quite so rosy. Its interesting, i think anytime i hit a wall in my research i always unpack to the revelation that i found thanks to the archives at the cook county archives which was the divorce papers every nfl. Attached them were some papers of a divorce that joan had filed against ray herself two years after they finally got married. What happened was