Latest / Operation Midnight Climax / Chaotic Philanthropy: Saint Joan of the Golden Arches [from VSE]

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Chaotic Philanthropy: Saint Joan of the Golden Arches [from VSE] · Operation Midnight Climax

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's nineteen ninety nine a construction site in San Diego.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Plumes of dirt and fuel exhaust hang in the air.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: A piece of heavy duty equipment is busy scooping soil.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: That's not an unusual site in any major city. What
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: is unusual is the driver of the bulldozer, a prim
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: well quaffed senior citizen sporting a sharp navy blue blazer
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and expensive looking jewelry. Despite looking more like Anne Landers
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: than Bob the Builder, she scoops up heaps of soil,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: then gives a thumbs up to the assembled photographers. What
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: some people don't know is that this woman is the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: sole reason work is about to begin on a massive
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: community sete for the city, one that promises to transform
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the landscape for underprivileged families. The price tag a whopping
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: ninety three million dollars. The woman's name is Joan Krock,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and this community center is far from her only philanthropic endeavor.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: She's spent the past three decades doling out vast sums
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of money to causes she deems worthy. She doesn't rely
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: on charitable boards or trusts that trickle money out. Jon's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: approach is simple. If she thinks you or your organization
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: need help, She'll write you a check, a big check.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Jones's generosity has been facilitated by one of the great
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: business success stories in modern American history. Her coffers have
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: been filled by egg mcmuffins and McNuggets and big Mac
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: thanks to McDonald's. Joan is one of the world's wealthiest people,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and she's determined to die nearly broke. This is how
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: she did it. Welcome to very special episodes, and iHeart
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: original podcast. I'm your host, Dana Schwartz, and this is
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Saint Joan of the Golden Arches.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to very special episodes. I'm Jason, She's Dana. Hey,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: he's Zarin. You So look, chaotic philanthropy is maybe my
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: favorite concept. So I'm really excited to spend some time
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: in this world with Joan and her many billions of dollars.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Who doesn't love a joyful look at philanthropy.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, honestly, it's kind of the dream is to inherit
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: millions and then billions of dollars and just be able
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: to give that money to anyone you think deserves that money.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: You'd be really good at that, actually, Dana, I think
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: you be as.
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: I read the news, there are definitely causes any places
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: that I'm like, they could use money.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, we just need the money. If someone wants
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: to donate the money to us and then we can
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: dole it out, we will happily recirculate. I'm kind of
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: shocked this is our first McDonald's episode. Off the top
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: of my head, we could have done the Donald's monopoly scam. Yeah,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: mcien cheating it for years. Yeah, that was a great
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Doc Grimace. I think we could spend some time just
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: all things Grimace and the gritty origin.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: The whole family history.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Do you guys know that my sister works for McDonald's. No, Yeah,
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: my sister's in a McDonald's corporate in Chicago.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Does your sister have any like a particular McDonald's lord
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: that she's learned since working there.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: No, but maybe I need to ask her.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Right, maybe there's an episode in there. Maybe she can
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: give us like kind of pry open the door.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: I'll ask next time I'm back home, I'll ask for
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: a tour.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I remember there was a guy, I think in the
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Philippines who had managed to collect every Happy Meal toy. Ever,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: going back to the beginning, that feels like a field
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: trip episode.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Amazing.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: You can't drive more than a few miles almost anywhere
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: in the US without passing a McDonald's, or, as the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: company itself puts it, the closest McDonald is never far.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: The hamburger chain has nearly fourteen thousand locations domestically and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: double that internationally. Is it healthy? Not especially. Is it cheap, well,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: not like it used to be. A large fry will
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: set you back about five bucks these days. But it
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: is quick and it's predictable. The burger you like in
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Des Moines will be the same in Los Angeles or
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia or Anchorage. That consistency was the work of a
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: man named Ray Kroc.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: Another thing we forget in great business stories is that
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: a lot of everything in life is about timing.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: That's Lisa Napoli, author of Ray and Joan, a biography
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of the man who made McDonald's a cultural and gastronomic
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: sensation and the woman he loved.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: And this was a moment in time when the nation
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: was ripe for this kind of eating.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Ray didn't start McDonald's. The business began as a fast
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: food restaurant concept run by Richard and Maurice McDonald on
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the West Coast beginning in the nineteen forties. At that time,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Ray was a restaurant supply salesman. When the McDonald's brothers
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: placed an order for eight milkshake machines, Ray got curious.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Few places could funnel out orders that quickly. Who needed
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: eight milkshake machines? He checked them out. He liked what
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: he saw, an efficient procession of hamburgers, fries, and shikes
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: going out the door in a process resembling a conveyor belt.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: He partnered with the brothers to take their food and
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: their assembly line and franchise it. Over the next several years,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Ray erected the Golden Arches in multiple cities and states.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: He eventually bought out the McDonald brothers, and when the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: company finally went public, Ray became a millionaire many many
