Others in the nfl. I mean, they answer my phone calls. They answer my questions. Sometimes its on the record. My phone calls, the answer my questions. Sometimes its on the record, sometimes its on background. Billy being in Major League Baseball is communicative, hes a Vice President with the league soi have a great relationship. I think because i have, and jim byzantine my business partner, we demonstrated fairness, that were going to say when we think you misstep and when we think you got wrong. When we think you got it right, were going to say that to and i hear from people that they respect that we are honest a host young talk flint be interviews you have done with players. Are the players open to talking with you . Guest i talk in book about going to in the Nfl Players Association event and a representative of the nfl pa, having a problem with me askingf gay questions of their new players. Back three or four years ago. There have been a couple who did not want to talk to me for sure, but curt warner is a devout, devaulted christian, god is the most important thing in his life, and he and his wife stopped and chatted with me for a newspapers about the issue ins, very openly. An most athletes get it. Its about your teammates teammd about sports and winning together, and not about who you sleep with. Host how lgpd athlete ares are claiming their rightful place in sports. Thank you being on booktv. Croc. Today not only die get to talk to a really great author about her new book ray and joan and author of radio shackry law, but lisa napoli and guy way back to the 80s when we worked together as a tv station in north carolina. So were connecting now with me asking the questions of her, which might make he slightly nervous, exempt i know she knows the answers that i am going to ask her today. Because she researched this book for five years. Welcome, lisa. Guest thank you so much. Host her first book, was ray radio shangry law. They have a gns. Guest gros national happiness. Host so were happy were here today to talk you new book, ray and zone and we mean ray kroc, and this third and final wife, his widow, and the story is so compelling and so many ways that i think we need to go back to the beginning a little heat bur mcdonalds is huge. Its ubiquitous, its everywhere, but that modest beginnings in a little town in california, with a couple of brothers. We you started rae searching that took you where. Guest took me to San Bernardino, california, which is smallish up to, small back then. And it was two two brothers 0 came from New Hampshire to get out of the weather in new New Hampshire, to california in 20s, and want toy maker their way in movie industry, like people did. The early days. The talkies, dick and Mac Macdonalds and made their way next and they found out its hard to make until the movie industry so they wound up starting an orange juice and hot dog stand. And that orange juice and hot dog stand led them to open a rib restaurant, and then they decided that they were having a hard time, if anyone remembers the era of car hops. Car hops were unreliable, didnt show up for work, they would serve you to your car. This is at time in america when people were just falling in love with the car. Suburbs were being built, roads being built for the first time. And the brothers had a hard time employing dishwashers and car hops who attracted bows and meant shenanigans in the parking lot, glasses broken. So it was a price where proposition and ribs were hard to make. So they shut down and decided to pare down their menu too hamburgers and milk shakes and french fries. A terrific formula for makerring the french fries, and at first people in San Bernardino, where they moved their restaurant, were very up set because they liked this car hop service, butt it didnt take very long before people fell in love with the expeditious service, the speedy service, they called it, and the good food, and it was cheap food, too. 15cents a hamburger. A whole meal for 45 cents, shake and fries. F so, yeah, that where is mcdonalds began in the desert of california. Host they were the Mcdonald Brothers, right, dick and mac. Guest yes, big mac maybe . Guest i chronically, no. Host okay. Guest its too bad. Host okay so that was the very beginning, and it became quite popular. Fi they became sort of wealthy from that day. Guest yeah. They were working as hard as anybody who works in the Restaurant Business does, which is very. They each split the shift. They felt really lucky because they were able to buy newew cadillacs everyaire. Their idea of success. Able to upgrade their cadillac. One was married, neither had kid. They lived together in a house they bought up on a hill andid just happy. The worked hard but happy with what they were making 100,000 a year profit, and it was lifee 100 was good. Host that in the early 507s a lot of modify. Guest lots. Host so they were doing something right. T then other people started becoming interested so they did do some franchising, didnt they. Guest so a trade magazine wrote about the speedy system they had. The put the hamburger on the ha Assembly Line, figured out how to move the production of food very quickly out to you, the customer, as fast as i think it was in under ten second if you placed an order. Really, really quick. So, putting putting the hamburge Assembly Line was great, and other people across america were opening hamburger stands, looking to be Small Business people, entrepreneurial, businessmen and San Bernardino became mecca. People would flock the and stand outside dish left out an important detail which is the first mcdonalds was in glass so you could see in the restaurant which now we see it all the time burden then what revolutionary. So what was so exciting was all these people would show up and want to steal the idea for this mcdonalds and the would sketch, and dick and mac saw a these people sketching and realitiesed we could sell this formula. So the put it in a manual and sold the idea and theeven really want to sell the name. To. The that was didnt make any sense. Why use mcdonalds on your restaurant. But the dade. People did. And for 950 fee, you got to buy the minutes for mcdonalds, which