Flashy Philanthropy : Millionaire Everyone’s Rich Uncle

They are after his money. And why not? Percy Ross, the millionaire newspaper columnist, is giving it away.

So they send him letters, about 1,000 a day. The poor need him to pay their rent, the lame their doctor bills. Brides want big weddings and teen-agers fast cars. A country singer in North Dakota needs bus fare to Nashville.

God has told them to write, some of them say. Voices have whispered the name Percy Ross into their restless sleep. His face has appeared in the bathroom mirror, summoned from the steam.

They send him unpaid electric bills and snapshots of their children, arrows of ink pointing to underfed bellies. If only he would buy them a bag of groceries or a washing machine or a headstone for mama’s grave.

Like Lottery Tickets

Some photocopy their requests and mail them in 40 times over, like tickets to a lottery. A few say it is enough to simply tip them to a good stock. They include their phone number and the best time to call.

Others are too proud to ask for anything but would appreciate a loan. Their letters arrive pinned to their collateral--tarnished jewelry or a tattered deed or a soldier’s Purple Heart.

Percy Ross, rich uncle to an entire nation, picks and chooses among them. “Isn’t this neat?” he says of it, sifting through his mail, the needy and the greedy and the bizarre all before him like so many characters out of Dickens. “I’m having a ball, the time of my life.” So he is: The making of his money--the deals in furs and plastics and heavy machinery--never made him feel as important as this giving it away. He has become a patron to the common man. His pocket is their temple.

Out in the Open

And this very much pleases Percy Ross, for he has always thought himself a remarkably wise and generous man, and he does not mind who knows it. Charity, more than mere prosperity, satisfies a craving he has to get himself and his money out in the open where people can see them.

In 1978, during the Minneapolis Aquatennial Torchlight Parade, he tossed 16,500 silver dollars from the back seat of a red convertible, ripping into bag after bag of the coins as a pleading crowd swarmed the car.

The year before, he gave a Christmas Eve party for 1,000 poor children, and after all the ice cream and singing he yanked up a huge curtain, surprising each of them with a new bicycle.

Now he has his very own syndicated newspaper column where he hands out money right along with advice. It is called Thanks a Million and it is carried weekly by more than 125 newspapers--not this one, but the New York Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Indianapolis Star.

It reads like Dear Abby, if only Abby would put her money where her mouth is. It reads like:

Dear Mr. Ross: I’m 71 and on S.S. What I’d love is to buy a few new pieces of underwear because mine are all worn out. I hope you can help me. I can’t bear the thought of leaving this world in old underwear. --Mrs. M.L., Providence, R.I.

Dear Mrs. L.: You certainly write a brief letter, but don’t give it another thought. Life is too short to get your “undies in a bundle” over such a detail. My check will cover your needs.

Just like that, he swoops in, judges a soul needy and a heart pure. He and his staff edit for brevity and grammar and reply with a few puns. The check is in the mail.

“You know my motto, don’t you?” Percy Ross asks, reciting in cadence: “He who gives while he lives also knows where it goes.”

And he does love to talk about where it goes.

Stolen Arm

“Miss Webber, remember the fellow who lost his artificial arm when he went swimming?” he says to an assistant.

“Oh, that was awful,” she dutifully recalls. “He took it off, and some teen-agers stole it.”

“You know what I told him?” he says, letting a few seconds go by before revealing the cleverness of it. “I said I’d be glad to lend him a hand.”

The two of them laugh, tickled by the memory, though, as Ross is obliged to confide, reading the letters can occasionally turn into a dreary business. He used to take them home with him, but then he could not sleep.

Heaven knows, there are more pitiful people out there than any single rich man can help, he says. America is in worse shape than anyone realizes. And those darned credit cards! They are plastic magnets, pulling everyone into trouble.

“People ask: How does it feel to be rich?” Ross says. “Well, I’m not rich enough. Not even the U.S. government is rich enough!”

Some Frauds

Money is hard to come by and it always has been. Interest rates are down. Money barely grows in banks these days, let alone on trees. So Percy Ross, giving it away, has to be careful. Even then, he ends up reading:

Dear Mr. Ross: Boy, did you get taken. You recently sent a friend of mine $200 so he could supposedly fix his grandmother’s leaky roof. This guy doesn’t even have a grandmother. . . . I’m here to tell you he spent the money on new speakers for his stereo.--E.N., Huntington, W.Va.