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: times over, while the siblings made a comparatively puny two
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: point seven million dollars. That led to a belief that
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Ray somehow tricked the brothers into selling. Lisa argues, that's
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: too simplistic.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: The idea that he screwed them is ridiculous. And you
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: know I always say the carl it of that is
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: my parents sold a house in Brooklyn, New York in
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: the eighties for a really good sum of money that's
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: now worth four times as much. It's not like they
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: got screwed. They sold out at a particular moment in
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: time for what was a good price then.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Now in total control of the business, Ray is careful
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: about choosing franchisees. He wants to make sure they can
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: execute the McDonald's philosophy of hot fast food at scale.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: So in those days, he'd often travel to meet prospective
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: partners in person, get a feel for them, make sure
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't mess with Ray's perfectionist tendencies. It was during
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: one of those trips to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in nineteen
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: fifty seven that he first meets Joan.
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: Joan was a beautiful younger woman playing piano, and Ray
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: had made a living early on in his life as
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: a pianist himself, and so he was drawn to the
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: piano to begin with, and drawn to the beautiful woman
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: playing piano.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: The daughter of a railroad worker, Joan Mansfield grew up
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: to be a music teacher. When Ray meets her, Joan
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: happens to be an entertainer. At one of the prospective
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: franchisees restaurants playing for the benefit of customers. Both are smitten,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: despite Joan being twenty eight and Ray in his mid fifties.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: But there's a problem, well, a couple of problems.
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: Joan was married with a young kid at that point,
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: and Ray was much older with a faltering marriage.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: For now, whatever chemistry stirred between them has to be ignored.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But a few years later the two meet up again.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: This time both are divorced, well, Ray was about to be,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and so in nineteen sixty nine, Ray and Joan get married.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: By this point, Ray is a wash in Hamburger dividends,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: and in a roundabout way, so is Joan. Her husband
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: had become a McDonald's franchisee and had been a success,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: thanks in a large part to Joan herself, who was
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: a kind of silent partner in the venture.
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: Women weren't allowed to work in McDonald's at that point.
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: Many of the people who were hired in the early
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: McDonald's were ex military. They were young men usually, and
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: they were in uniform and very neat and tidy, and
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: women were just not allowed. And so when a woman
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: was involved with a McDonald's in those early days, it
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: was usually because of a husband or they were a
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: silent partner in the background.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Weird, yes, but this wasn't unusual.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: Women weren't allowed to work in a lot of places.
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: It wasn't just McDonald's.
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: Women actually at that time weren't allowed to have credit
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: cards in their name. Not that everybody had credit cards,
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: but they weren't allowed to have bank accounts in their
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: own name. They weren't allowed to own real estate in
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: their own name.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Marriage to a McDonald's franchisee was vastly different than life
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: with the largest shareholder in the company and miles beyond
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: jones childhood. She had grown up during the depression of
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, seeing firsthand the struggle and toil that
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: can result from having empty pockets. Her father often out
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: of work.
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: Joan did not grow up rich, in fact, it was
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: quite the opposite, and she married a man who also
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: was not rich the first time, and so she was
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: not to the manor born. In fact, she had a
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: very scrappy upbringing in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and when she
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: was married she had to work several jobs, which wasn't
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: typical for women necessarily back then, in order to help
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: the family make ends meet.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: After the couple moves from Chicago to San Diego in
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, Ray winds up buying the San Diego
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Padres baseball team. A glimpse into Ray's personality can be
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: found during one of their early home games, Ray grabbed
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the public address system to insult their disappointing performance. He
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: said he had never seen quote such stupid ball playing
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: in his life. Joan, meanwhile, is grappling with life as
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Missus McDonald's, a nickname she finds reductive. She flirts with
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: life as a socialite, as well as life as a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: board member on Ray's own charitable foundation. But Ray's giving
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: is sometimes controversial, as in the time he donated to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Richard Nixon's presidential campaign, he received criticism for doing it
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to try and ensure the minimum wage paid to fast
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: food workers remained capped. Playing politics isn't Joan's game. There
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: are attempts to get her involved in running a chain
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: of her own, a series of pet hotels, but the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: idea never makes it past the planning stages. Joan also
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: realizes she has no patience for what she calls dumb boards.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: When you sit on a board she said, that's just it.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: You sit and your board.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: She realized she didn't want to be what we would,
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: you know, uncharitably call a trophy wife, which is spending
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: the money of the wealthy man she had just married.
