Ray Kroc
Ray Kroc (October 5, 1902, Oak Park, Illinois – January 14, 1984) was founder of the McDonald’s Corporation in 1955, although not of the restaurant itself, which was started by Dick and Mac McDonald in 1940. Dubbed the Hamburger King, Ray Kroc was included in the TIME 100 list of the world’s most influential builders and titans of industry and amassed a $500 million fortune during his lifetime.
In 1961, Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers for US $2.7 million. Their relationship was not harmonious, and Kroc denied them the rights to the McDonald’s name for their first restaurant, opening a new McDonald’s nearby to force them out of business. Under Kroc, McDonald’s promulgated a version of its history that emphasized Kroc as “McDonald’s founder,” barely mentioning the role the McDonald brothers played. Kroc’s first restaurant was inaccurately claimed to be “McDonald’s #1″ (it was actually the 9th McDonald’s restaurant), and the company dated its founding to 1955, not 1940.
An ambulance driver in the First World War, Kroc had tried his hand at a number of trades by the early 1950s, when he was a Multimixer milkshake machine salesman traveling across the country peddling his wares. He found out two brothers, Dick and Maurice “Mac” McDonald, were using eight of his machines at their innovative San Bernardino, California hamburger restaurant.
Kroc was of Czech ancestry and was survived by his third wife, Joan B. Kroc.
In 1977, he wrote his autobiography, Grinding It Out.
Ray Kroc reportedly ordered all McDonald’s restaurants to stop putting pickles on their hamburgers for a period of six months after allegedly walking into a parking lot and seeing where customers had thrown pickles on the ground.
Profile of Ray Kroc on Woopedia.
A collection of articles about Ray Krock