Bonita Wrather Fills Void With Devotion to Business
When she returned home from the hospital after her husband died, the first phone call Bonita Granville Wrather received was from President and Mrs. Reagan.
The Reagans cried unabashedly, Mrs. Wrather said, over the loss of their friend Jack Wrather, 66, who catapulted a Texas oil inheritance into a California entertainment conglomerate that included the Queen Mary, the Spruce Goose, the Disneyland Hotel and television syndications of “Lassie” and the “Lone Ranger.”
Former Child Star
Since that call Nov. 12, Bonita Wrather, a former child star who played in 55 movies before joining her husband’s business, has cried often on her own about his fatal, 33-month battle against cancer.
“I guess the biggest shock to me,” she said in the living room of her five-bedroom, two-story Early American Bel-Air home recently, “is that through all of his illness, I really did feel he was going to make it. I had that kind of faith. And there must have been a reason that God did not decide that.
“I always felt that Jack and I would end up together going to the moon. Or doing something very adventurous. Because we loved to do interesting and different things. . . . We were the first people to fly jets from Brussels to New York. We were one of the first people to fly the Concorde.”
There will be no trips to the moon, but another substantial challenge awaited Bonita Wrather, 62, when she returned to work recently: She took over as Wrather Corp.’s chairman of the board, working closely with her son, Christopher, 32, who is president.
In their corporate headquarters on the fourth floor of a Beverly Hills building, she vows that her husband’s office will remain unoccupied for some time.
Lone Ranger’s Saddle
The office is a large oak-paneled room behind a westward exposure of sliding glass doors. A bright orange LeRoy Neiman portrait of the Lone Ranger and Tonto dominates many Western art pieces. Three empty briefcases sit beside a large, L-shaped desk.
In a conference room next door, the first saddle used in the “Lone Ranger” television series rests on a stand near a case containing the masked man’s pistol and silver bullets.
“I think Jack deserves to have his office not moved into,” Bonita Wrather said.
“There’s an aura about a man like Jack Wrather. It sounds funny. You didn’t know him. But . . . I don’t want to go sit at his desk. . . . We’re all very pragmatic and we use the conference room, but I don’t want anybody to use that desk.”
She is also determined to keep the business.
“The sharks are out there,” she said. “You know they’re waiting for us to liquidate. They’re waiting pleasantly to buy me out. . . . Somebody asked me right after Jack passed away: ‘If you could get a good offer why wouldn’t you sell? You could live for the rest of your life.’
“I said that isn’t what Jack would have liked. He wanted the company to grow and to expand. The company’s name happens to be the Wrather Corp. He built it from nothing. It would be so easy to sell out. It would be so easy to take the gains and run. . . . (But) that wasn’t his style; it’s not our son’s style. It’s not my style.”
A Smaller, Brighter Room
Wrather works down the hall from her husband’s office in a smaller, brighter room with a yellow rug and an armoire and Regency table shaded to match.
Behind her sits a wicker basket containing files labeled “Personal,” “Do It Today” and “Wrather Corp.” She switches them daily with others designated “Lone Ranger,” “Queen Mary” and “Christopher,” for her son.
She began using the basket when she started working with her husband and has carried it between her home and office almost every day for the 30 years so she could work at home when necessary. Wrather made her first movie at age 7 and loves to work.
“Jack and I used to vacation a lot,” she recalls, “but we always talked about business. We were always plotting and planning and talking about what was coming up next and how we would handle things.”
Making her motion picture debut in 1931, she was nominated for an Academy Award in 1936 for her work in “These Three,” an adaptation of a Lillian Hellman play.
She married in 1947 and stopped making movies, except a few for her husband, because “I decided that Jack was not the type of person . . . who would have a wife on location. He was a very strong man. And a jealous man, I’m happy to say. He wanted my time and my attention, and I gave it to him willingly. And joyfully.”
She helped produce the “Lassie” TV series from 1958 to 1972 before entering more heavily into Wrather Corp. business, working extensively on the Disneyland Hotel and the Queen Mary.
Although she worked next to her husband for many years, Wrather finds being chairman of the board “a little overwhelming.”
Each day she drives to her office before 8 a.m., disdaining a chauffeur as pretentious, and spends much of her time mastering detail and learning to delegate. She must also make the tough decisions formerly made by her husband.
She seldom leaves before 7 p.m. and often takes additional time to do community work. She is on the board of trustees for St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
When she arrives home she relaxes in a spacious Early American living room with oak paneling above a fire in a large brick fireplace.
‘Bionic Mom’
Wearing a red blouse, red pants and red shoes on a recent evening, she greeted a guest and plopped down on a couch with a quietly colorful pattern.
Around her neck was a gold chain and a necklace that said Bionic Mom, a present from her daughter, Linda Schwartz, 35, in appreciation for Wrather’s juggled roles of wife, mother, grandmother and businesswoman. Wrather sees her stepdaughter, Molly Dolle, 41; two children, and 10 grandchildren regularly.
Scores of crystal, porcelain and glass bunnies crouched on floors throughout the house, a reminder that Wrather is called Bunny after her father, musical comedy star Bernard (Bunny) Granville. Otherwise the home was free of jumble.
“I don’t like too much clutter,” she said. “I find that even now, when someone comes to visit, the children with their children, I adore having them, but I’m a little bit nervous about the mess. . . .
“And it’s absurd. It’s really absurd. But like our children say, ‘You’re entitled, Mom. So don’t worry about it.’ ”
Wrather said she’s embarrassed to remind people of her show business background, and the only hint of her acting career is in a den where movie photos hang in two medium-size cases.
Tucking her feet onto a cushion as she sat on a couch, Wrather said she built the cases as a birthday present to her husband, who requested them.
In Reagan Circle
Wrather and her husband built the home in 1951, about a decade before they began socializing with a group including the Holmes Tuttles, the Justin Darts, the Henry Salvatoris and actors Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
Soon men in the group began urging Reagan to run for governor of California. When he succeeded and when he won election to the White House, they became part of his “Kitchen Cabinet.”
The Wrathers spent a lot of time at the house admiring a multicolored garden that Bonita Wrather calls the prettiest tulip patch in Bel-Air. They also swam laps every morning in a large pool, a practice she had neither the energy nor the inclination to continue after her husband’s death.
A few weeks ago, however, she resumed and is swimming more laps than ever.
“As sick as he was,” she explained, “Jack used to say, ‘Please go down and take a swim, honey. You know how much better it makes you feel.’
A ‘Kooky Discipline Person’
“So I feel he’s saying that to me and I do it because I find that I get to the office with a much clearer head and I have a lot more energy.
” . . . It’s not easier to do, but I feel much better when I do it. I’m kind of a kooky discipline person. If I lose discipline, if I give in to certain things, I’m no good. I have to have some sort of discipline. It’s been my life.”
As the discipline continues, she will feel her way along and see what happens.
“My life has changed so much since my husband passed away,” she said. “I mean it hasn’t even been three months, so I’m not quite sure what my home life is going to be like.
“And maybe that’s an interesting subject. A transition. Four months ago or six months ago I could have told you exactly how we lived and what we liked to do and all the patterns we set. Now I’m not sure what the answer is.”