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: That's when she started tipping into the philanthropy world.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: Instead.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Joan takes up a different cause, alcoholism. In nineteen seventy four,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: she begins using Ray's Foundation to back a program similar
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to Alcoholics Anonymous, the support group for those struggling with
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: substance abuse. She names it Operation Cork, which is kroc
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: spelled backwards.
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: What Joan did was she realized, as anybody who's living
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: with an alcoholic or an addict will tell you, you have
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: to get help for yourself. And so she started getting
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: involved with other people who were on this path of recognizing,
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: you know, that this is a scourge, a societal scourge,
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: and starting to figure out ways to address it, both
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: for themselves, how to live with somebody who's got a
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: problem that can't be fixed, and also how to message
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: this out to the world and make it more socially
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: acceptable to discuss it.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Operation Cork partners with Dartmouth and funds educational programs for
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: physicians who would and normally received training about alcohol issues
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: in patients.
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: Now, when you go to the doctor, the first thing
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: they ask you is how much do you drink?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Do do drugs?
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: But back then that did not happen, and so she
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: worked with medical school to help them. She didn't develop
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: the curriculum, She worked with experts about how to teach
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: young doctors to identify potential problems among their patients.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Talking about alcohol problems or even acknowledging it could be
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: a problem, was unusual for the era. It was swept
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: under the rug, but Joan readily speaks about the cause
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and her work in the space, destigmatizing it. When pressed
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: for details on why the cause is so important to her,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Joan usually demurs she herself had never had a drinking problem.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: She had simply grown tired of seeing alcoholics not getting
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the treatment they needed. What she doesn't say is that
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the issue is extremely personal. Ray has a drinking problem
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that rant on the padres loudspeaker, probably alcohol induced, though
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Ray denied it. But what's certain is that his drinking
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: causes fractures in their marriage, with Joan at one point
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: seeking separation and even filing for a restraining order they reconcile,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: but Ray is resistant to seeking treatment. It was as
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: though Joan's attempt to normalize the need for help was
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: an indirect message to Ray, who finally agrees to enter
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: a program in nineteen seventy nine. Ray and Joan remain
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: married up until Ray's death from heart failure at the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: age of eighty one in nineteen eighty four. His estate,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: which is value at over five hundred million dollars, is
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: left to Joan, and while she's obviously heartbroken, there is
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: purpose in her life. The money that had previously been
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: under the care of Ray and his foundation is free,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and so is Joan. Free to pursue her philanthropic sprint
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: through causes large and small. But not everyone would be
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: happy about that. In nineteen eighty four, the same year
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Ray passed, an unimaginable tragedy takes place in the town
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of San ya Sidro, California. A man named James Huberty
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: arms himself and storms a MacDonald's location, killing twenty one
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: people and wounding nineteen others. At the time, it's the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: deadliest mass shooting event in history. McDonald's dispatches Dick Starman
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to the city. Dick is the senior vice president of
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Communications worldwide. His presence in San Diego means getting to
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: know Joan Kroc better. Here's Dick.
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: So I went to her house and we had a
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: nice conversation. I had gotten to knowwhere a little bit
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: that summer because I was in San Diego. I had
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: interacted with her a few times. Anyway, she said to me,
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: would you consider working with me like you worked with
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: Ray over the years.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Dick agrees moonlighting in a sense for Joan while maintaining
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: his position at McDonald's. The Tom Hagen to her Michael
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Corleone a CONSIGLIERI.
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: I kind of became, I'm going to say, her advisor,
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: maybe senior advisor on a lot of things that she
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: got involved in with her life, especially her philanthropy.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: The Sanya Sigro shooting prompts Joan to donate one hundred
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars to families of victims. According to Dick, Joan
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: acted even more quickly than McDonald's itself.
