Ray Kroc, McDonald’s Mastermind (Volume Six, Episode Two) Part Two

In July of 1954, an obscure milk shake mixer salesman walked into a fast food restaurant in San Bernardino, CA. The restaurant was operated by two brothers named McDonald, the result of this interaction profoundly changed American culture, business and nutrition forever.

Joan Kroc

Despite four decades and many years of dealing with a virtual absentee husband and serious anxiety over their household debt, Eleanor Kroc was still hanging in on the marriage.  That is until, in 1961, when Kroc said he wanted a divorce.  Ethel settled for the house, the Lincoln automobile and 30,000 dollars a year in alimony.  Part of Kroc’s decision to divorce stemmed from a relationship that began when he met a potential licensee at an upscale restaurant.  The keyboard player and singer at this restaurant was a stunning blonde named Joan Smith.  Kroc was so smitten that he could barely focus on the meeting, with Bob Zien, who owned this restaurant, the Criterion.  Zien hired Joan Smith’s husband Rawley Smith to manage his first McDonalds and entered into a partnership with Smith when Zien purchased a second franchise.  Because the Smith’s were then part of the McDonalds corporate family, they frequently interacted with Ray Kroc, who eventually verbalized his romantic feelings to Joan directly.  They agreed to leave their spouses, Kroc and Joan relocating to Woodland Hills, CA in late 1961.  They needed to cohabitate for six weeks to be able to get a quickie Nevada divorce but five weeks into the arrangement, Joan balked.  Her daughter disliked Kroc immediately and her mother was appalled.  Kroc had already sold his ownership of his Prince Castle distribution company to senior executives for 150,000 dollars, essentially a loan, and was committed to relocating to the West Coast, anyway, to personally spearhead McDonald’s West Coast expansion.            Joan eventually had second thoughts about breaking off the engagement, but by then Kroc had moved on. 

Fred Turner, Ray Kroc’s protege and successor.

Kroc’s McDonald’s operation was mushrooming in size and he realized both his own personal limitations and that he needed to assemble a corporate structure to manage such a fast growing entity.  He already identified Fred Turner as an individual he wanted to include in his inner management circle. 

Ray Kroc, with Padres logo on polo shirt

Once he delegated the operation of McDonalds to Fred Turner, Ray Kroc became as much of a media personality and company spokesman as opposed to a serious hands on administrator, something he never really enjoyed anyway.  He no longer had to worry much about business in any case. 

Padres home during Kroc’s tenure, Jack Murphy Stadium

In 1973, a golden opportunity presented itself to Kroc that for him was the perfect outlet.  Based on his mid-western middle class Chicago roots, Kroc loved baseball and the Chicago Cubs and once his net worth became considerable, he made several inquiries into actually buying the team.  The long time owners, the Wrigley family were not interested in selling but in San Diego, the owner of baseball’s Padres, C. Arnholt Smith was battling his own bank’s failure, IRS demands for back taxes and fraud and embezzlement all...