include the blueprints for mcdonalds, including the arches, which is. Host what a bargain. That was the beginnings then. Thenow hard other mcdonalds popping up. But they were more below what they were doing in San Bernardino. They were happy. Y. Guest hey had other offers from people wouldnted to go national. Nate knew holiday hard they were working but didnt want to go state to state, and slogging around. They were doing just fine. Host okay so geographically lets move over to the midwest talk whatnot named ray kroc, can do hit own thing at the time but was an entrepreneur. A hardcharging sales guy, and now youll bring him into the picture. Who was ray kroc. Guest ray kroc was a hale fellow well mitt, old guard salesman. He had been selling paper cups since he was a young man. He then in that work found the multimixer, this multispin spindle milk shake maker that allowed you to do six and five at a time which was revolutioner in technology, just as the person cup was, and he just loved being on the road. He loved the ethos of the sale he liked to figure out what it was that made you want what he was selling. And he was just a larger than life personality. And so. Host with this milkshake machine he encountered the brothers. Hi is out sell his milkshake machine and hears about this mcdonalds operation in california. So he goals there and what do you think happened when ray kroc met the brothers . You know. Guest the mcdonalds brothers knew him has mr. Multimixer, and they bought many multimixers and ray was intrigued by whoa why would one little store need so many multimixer machines. And so he went there to say hello. They were happy to meet him because, you know, he sold them a very important piece of equipment that helped their business. They could bank milkshakes until you came up and needed a vanilla. It was out right away. So that was very helpful to their system. And they met ray, and ray was dazzled. He describes is in his auto biologigrapher, only describing it as fall thing love. The system was so perfect to himself heed seep a lot of drug store counters and restaurants, and this system was to beautiful, he also really fell in love with the not just the efficiency but the cleanliness. He was a neat freak and he was very happy to see this, and hi wanted to figure out how to propagate it across the land because, in his mind, the more mcdonalds, the more multispin eled milk shake michigans would be sold. Host so started with milkshakes for me. So if the meets thats mcdonalds brothers sells the mick sheikh machines milkshake machines. How dihe decide to make it big. Guest when hi first laid eyes on the mcdonalds operation, all the other people were stretching and trying to figure out how to rip off the idea or mow politely, emulate it, mimic is, but ray decide head didnt want to steal it. He wanted to help sell it so that night he went for dinnero with them and said, please let me franchise, and they had begun franchising. They had a franchise agent working on their behalf who became ill not long after ray entered the picture, and the stars aligned, and they basically they said, yeah, if you want to do it no skin off our backs. Go laid. So he started doing it. Host he started franchise it. That held hill his First Franchise ohming. Guest was the desdes plaines, illinois,. Host they consider that the first opening of a monday monday mcdonalds in a United States. Guest it looks like a museum. Just like it did in the oldng days. Host that is the original ray croc store. Was he successful after that . Usa we was. We wasnt opening them as quickly as you would think but thats because other people were opening their open hamburger stand, but he it was hard. Its hard to sell Something Like that. Hard to sell the formula but he was doing okay, and he was couple of years in when he went to st. Paul, minnesota, which is where our story takes a turn for the romantic. Host so, now we start to get into the ray ask joan part here. Okay. So, lets back up a little bit and tell us about who joan is before she made ray kroc. Guest openwas 25 years older, and ray was 52. Joan was a young mother, beautiful blonde woman and the was a very, very skilled pea llanes and ore gappist, and back in the day ore gappist, and in the day that was a valued profession. People would play in arrests, which she do in restaurants, she played on local television. She was so beautiful that the local tv owner hired her to play music in the breaks in between shows because that was before videotape. And she also had a really good concern going, selling im sorry selling lessons, Music Lessons to kids. So she was really working very hard with three jobs but the afternoon she loved was at the criterion restaurant. Host the played the. E. Guest she played eorgan in the dining room, on a pedestal and then after dinner hours should would go to the lounge where she played piano. Host now take us back toan that evening and keep in mind, ray is married, child at home. Yes. She is out of the house. Host and then joan is married with a child at home, i believe. Guest yes. Host now she is doing her thing at the cite criterion, playing the people, and ray walks in. Guest ray had been selling for two years, in 1957, he was there to sell the owner of the fraughter a franchise. He asked ray he never bought the milkshake machine mixer because he hatt had an elegant restaurant but he knew ray, and ray came in for a dinner meeting and he was way layed by thiss beautiful woman playing the organ, and he was attracted to her youthful good looks but he was himself a pianist. The made money that way and loved playing piano. So he was taken by not just her look us but her technical musical proficiency. That was very intoxicating their for him. Host now, that meet, did they actually meet . Did he get introduced or how did that happen . Guest best i can tell fromin talking with people and also from what ray says in his auto biography which you take a couple grains of assault. He demanded to meet her and said hello. But the extent of the conversation was never been completely clear, even joans daughter hasnt she was there that night, too. Her father came with her to pick joan up to take her home after work but its not entirely clear the depth of the conversation, but what happenings next suggests there might might have been more to it than just this quick interaction, which is that joans boss, jinx bought a franchise, opening store number 93 in st. Louis park and hired joans husband to manage it. Host wow. So theres a spark that night but a while before its officially ray and joan, even though lives may have been on separate paths but continued to connect. Guest right. Host give us an idea what happened. Guest its porn to opinion out in 1957 important to point out that in 19 57, mcdonalds was not successful for the corporation. For the people who opened franchises it was very lucrative and they were paying 1. 