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: She started the Sanya Cedro Survivor's Fund, and I believe
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: she put one hundred thousand dollars into it to start it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: We at McDonald's because it was right after this crisis
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: that had happened in Sanya, Cedro in the McDonald's restaurant,
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: we stood back and said, why didn't we think of that?
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: It was a great idea, and McDonald's within a few
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: hours contributed a million dollars to that fund.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: This is one of the earliest examples of Joan's unconventional
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: approach to giving. She doesn't act foolishly, but she does
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: act quickly. Not long after, Joan attends a symposium in
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: San Diego relating to nuclear de escalation. It's a fraud
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: time for international superpowers, with plenty of saber rattling. Joan
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: walks away with concerns about the potential for nuclear disaster,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: but she has a weapon of her own, her checkbook.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Almost immediately, Joan begins writing checks to fund anti nuclear
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: advocacy groups and to back distribution of anti nuclear literature.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: She takes out full page ads in major newspapers decrying
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the nuclear climate and arguing for disarmament. This doesn't come
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: without controversy. Joan is still perceived by some as the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: idle rich, a flush widow, poking her nose into world
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: affairs without qualifications. One editorial columnist writes that since the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Pentagon doesn't make McNuggets, Joan Kroc shouldn't be entitled to
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: an opinion about nuclear warfare. Others write in besieging her
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: to stick her anti war rhetoric in her quote, crazy
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: crummy ear. It didn't help that Ray had been a
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Republican and thus often on the other side of the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: aisle as Joan. Joan, however, is not dissuaded. She continues
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: to back the anti nuclear sentiment. She's impressed by Father
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Theodore Hesberg, the president of Notre Dame, who's looking to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: open a hub for peace at the university.
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: She asked Father Hesberg what he needed, and he said
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: he needed a building. She was going to have a
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: peace program at or Peace Institute. He needed a building
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: to house it. And and she looked at him and
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: she said, I don't do buildings. And he said, well,
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: he said, you asked me what I needed, and that's
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: what I need.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty six, she donates six million dollars to
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame to establish the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Years later, at the University of San Diego, another major
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Kroc gift helps create the Joan B. Kroc Institute for
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Peace and Justice, which launches in two thousand and one.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: The main part took some convincing. One tenant of Joan's
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: philanthropy is that it is largely done behind the scenes.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: She shies away from public proclamations of her generosity. Joan
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: had other rules too.
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: It was three things. It was like a three legged stool.
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: There was the person, there was an organization, and there
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: was a cause, what they wanted to do, you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: that was important to her. And over the years, so
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: we're you know, big and small. I mean big obviously,
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: you know, in the tens of millions of dollars, especially
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: in her estate, but also small in the hundreds of thousands.
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: Sometimes it was it just depended upon the organization, the people,
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: you know, the organization's size, and how she felt about it.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: But if she avoids direct solicitations, how does she decide
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: where the mich money goes. Joan is a voracious news junkie.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: She reads newspapers, watches television, listens to the radio, and
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: talks current events with friends.
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: She had televisions everywhere, and she, of course the computer
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: age was coming on, especially in the nineties, and she
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: was what I called a newsnot. She loved listening to
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: the news and knowing what was going on in the world.
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: Oftentimes she'd hear something or see something, and if it
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: interested her to a point where she wanted to find
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: out more about it, she'd ask me to check it out.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Joan read a story about a teacher trying to help
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a student in Tennessee confront prejudices over having AIDS, which
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: was still heavily stigmatized. She's moved to write a check
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to their school district for two hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: The sum helped balance their annual budget and prevents staff layoffs,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: including the teacher. A doctor researching AIDS is in a
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: hotel room when a check arrives from Joan for one
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: million dollars. A homeless shelter struggling for funds soon receives
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand dollars. Some kind words from children's television
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: host Fred Rogers sparks a friendship as well as donations
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to PBS. There's no gathering of advisors, no interviews, no
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: oversized checks presented on behalf of television cameras. It's whatever
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: feels right.
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: You know. Sometimes I'd give her a recommendation, and she'd
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: listen to me and she'd go okay, and then she'd
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: do exactly the opposite, which was fine. That was iced
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: to tell her it was her money.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Joan would describe her approach as a quote Maverick Salvationist
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: one born, she said of her woman's intuition. When Joan
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: sees the San Diego Zoo is struggling financially, she writes
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a check for three point three million dollars her personal
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: connection an injured hummingbird that lands in her yard, which
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: she has transported to the zoo via private chauffeur for treatment.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: When the bird makes a full recovery, she writes another check,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: this time for one hundred thousand dollars to fund their
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: hummingbird enclosure.
