A Rich Man With a Social Conscience

Perhaps the most memorable exchange between American writers pitted F. Scott Fitzgerald vs. Ernest Hemingway. Fitzgerald, you may recall, declared that the rich are different. To which Hemingway dismissively replied: Yes, they have more money.

What these writers would have made of Bernard C. Shapiro is open to speculation. There’s no question, however, that Horatio Alger would have appreciated his tale.

To get a fix on Bernie Shapiro, it’s best to meet him in his element, the casually elegant El Caballero Country Club in the foothills of Tarzana. Walk with this 82-year-old man through the sunny dining room and watch other gray-haired men offer greetings and introduce their guests.

There would be no “El Cab,” as it is commonly called, without Bernie Shapiro. To say “So what?” is to not know the El Cab story or why this club seems the ideal site for a tournament Monday to raise money to provide basic medical care for uninsured children.

The WATTSHealth Charities’ guest of honor will be Calvin Peete, one of the first African Americans to star on the PGA. Again, Bernie Shapiro’s country club seems the right place.

Shapiro’s name may not be familiar, but remember Branch Rickey? He was the Dodgers owner who had good moral sense and the nerve to sign Jackie Robinson away from the Negro Leagues.

Bernie Shapiro was sort of the Branch Rickey of the country club set. He brought class to the upper class. Yes, the rich are different--and Bernie Shapiro helped make them better.

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First, he had to get rich himself. The waiters serve salmon salad as Bernie Shapiro talks about how he got here from there. As a child of Jewish immigrants who fled the pogroms of Eastern Europe, he knows very well that the poor have less money.

Bernie’s father was a struggling insurance salesman, and Bernie went into sales too, at the age of 8. The Shapiros lived in Los Angeles near a small potato chip factory, and Bernie peddled potato chips door to door, earning three pennies for each dime bag. Later he went to candy and tobacco wholesalers for his wares. He did not eat or smoke his profits.

He graduated from Los Angeles High in 1933, the nadir of the Depression. Then he read an article by Dale Carnegie, predicting great business opportunities on the horizon. “The first was air conditioning. The second was coin-operated vending machines. The third was . . . whatever it was, it doesn’t matter.”

Bernie got into the vending machine business, selling peanuts. Then he started to eliminate the middleman, and his company, Royal Seal, became “the largest producer of edible nutmeats west of the Mississippi,” with candy-makers Hershey and See’s among his top customers. In 1946 Bernie Shapiro sold Royal Seal for a sum so sweet he went into retirement. He was 31 years old.

And like other men of means with time on their hands, Bernie took up golf. He learned the game on public links, walking on as a single and enjoying the game with strangers. One day his insurance man invited him to play at the Bel-Air Country Club.

He was dazzled by the beauty of the course and the posh clubhouse. He came home and raved to his wife, Iris, and she suggested that he should play there more often. Bernie called his insurance man and told him how much he enjoyed it, how he’d love to join the club. The insurance man made some excuses, and finally told Bernie that Bel-Air allowed Jews as guests, not as members.

The conversation, as he recalls it, went something like this.

“Ray, you’re not anti-Semitic. You’re the vice president of a Jewish-owned insurance company. How can you belong to a restricted club?”

“Well, it’s a hell of a place to sell insurance.”

“But what about your boss?”

“Oh, he belongs to a Jewish country club.”

“A Jewish country club! What the hell does that have to do with golf?!?”

“Well, Bernie, that’s just the way it is.”

That is, indeed, the way it was--and still is in some places. But Bernie Shapiro, having grown up with his parents’ stories, having heard the taunt “dirty Jew,” had now become a gentleman of leisure with a cause. To his disgust, he learned Ray was right: that in America, Bernie Shapiro’s land of opportunity, country clubs all over practiced some form of racial, ethnic or religious discrimination. And did so, Bernie recalls, with snooty pride.

What kind of society, he wondered, would value race or nationality or religious heritage more than a person’s accomplishments and character?

Yes, Bernie says, he considered Hillcrest, the club L.A.’s Jewish elite had built for themselves. But he resented Hillcrest’s “no Gentiles” rule and worried that Iris, who isn’t Jewish, might be made to feel uncomfortable.

The only answer was to establish a new kind of country club--a nonsectarian equity membership club, bringing together people who perhaps embrace a finer sense of values.

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Bucking the system wasn’t easy. The Shapiros were still living in View Park then, and Bernie was intrigued by the old Inglewood Country Club, which went broke during the Depression. In 1950 he acquired an option to buy the club and held a press conference to announce his plans, hoping the news would attract potential charter members.

The sports pages gave his idea a splash, and some published his phone number. The next day, he received just one call--from a golf hustler looking for suckers.

A golf acquaintance recommended the Shapiros try Woodland Hills Country Club, which wasn’t member-owned but accepted Jews and non-Jews. Bernie and Iris joined and moved to the Valley, but became disenchanted when Bernie learned their club had placed a cap on Jewish membership--that as the Valley grew, Jews who dropped out of the club were being replaced by “more desirable” members.

And so Bernie Shapiro again embarked on creating the member-owned club of his dreams. This time the response was strong, and when El Caballero opened in 1956, its 500 members enthusiastically embraced the nondiscriminatory philosophy. Forty-two years later, it would be a stretch to call El Cab’s membership a rainbow coalition of the well-to-do. Membership is predominantly white and, as Bernie puts it, “heavily Jewish.” But over the years, the members have included many African Americans, Asians and Latinos. Bernie notes with pride that a club founded by a Jew has had Muslim members.

El Cab, and Bernie Shapiro, were ahead of their time. The times still have some catching up to do, as Bernie will attest.

Bernie tells another story. This year, he traveled to Augusta, Ga., with his son to watch the Masters, at a club that had been notoriously slow to change. Augusta is a shrine for golfers, but Bernie took particular pleasure in shaking Tom Watson’s hand. Back in 1991, Bernie and the golf great had exchanged correspondence after Watson, whose wife and children are Jewish, had resigned from his Kansas City country club over its discriminatory practices. His protest helped shame the club into changing its ways.

The rich have more money, the poor have less. Bernie Shapiro always figured it takes all kinds to fight the good fight.

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Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.