9 it to the mcdonalds royalty to the monday monday corporation have of which was going the Mcdonald Brothers and that wasnt enough to deep corporation agreeing and helping corporate employs d police the standards from star to store. So ray was under a lot of pressure because he was growing the company and hiring peopleo who were very helpful to him. In fact in several cases they were enormously helpful. They helped save the business. But it was a difficult time because other people were starting to franchise, too. Monday monday had not invent mcdonalds had not invented franchise, they came up with a form formula. But the stores were doing greatt and mcdonalds was becoming a family known brand. They were investing in advertising local pit operators understand the power of advertising about the corporation was an a perilous head to bankruptcy. Host with nat in consideration what happens to get the relationship now between openand ray, who obviously felt something that night back in 1957, but it would be seven more years before they got married. So we need to fill in the gap. Guest so, joan luz was so good at managing this mcdonalds in st. Louis, pack, minnesota, that he got a large bonus, 10,000 bonus, which was an incredible sum of money, and he took that money and plowed it back into his own mcdonalds, a at that time people well get to this as it relates to this bull place that time to open mcdonalds is like a news business, you had to go where the opportunity was, and joan and her husband were developed they have two choices of where to good if they wanted to open their own frap chits, and one was in allentown, pennsylvania, and the other was in rapid city, south dakota. And because raleigh was originally from that part of the world, they chose rapid city, south dakota. So, off joan and rollie and their young daughter moved to rapid ski with extremely little money in their pockets pockets t grand ambitions if they were able to hope this mcdonalds, member theyre financially finances would be on better footing themselves and that exactly what they did. So joan at that point women were night loued to work in mcdonalds, that was part of the edict from the mcdonalds brothers. Not just ray. But wifes were expected to help their husbands and so open, when they god to rapid city, oversaw the construction of the set of golden arches on main street and started ordering the stock because all the food came local low. All sourced locally. It wasnt hauled in on a truck because ray was very committed to keeping the food local and the standards that could be kept up. So. Host sew heed licenses in south dakota where joan is working behind the scenes and doing a lot of really important things that at the time a lot of women did that and maybe just didnt all the credit for. But she clearly had some sense for business. Guest correct. Oh, yes. She was very shrewd and not afraid. Host so, hough did they cross paths again . Take us to the point i believe there ray crock was married three times so theresrc another wife between when he and joan get married and im sure that has its open level of intrigue. So they diverge again before they come together. Guest at that moment in time in the 60s they were both very committed to mcdonalds from different perspectives. Joan through her husband, roll llie, and the other franchises and then ray building this huge company with its c important to pine out a man named harry sonnen boring who was key in coming up with the formula of getting mcdonalds on the footing which is to own the underlying real estate of the mcdonalds. He was a real business minded person who was going into different communitying and helping convince people who opened the land its hard to imagine just off blank the landscape was then because it is different than now. So these of people had parcels of land in places where there was little always going on. So hari went in and hair harry went in and brokered deals and built the mcdonalds and ray was the hamburger guy and harry was the finance guy. But joan was helping her husband but they continued to be involved with each other and i thinked had to do with one of harrys early hires who was a pilot who owned a little cessna, and ray and hairy and june martin know who was integral. Lived in i wont get too farred ahead. The early mcdonalds core team would florida over the United States and identified parcels of land but ray was stopping in rapid city and joan was seeing him somewhere. And so a relationship host a relationship evolved. He was desperate to marry her. She almost married him in 1961. She didnt. He married someone else. He divorced his first wife, married something else. Not give away the entire story but in 1965 when mcdonalds went public and ray became enormously wealthy as did people close to him, that is when he was married to his second wife. So join was still in rapid city when ray hit lifes lotto during the ipo of mcdonalds and became instantly worth Something Like 33 million on paper. Host which is human in that time. Guest really huge. Host well race forward then you have to read the book from 1965 to 1969. Which is a critical year, the year they finally get married, correct . Guest yes. Host what crimed of wedding was until theyre both divorced and did they have the big wedding or at small thing or guest no, very quick and small and at the j r, double a arch ranch which is would ranch property ray bought right after the struck it rich in 1965 inn part because was e