Maurice Prince’s Kids . . . They Need Some Help, Too

Maurice Prince bats her long false eyelashes and says her golf game isn’t so good these days because her arthritis is acting up. But then, it never was terribly good. “I started out playing with Nadine Cole, Nat King Cole’s first wife. You should have seen me! I’d always end up in someone else’s fairway. They’d say I needed two fairways. But I always thought it was a great sport. Still do.”

The woman with the less than perfect golf game is nevertheless hosting her first invitational golf tournament at the MountainGate Country Club today to raise money for the Exceptional Children’s Opportunity School, a Los Angeles school for mentally and physically handicapped youngsters from ages 5 to 18 that has been closed the last few months because the building is in dire need of repair.

An Avid Supporter

Prince has been an avid supporter of the school for most of its 36-year history and now sits on the board of directors.

Her Zenith Social and Charity Club (now disbanded) held its first talent show fund-raiser in 1950 and raised $500. “We wanted the proceeds to go to charity,” she recalled, “so we called the city, and they said the L.A. Orphanage always needed money. So we sold tickets and had the affair, but no one from the orphanage ever came to pick up the money. We were so hurt and embarrassed. Someone in the club said she knew a lady who worked with retarded kids, and she would appreciate some help. We took the money and bought sheets, mattresses, spent all the money. And we started taking kids to the doctor. The next year we had another talent show; Kay Starr performed. The place was jammed, and this time we raised $1,000.”

The club started helping the school in its infancy, “when there were five children in a private home on Main and Jefferson. When they moved and were doing the groundbreaking we went out there and cooked food for the volunteers. We started it, and it’s something you don’t want to see let go. We did handcrafts with them. I have a waste paper basket one of the children made--I’ve had it for 20 years. Those kids are so lovable; they love to hug and kiss you. They’d be looking at you for affection. Anything those kids wanted, we just got it for them.”

‘Just Give Me a Little’

Budget cuts have forced the school to cut teachers and services, and Prince sighs when she thinks of how the school is now. “I see Jerry Lewis raising money for muscular dystrophy, and I think if you’d just give me a little for these kids. To see it close. . . .”

From the golf tournament and the dinner and show following it she hopes to raise more than $10,000. Lined up to play are actor Danny Glover, sportscaster Jim Hill and several members of the L.A. Rams. Whoopi Goldberg, Henry Winkler and Isabel Sanford have pledged their support.

And like some who have hosted their own golf tourneys, including Bob Hope, Johnny Mathis and Dinah Shore, Maurice Prince is a celebrity, famous for serving some of the best American food in town at her restaurant, Maurice’s Snack ‘n’ Chat. Fried chicken, meat loaf, smothered pork chops, short ribs, corn bread, black beans: These are the things Maurice has been cooking for more than 50 years, the kind of food that’s now so chic.

“I have always advocated American food over French or Italian,” she said emphatically. “I just go for American home cooking-- that’s gourmet. I have fought for 40 years to get people to recognize that.”

At Maurice’s on Pico between La Brea and Fairfax you’ll not only get unpretentious food, but it’ll be served in an atmosphere as unfussy as your own kitchen. The floor is covered with nappy green carpet, few of the dishes match, and sitting on the tables are smudged cloth roses that have a little light inside that makes them glow.

“The customers love it,” she said. “They love it. They say, ‘Don’t you change.’ My rich, wealthy customers tell me that.”

Likes to Mingle

It’s unlikely that she’ll ever change, probably because she likes it this way. Prince likes to mingle with her guests, to sit down and share a glass of wine, maybe some chicken. Formality doesn’t suit her.

On this day the weather is nice enough to sit outside on the AstroTurf-covered patio where Maurice (yes, that’s her real name; “My parents didn’t know back then, they thought it was a girl’s name. But I like it.”) sips sweet iced tea from a big red glass. She’s got on a special pair of white pants, autographed some time ago by friends and patrons, such as Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda, whose signature spans the length of an outside seam. Her long nails are painted crimson, and she walks with a stiffness that speaks for the years she spent in restaurant kitchens cooking. She doesn’t cook anymore, unless it’s something special, like the plate of gingerbread slathered with sour cream that she sets down on the table, explaining “I just whipped up last night. For years and years I did love to cook because I love to make people happy. But now I can’t stand it. I don’t want to have to do it.”