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: They loved to work with Joan Krack, and she loved
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: working with the zoo people. They is eaven every once
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: in a while bring an exotic animal up to her
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: home to show her again. She loved the zoo because
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: of what they did and their care and love for animals,
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: which she had obstacles.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Joan didn't believe in them. When she decides to repurpose
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: a sprawling ranch occupied by her and Ray in Santi Nez,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: California as a getaway camp for sick children. Neighbors lodge complaints,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: so Joan sells the ranch and donates the proceeds to
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the Ronald McDonald House, a charitable arm of the company.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Joan isn't without a sense of humor either. After she
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: sees a story about a McDonald's customer who has denied
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: extra pickles on his burger, she sends him a five
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: gallon jar with thousands of pickle slices.
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: She had fun while she was giving away money, but
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: she also had a little bit of the devil in
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: her in a good way. She loved to surprise people.
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: She liked the shack people in a positive way most
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: of the time, to help them.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Obviously, getting Joan's attention could happen anywhere. She was once
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: on a plane with a doctor named Doris Howell. The
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: two struck up a conversation in which the doctor explained
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: she was looking to open a hospice. Joan got back
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: in touch with her, offering eighteen million dollars for the project,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the first freestanding hospice in San Diego. Countless people with
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: terminal diagnoses spent their remaining time there, including a man
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: named Alan Bergsma. Before his death, Bergsma wrote to Joan
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: to thank her.
• 26:28
  Speaker 7: Seven days before he died, he wrote her this note,
• 26:32
  Speaker 7: telling her how grateful he was to be there. It
• 26:36
  Speaker 7: was one of the most miserable times of his entire life,
• 26:38
  Speaker 7: but it was pleasantly surprised at how caring and lovely
• 26:42
  Speaker 7: it was.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: That's Stephanie Bergsma, Alan's wife at the.
• 26:47
  Speaker 7: Time, and they had a mailbox at the hospice, and
• 26:50
  Speaker 7: he put his note to her in the mailbox. So
• 26:54
  Speaker 7: about a day later she called and as to speak
• 26:57
  Speaker 7: to him, and he wasn't in any condition to do that,
• 27:00
  Speaker 7: so she spoke to me. I mean, I was sitting
• 27:02
  Speaker 7: in the waiting room, and we talked briefly, and after
• 27:07
  Speaker 7: that I started having lunch with her.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Joan and Stephanie become fast friends. Stephanie is executive director
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of KPBS, the local San Diego PBS affiliate. Joan, ever,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the newshound believes public information is extremely valuable, so the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: checks start coming to the station, not because Stephanie asks,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: but because she doesn't.
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: Many years ago, I had lunch with the woman who
• 27:38
  Speaker 7: was then running her foundation, which subsequently was disbanded, and
• 27:42
  Speaker 7: she said to me, you can never ask her for money.
• 27:45
  Speaker 7: It's a kiss of death. So we never asked for money.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety seven, Joan sees another opportunity to help
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: devastating floodsage Grand Forks in North Dakota, displacing thousands of families.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: The area is close to where she once lived with
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: her first husband. Her donation of fifteen million dollars means
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: each family receives about two thousand dollars while the community rebuilds.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Joan's only disappointment is that she's unable to do it anonymously.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: An intrepid reporter makes note of her private plane flying
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: in and reveals her identity, but Joan refuses to accept
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a plaque bearing her name and made in her honor.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Bear in mind, Joan's wealth correlates with the success of McDonald's.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: As their stock rises, so does hers. By the end
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: of the nineteen nineties, Joan's fortune is in the billions.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: It's a massive sum and one that Joan is not
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: looking to keep, but she's about to get news that
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: will force her to make quick decisions on what to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: do with it all. In nineteen ninety seven, Joan and
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: her friend, former San Diego Mayor Maureen O'Connor, take a
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: drive through an underprivileged area of the city while being
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: escorted by the chief of police. The blight is considerable.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: This isn't the San Diego someone with Joan's wealth typically sees.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Here's Lisa Napoli again.
