Sex, Lies, and Hamburgers: McDonald’s and the Krocs
Ray built the gilded American shrine to fast food. Joan made a philanthropic titan of his $3 billion fortune. It all began in scandal.
Ray and Joan Kroc are honored by their San Diego Padres (and the Famous Chicken) at a home game in 1982.
Photographer: Bettmann/Getty ImagesThe editors at Humboldt High School in St. Paul, Minn., had Joan Mansfield’s number. “Though other blondes may fade and tire, Joan will set men’s hearts afire,” read her entry in the Class of 1945 yearbook.
Indeed, Joan, a member of the drama club, would go on to generate a good deal of drama, embarking on a scandalous affair with one of America’s richest men and marrying him. Then, long before Warren Buffett and Bill Gates made such pledges common, she would give away the bulk of his $3 billion fast-food fortune.