Dear E.: It’s not the first time I’ve been taken and it won’t be the last. Thanks for the info, but sometimes that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Oh yes, it can be trying. A Percy Ross has to have rules. There are things he will pay for and things he won’t. In fact, mostly, he won’t.

If the wolf--or especially the bookie--is at the door, forget it. He will not pay the rent or utility bills or most any other debt: “What is the use of getting people out of trouble they will get right back into next month?”

Medical bills, same thing. “I don’t see those doctors giving away much,” he says. “They’re off on their Lear jets, living off the fat of the land with their three-month vacations. Don’t you agree, Miss Webber?”

“Yes, Mr. Ross.”

Modest Amounts

Favored most often are requests for modest amounts, $100 or $200, by people trying to make it on their own. Their chances go way up if their letter makes a catchy column item, a bit offbeat but not entirely wacko, a little weepy but not dismal or defeatist.

He has purchased a dependable used car for a dwarf in Seattle who could not manage the high steps on public buses, and he has bought a glass coffee pot for an unemployed woman in Illinois who complained about the metallic taste in her old aluminum percolator.

He has sent a six-month supply of animal crackers to a “free foot ministry” in Portsmouth, Va. Its volunteers serve cookies and orange juice to people while they cut their toenails.

“It is not easy deciding,” Percy Ross says, sighing from the weight of it. “You have to be a philosopher. And if you don’t do it right, you fall flat on your face and the whole country reads it.”

To help with the chore, he employs a personal staff of 10 or so, including an accountant and an attorney. They dispense the money from an expensively decorated suite of offices in Minneapolis, the city where he settled down to open a fur auction in 1945.

Dapper, Cheerful

A fit man at age 70 and always dapper, Ross has the cheerful bearing of a company president out talking to the boys in the plant. He does not mind admitting that the nest of silver hair hiding his bald spot is transplanted.

He likes to think of himself as an everyday guy who worked hard and made it big. He points to the telephone book on a credenza behind his curved, nine-foot mahogany desk.

“My number is listed,” he says. “People can call. I may not answer. That’s what I have assistants for. But that phone number is listed.”

Up to 8,000 letters are sent his way each week. But with time such a demon, he looks at only a fraction. The mail is screened by readers who work at home. They scan the first and last paragraphs and one in the middle.

Only about 800 requests--the neediest, the funniest or the quirkiest--make the first cut. Those go to Constance Hanson, 60, Ross’ executive assistant. She then selects about 200 for the boss’s attention. Some of those will be answered, complete with cash. Five or six make it into the column.

Miss Hanson--employees here are always addressed formally--prides herself on being the staff’s “old ogre,” for, ultimately, someone must ferret out the very best of the letters and dump the rest in the garbage.

“I’ve told Mr. Ross that he can’t be a goody two shoes all the time,” she says sternly.

To prevent such a thing, large doses of cold logic are used in the winnowing. On a recent day opening the mail:

A 92-year-old woman asks for one of those three-wheeled electric carts so she can make her way down to the corner cafe.

“This woman is 92 and that’s not a very good investment,” Miss Hanson says.

And what of the nurse who wants a lift chair for a handicapped patient?

“Well, that patient probably ought to be in a nursing home, anyway.”

And the single mother whose salary is not enough to make a down payment on a house?

“Well, c’mon, whose salary is enough?”

And the old woman whose roof was smashed by a tree during a storm?

“She doesn’t live in the column’s circulation area.”

After a time, there is a batch of letters ready, which is a good thing. The boss is hovering about, alert as an exclamation point. He so enjoys this part, this lunging in for the rescue.

“Oh, I like this one,” he says of a sad letter from Staten Island, N.Y. It will make a good column item.

A homosexual, at odds with his parents for 18 years, finally wants to go home. He needs a new suit of clothes to look his best.

“I think $250,” decrees the millionaire Percy Ross. “Or maybe $300. What do you think? Miss Hanson? Miss Webber?”

So who is he? And how did he become, as he likes to think of himself, the Jewish Santa Claus?

Ask him these favorite questions, and a long, oft-told story pours forth, a saga where the son of an immigrant peddler makes it to the top with chutzpah and hard work.