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: She saw these kids playing in the street and thought
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: it would be so great if we could start a
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: recreation center for kids to go to.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: So she makes a decision, one that will reverberate for
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: decades to come. Joan donates ninety three million dollars to
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the Salvation Army for a sprawling one hundred and ninety
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: five thousand square foot community center in San Diego. The
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: idea itself is, like many of Joan's decisions, slightly out
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: of left field. She's not a church goer, while the
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Salvation Army makes faith a core tenet of their activities.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: But Joan believes in the Army for a good reason.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: As a kid, she had seen the organization render aid
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: to people, and she believes they have one key asset.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: They operate economically, with none of the waste found in
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: other charitable organizations, as the Salvation army begins to break
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: ground on the rec Center, which will come to be
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: known as the Croc Center. Joan gets some news. One
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of the few people she confides in is Dick Starman.
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: She went to the doctor just for a quick MRI,
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: and you know, she got this terrible news that she
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: had glioblastoma and she had a short time to live.
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: She had was given like three four months to live
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: because of the aggressive growth of apparently those tumors in
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: the head.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Time is beginning to run short. Suddenly, questions of what
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to do with her fortune, which she's been dealing with
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: on a case by case basis, are taking on a
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: new urgency.
• 31:21
  Speaker 6: She said, I got a lot of work to do
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: and we've got a short time to do it. And
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: so I jumped on a plane and went to San
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: Diego and I was there about fifteen or sixteen trips
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: that summer back and forth, because we had a lot
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: of business to do. And she had a pretty good
• 31:36
  Speaker 6: idea what her estate plan looked like, but she wanted
• 31:39
  Speaker 6: to finalize things and make sure everything was right.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Patients never Jones Virtue has become a rare commodity because
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: of her friendship with Stephanie Bergsma and her affection for
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: public radio. She reaches out to PBS to discuss the
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: possibility of a massive, massive donation, but PBS fumbles it well.
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: The story is that someone in her organization was supposed
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: to contact PBS and couldn't get a live person on
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: the phone. They got recordings, and after a day or
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: two of getting recordings and not being able to get
• 32:16
  Speaker 6: through to somebody, apparently she said the hell with it
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: and that was it.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: As a result, no one from PBS gets an invite
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: to a party held at her house in two thousand
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and three. Unbeknownst to the attendees, many are going to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: be the beneficiaries of Jones wealth. It's as though she
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: wants to look them in the eyes one last time
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to get one more jolt of excitement from knowing her
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: money is going to make someone's life better. Here's Lisa Napoli.
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: They all had been summoned because she cared about them,
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: and what they would find out, basically just several months later,
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: is that they'd been summoned because they were going to
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: be the recipients of her last wishes.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, despite her illness Joan is
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: able to tour the CROC Center in San Diego in
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: a wheelchair, hoping her sunglasses will help preserve some of
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the anonymity she prefers.
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: I mean, when she was dying of glioblastoma of brain
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: cancer the last few months of her life, she would
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: go down to the rain Jon Crack Community Center in
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: San Diego and she'd sit in a wheelchair and kind
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: of have sunglasses on so nobody'd recognize her, and she'd
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: sit and watch the children in adults ice skate in
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: the ice drink. I mean, she loved being there and
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: seeing people in the community enjoy it, and of course
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: it turned out to be a rip roaring success in
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: terms of people in the community being welcomed there. One
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: of the requirements that she had was nobody would ever
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: be denied admission to it and that it was for
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: the community.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Just a few weeks later, on October twelfth, two thousand
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and three, Joan Kroc dies at the age of seventy five.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Tributes about her philanthropy come pouring in, especially in her
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: native San Diego, but the actual extent of her generosity
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: isn't yet fully understood. After Joan's death, Dick Starman begins
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: making calls. Among the first is to National Public Radio
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: and Kevin Close, the NPR president whom Joan had to befriended.
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: After missus Crack passed away. I called him three days later.