Instead she keeps a wary eye on her employees, with whom, it is said, she has a love/hate relationship. “They hate me. They just hate me when I go in there. The gravy’s too thick, this isn’t right,” she said, parodying herself getting angry. “I just watch everything closely.”

Turns 70 on Tuesday

Prince will be 70 Tuesday, and she figures she’s paid her dues. Restaurants haven’t been her only life; she spent years in between businesses working as a domestic for a lot of rich and famous Beverly Hills clients like Loretta Young, John Garfield, Ralph Edwards, Stephen Crane, Peter Bogdanovich and Cybill Shepherd, and Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

She’s been through three husbands and doesn’t care to go looking for a fourth. “I’d have to build him,” she said, shaping an imaginary face with her hands. She has one daughter, Dorothy, a granddaughter, step-great-grandchildren and step-great-great-grandchildren.

She arrived in Southern California in 1939 in someone else’s car and almost immediately started baby-sitting and cooking for various families. The cooking she taught herself while growing up in Arkansas and Texas, the daughter of a farmer and one of 11 children. “I just loved to cook,” she said. “I read cookbooks like they were novels. I went to cooking school--I learned my craft.”

Her way with food and her easy manner brought her better and better jobs, like working for John Garfield and his wife. Prince, a “dyed-in-the-wool, honest-to-God, hope-to-die movie fan,” could barely believe it. “I like to died ,” she said, remembering the initial shock. “Like to passed out . I rang the doorbell and I was trembling and shaking.”

Prince recalls Garfield, like her other employers, by what he liked to eat. He was especially fond of her fried chicken and beef stew. “He’d say, ‘Don’t take it away. Let me look at it. I can’t eat anymore, but just let me look at it.’ ”

Hef, she said, ate one meal a day, usually at 5 a.m., and was partial to short ribs and beef stew, which he kept in a separate refrigerator.

Clients Were ‘the Best’

Restaurants that she owned came and went, some with more success than others. There was the Crest Club at 29th Street and Western Avenue, where customers stood four deep at the bar and Prince sweated over a stove for years. But the clients were the best--Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Paul Robeson, Art Tatum. “Everybody ended up there,” she said, “but eventually you just kill yourself, you get so tired.”

Occasionally there were failures. At the Cackler she served chicken, homemade bread and jams and jellies. But patrons who knew the rest of Prince’s repertoire wanted to know what happened to her other dishes. And when she opened at her current location she planned it as a chili parlor. Now that part of the restaurant serves breakfast, and the newer, expanded part built just before the Olympics is where she dishes up lunch and dinner to people such as Elizabeth Taylor, Lionel Richie, Warren Beatty, Ted Kennedy, Lena Horne and Mayor Tom Bradley. Her daughter Dorothy helps run the restaurant.

“I’ll probably die here,” she said looking around the place. But her life style has made it possible for her to travel over the years. “I’ve been around the world and half again. Next I’m going to Iceland and Greenland--I haven’t been there before.”

Penning Her Memoirs

She’s also writing her memoirs, “From There to Here.” The title makes reference to the fact that the car that left her in Los Angeles 47 years ago dropped her on Pico; now she’s back on the street and business is great. The Snack ‘n’ Chat’s phone number is unlisted. It’s not any declaration of snobbery--Prince just doesn’t want people calling all the time. She also has plans to market some of her foods, like sugar cookies, gingerbread and her own blend of spices.

“I always wanted to come to L.A. I wanted to travel all my life. No matter how hard I worked--I made a dollar a week one time--I started saving my money. When I was a kid I’d make a wish and roll between the wagon wheels. I always wished I’d go on a trip.”

The golf tournament and party are at MountainGate Country Club, 12445 Mountain Gate Drive, Los Angeles. Tournament tee-off time is 11 a.m., tickets are $150. The party starts at 3 p.m., tickets are $65.