“We were the poorest of the poor,” that story begins, and Miss Webber is sent off for the family photo albums.

Percy Ross’ father was born in Latvia, made his way to Sweden, stowed away to America. He settled in Laurium, Mich., in the copper country of the Upper Peninsula, where he became the town junkman, always good for a few cents in trade for a pound of scrap metal.

Percy was the oldest of three sons, the one relied on to scout around for junk on his bicycle, though his glances did not stop there. Often he would cast an envious look at the rich people on the other side of town.

‘Wouldn’t Even Look Down’

“What snobs they were!” he remembers. “They had big touring cars and, when they went by, they wouldn’t even look down at you.”

Face to face, a few would snicker at the junkman’s little boy. They called him kike and did not want him around shining shoes in their fancy clubs.

“I knew then I wanted to get just as rich as they were, and, when I did, I wouldn’t be so selfish as them,” he says.

Where the father was a luckless small-timer, the son burned with one get-rich-quick scheme after another.

He made four fortunes and lost three of them back. He started in the fur business, trading in muskrat and mink. Then he moved to the auctioning of heavy equipment in exchange for a percentage of the gross. Finally, he ended up manufacturing plastic trash bags.

In 1969, he sold Poly-Tech Corp., maker of Tuffy bags, for $8 million. He split the money equally with his wife and two sons, each of whom had been active in the business.

From there on, the story begins to go very light on details. He made assorted investments, a few of which, he says, turned huge profits.

No Details of Wealth

“Money is the root of all happiness,” he liked to remark in those days, though then, much as now, he declined to discuss how deep those roots go.

He may have $5 million, $10 million, possibly more, possibly less. He will not tell. “I figure it’s nobody’s business,” he says.

But he has never been timid about displaying that wealth. His demeanor, as many here have noted, is: I’m rich. I’m warmhearted. I’m wonderful. How many frames of film are left in the camera?

“He is thought of as self-promoting and a bit vulgar,” Dave Mona, a well-known Minneapolis publicist, says. “He’s no one the Establishment is comfortable with. You won’t find him where the elite meet to eat.”

And, of course, that’s OK with Percy Ross. He says he would not want to lift a fork beside them, anyway.

“Most of them are like the Pharaohs of old--they want to take it with them,” he says. “But I’m happier than all of them. I have the respect of the people on the bottom, people who need to know that there is someone someplace like me who understands their situation and wants to be their friend.”

Dislikes Anonymity

So let the stuffed shirts keep their blue-blooded philanthropies--their museums and hospitals and foundations. And let them keep their discreet, silk-glove donations and bequests.

“I don’t like anonymous givers,” he says. “I think you should let the word out. I think every deed should have a name, don’t you, Miss Hanson?”

“I really do.”

“It gives someone else the incentive to give. And who knows about these anonymous givers, to be honest. They could be giving dirty money. It could be laundered money, dope money, drug money!”

Still, even Percy Ross has toned it down. Recent years have found him less inclined toward the galas and giveaways that sometimes drew criticism as garish publicity stunts.

Yes, there were those who questioned his sincerity when he threw a $25,000 champagne-and-steak dinner for airport skycaps in 1977. “They were always nice to me when I was poor,” he explained.

Others blanched each time the happy millionaire tossed silver dollars along parade routes, griping that he should have known the grown-ups and big kids would sock them free from younger hands.

Sarcasm on Method

“It’s tough to top, but Percy could always throw sawbucks from a balloon,” a local columnist wrote sarcastically.

These days, he still gives away silver dollars, but most go out one by one in little plastic pouches to folks who write in: Percy Ross, Box 23500, Minneapolis, Minn. 55423.

His office no longer has a hand-loomed gold carpet and crystal chandeliers. No secret panel opens into a sunk-in bar decorated with red velvet and white feathers. The bathroom shower has no built-in color TV.

He does still keep a small fleet of cars, including a chocolate-brown limousine once owned by Howard Hughes. And, since charity begins at home, he owns several of them, including one in Palm Springs.

But he has stopped switching watches each day so they match his well-tailored suits. It has been a decade since he threw a party for his closest friends, allowing all of the wives to pick a mink from a rack of 60 coats.

Miss Hanson, who used to do public relations for a hotel, takes some of the credit for her boss’s new constraint.