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: I told him, I said, Kevin, get out of pencil
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: on paper. He did, and I said, write these numbers
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: down and I said two, three, and then I said,
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: let's start adding zeros. Anyway. We added zeros until we
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: got to twenty three million dollars, and then I told them,
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: I said, just what the heck at another zero.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: In the end, NPR receives well over two hundred million
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: dollars for operating expenses, roughly twice their annual operating budget.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: It's funding and interest that pays for an expanding news
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: staff and even employee bonuses. KPBS, the San Diego PBS
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: affiliate which Stephanie Bergsma ran for decades, receives another five million.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: But NPR isn't the biggest beneficiary of Jan's estate. The
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: San Diego Croc Center was a kind of proof of
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: concept once it was open and Joan realized the Salvation
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Army could realize her ambitions. One of her final wishes
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: was for the group to open dozenz of Croc centers
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: in communities around the country. To do that, Joan leaves
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: the Army what is at the time the largest single
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: gift ever given to a charity, one point five billion dollars,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: almost her entire cheeseburger fueled fortune for construction costs and endowments.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't all good news.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: The Salvation Army was not set up to build recreation
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: centers all around the country. That wasn't their mission. That
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: isn't their mission. It's become part of their mission because
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: of Joan Kroc. But they were broadsided by this bequest
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: and this sort of instruction from Joan about how to
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: execute it. And I was told that perhaps they might
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: have turned down that gift because they literally it was
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: such an enormous task to build dozens of these recreation centers.
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: And if you've never seen one, it's really hard to
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: imagine imagine the very fanciest YMCA health club that you've
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: ever seen. They're not just places with a couple of
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: gym equipment and a pool. They're really spectacular places. And
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: that was the goal behind them, is that they're really
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: spectacular places, and that they're available to everybody in that community,
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: and that were built in communities that really needed it,
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: And doing that is an incredibly complicated task.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: The Salvation Army struggles at first, concerned the ongoing operating
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: costs might prove too challenging for some communities, or that
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the gift might make a frugal charity seem too flush.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Just four centers open in the next six years. After
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: some early hiccups, the Army winds up opening twenty six
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Croc centers in cities like Philadelphia, Memphis, Los Angeles, and others,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: all of them collectively assisting over three million people today.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: The San Diego Croc Center sits on twelve point five
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: acres and serves the community in a variety of ways,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: from childcare to arts programs. It's what Joan envisioned, a
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: place for people to come and be nourished, psychologically and emotionally,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a monument to community solidarity, the same kind of community
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Joan relied on in her depression era youth. The centers
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: also create what economists call a halo effect. Building them
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: means jobs in construction, in spending, and in the center itself,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: while lowering costs for things like healthcare thanks to fitness programs.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: There were other gifts, many of them in addition to
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: an unknown sum left to her daughter from her first marriage.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: More money went to the San Diego Zoo Hospice, Opera
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Special Olympics, totaling in the tens of millions. It took
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Dick eight years to fully execute Jones's estate. In compiling
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: her book on Joan and Ray Krock, Lisa Napoli created
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: a long list of jones Many donations. It goes on
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: for pages, but in fact it's likely we'll never know
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: the full extent of her generosity. There are countless stories
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: of anonymous giving of tips small and large, to those
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: experiencing homelessness, and even to workers handing her a fish
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: of filet at her local McDonald's drive through window. Here's
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Dick Starman.
• 39:53
  Speaker 6: And she always looked at at Raycrack's money that she
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: inherited from him, and she inherited his estate, called herself
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: a caretaker, and she was a caretaker of his money
• 40:04
  Speaker 6: to give it away. And she loved it. She had
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: fun with it, and it was interesting to her. And
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: she loved surprising people or surprising organizations and doing things
• 40:17
  Speaker 6: for them.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: It's probably a little too easy to cast Joan and
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Ray in stereotypical roles. Ray the corporate mercenary, more concerned
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: with the hum of a food assembly line, and Joan
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: the more empathetic. Ray was generous, too, and Joan was
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: prone to quoting him in interviews. Asked about her giving,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: she said that Ray told her to remember one thing
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: he had never seen, a hearse, followed by a Brinks truck.
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: No, no, I mean I think everything we do all
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: the time influences everything we do next in our lives,
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: no matter who we are, And so yes, I think
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: she was wired to be compassionate because she knew what
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: it was like not to have a lot, and so
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: once she did have a lot, she delighted in the
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: idea of giving it away to places and people and
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: causes that she found interesting and important.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Is the why even important? Joan grew up during one
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: of the most impoverished decades in American history. Years later,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: she was among the world's wealthiest people. Was she insecure,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: did she feel unworthy, or did she simply have the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: innate human urge to help however she could.
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: It's a really important American business story. But more interesting
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: is that this woman found herself with this vast fortune
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: and did what we would hope any good human would do.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Oh and as for the San Diego Padres, despite not
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: being much of a baseball fan, Joan did retain ownership
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: of the franchise through nineteen ninety. When she decided to
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: put it in other hands. Major League Baseball refused to
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: permit her to follow through on her original plan. She
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: wanted to donate the team to the city of San Diego.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: A major sports franchise. The kind of asset that today
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: is worth billions is something she would have happily given
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: away for free.
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: That's just that's how Joan rolled.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, Saren, I would love for this to be a movie.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Did you happen to cast Saint Joan's story?
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: I did for Ray Kroc Already, Michael Keaton has portrayed
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: him very well, so I had to leave him out.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: And so now I'm also out there stuck chasing greatness.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: So I decided let me go with Bob Hoskins because
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: they seem to have a similar blint in their eye
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: kind of look alike. Right, And then for Joan Kroc,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: ideally it would be like a fifty plus year old
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Doris Day. But going with modern casting, I went with
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Maggie Jillenhall. I think she would nail it.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Maggie Jillenhall is a great pull.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: Right, I thought. I thought they kind of favor each other.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: I think she can pull off the range that Joan
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: Kroc represents. I thought it was, you know, kind of
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: a slam dunk. And then for Dick Starman the conciliary,
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: I went with a kind of an interesting choice. I
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: thought Sean Bean. They kind of look alike, and for once,
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Sean Bean wouldn't have to die before the film ents Haha.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: I love that. I never would have thought of Sean Bean.
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: But he's also a great pick.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: Right, He's just a great actor. And I thought, once
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: again they favor each other. And I started thinking about
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: it more and more as like he would eat up
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: a conciliary role.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's great. He's underutilized.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: Oh one hundred percent agree. Now as far as the
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: name Joan Croc goes, I mean what PBS watcher doesn't know?
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: And thank the Ray and Joan cra Foundation for their
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: longtime support. But to learn how much more she did,
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: I was blown away.
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: I have to say before we get to very special characters.
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: I feel like the very special character I want to
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: shout out is whoever fumbled that call when she was
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: going to donate all of her money?
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Right, that was the best. That was one of the
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: best moments. I totally related to that because if I
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: was like, just me, I'm totally doing exactly that. I'm like,
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: I keep calling, I get voicemail to hell with this. Yeah,
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: a very special character.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: I think I want to give it collectively to Joan
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: and the entourage, so the mayor throw Dick in there.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: I think, just them.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: I want to be in that entourage.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for whoever today is Joan Krack is well, I
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: think it's Mackenzie Scott.
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: It sounds like it, right, Yeah, you know who The
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: other very special I will say, like, very special villain
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: is that guy is whoever didn't let her just donate
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: the Padres to the city of San Diego?
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, the city.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: Why is the MLB just not letting your donate a
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: baseball team to a city that would be great?
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: The mob is always gonna make a choice. It's gonna
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: make you hit scratch your head. You're always like, come on, MLB,
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: this is right.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: There.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: It's a slam dok. Just give the team to the city.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: They already have the stadium.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Green Bay owns the Packers.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: If anyone's on YouTube and wants to look up we
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: reference when Ray berates the fans and possibly drunken brand.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: That is good content that's available.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: I'm totally looking that up.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: I know. I was like, I can't believe I didn't
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: even think to google that.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: For my very Special character, I went with, of course,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: the sweater beclad Fred Rogers for the win. I mean, like,
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: how great is it that he just goes and like
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: wins money for PBS, but also just the sparks of
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: friendship that then leads to all these donations. I mean,
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: Fred Rodgers once again boom.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: He never misses.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: No, he's like Larry Bird, He's a shooter.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: This show is hosted by Danna Schwartz, Zarren Burnett, and
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Jason English.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Our senior producer is Josh Fisher.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Today's episode written by Jake Rosson, editing and sound design
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: by Chris Childs, Additional editing by Mary Doo, fixing and
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: mastering by Josh Fisher. Original music by Alise McCoy, Show
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: logo by Lucy Kintonia. Executive producer is Jason English.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Dana, Zaron and I are going to take a little
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: summer break here while we get ahead on our fall episodes.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: We've got a few things planned for this feed in
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: the meantime. Hope everyone is doing something memorable this summer.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: If you run into any amazing stories or legends on vacation,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: hit us up. You can email us at Very Special
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Episodes at gmail dot com. On Instagram, Dana is Danish
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Schwartz with three Z's Zaren is Zarin three Just the
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: one Z and I'm Jason English nine no Z's