“Some of what he did before was gauche,” she says. “Mr. Ross got rich very quickly and you know how that is. Throwing coins. Ugh! Certainly, we don’t do that anymore.”

Anyway, they are tired of a snippy local press. Neither the Minneapolis nor St. Paul papers carries the column, though both splash plenty of ink his way whenever the news gets bad.

Front-page headlines chronicled Ross’ 1981 arrest on a hashish possession charge. After he was acquitted, he gave a young boy a silver dollar in the courthouse lobby.

The papers also heralded his troubles with the IRS in 1984, when the government claimed he owed $359,000 in back taxes, though Ross says the matter--not all of which is public record--was settled in his favor.

“Who even knows what people think of me around here?” he says. “But the important thing is the column. And, oh, I know I relate to my readers. I’m on the right track.

‘Living Saint’

“If you help people, they remember you. They tell their children and their children’s children. Oh, yes. Where is that letter from the little girl who said I was a living saint?”

Miss Webber is dispatched.

“A living saint,” he repeats, pursing his lips.

Truth be told, the newspaper column was the idea of a lifetime. Not that it is a moneymaker. His cut of the take, he says, does not even cover the telephone bill, to say nothing of the staff.

But since it began in 1983, it has brought him more kicks than anything before. The wisdom and wealth of Percy Ross have been spread across the American landscape. He has a book coming out later this month. Deals for a weekly TV show and a daily radio spot are in the works.

“My goal in life is to be bigger than Ann Landers or Dear Abby, and I think I have more to offer . . .” he says. “I am letting the world know there is a spark of kindness in at least one millionaire.”

In his remaining years, he will part with it all, he says, his last dollar timed to expire with his last breath.

‘Digging Into My Principal’

Of course, it is difficult to tell how well he is synchronizing. He refuses to say how much he gives away each year, though he supposes $1 million would not be far off: “I’m digging into my principal, I’ll tell you that.”

And he will not confide how much his investments continue to earn. He still owns at least one business, the B. F. Nelson Co., which makes paper boxes.

His younger son, Larry, 39, runs it. He says he is glad his father is getting the attention he always wanted.

“Personally, I’m a more private person, so (the column) goes against what I’d prefer to do,” Larry says. “But I think every individual ought to do what he wants.”

Besides, as his dad would say, money can be a bore. A fortune swells just so much before the next million begins to look like the one before.

Money does not buy happiness. Ask anyone! People with $15 million are not necessarily happier than people with $10 million.

“Money! What the hell is money?” Ross asks, supplying the answer. “Money is only worth what you do with it.”

Checks Ready

And today has been a good day for giving money away. The letters are read. The weekly column is written. The checks are ready for the mail.

There is only one bad note: Laurian, his wife of 47 years, is ill. She is recovering from hip surgery and the pain is awful.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he tells her when she calls. “I’m just a little bit detained. I’ll be coming home soon.”

He has the itch to look at a videotape of a party he threw in 1978. More than 1,500 of his boyhood friends from the Michigan copper country were there.

Oh, it was a grand spectacle of food and song. Everyone was given a copper bracelet with a penny minted in the year of Percy’s birth.

But viewing it is a bit of a problem. He frowns at the knobs on the video recorder. “I wish I could get this tuned in better,” he complains. “Miss Webber!”

The color is bad. Worse, there are interruptions. His personal phone line rings, again and again.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “I’m still going to be a little longer.”

Favorite Part

The tape is winding slowly. It shows Ross riding to the party in the limo. He greets friends out front. Then there are speeches and entertainment. Finally, it is getting close to his favorite part.

An elaborate drawing begins for a grand prize. The winner will get a copper-colored Cadillac, a real beauty, loaded with extras, the name Percy Ross engraved inside.

“I love this,” he says, peeking closer to the TV.

After a lengthy to-do, a winner is announced. Her name is Lucille Kangas, an old acquaintance. She weeps for joy, then sits on the plush fabric behind the big steering wheel, hardly able to catch her breath.

A man with a microphone intrudes upon this dreamy joy. He has a question. What does she think of Mr. Ross?

“Listen to this,” Percy Ross says, poised for the answer.

And here it comes, just as he had remembered it.

The woman says, “I think he is the greatest man in the world.”

Times staff writer Mark Landler contributed to the reporting of this story.