Generosity Is Still on the Job in Retirement

Don’t look for retirement to change the lifestyle of Orange County philanthropist John C. Crean. Or affect the amount of his charitable giving--more than $1 million a year.

It’s going to be business as usual for Crean, 72, and his wife, Donna, 68, of Santa Ana Heights.

That’s good news for nonprofit organizations such as the Irvine Barclay Theatre, to which he and his wife donated $50,000 to help underwrite a performance Saturday by good friend Bill Cosby.

“I want to acknowledge John Crean for picking up my tab all through show business,” Cosby said from the stage. “I know he’s proud of me, because he keeps doing it.”

Crean plans to work on new ideas for motor homes in the garage of his four-acre estate and play gin rummy on his yacht. And yes, he’ll maintain his profile as one of Orange County’s most visible philanthropists.

“I’ll be doing all the things I did before,” says Crean, who retired last month as chairman and chief executive officer of Fleetwood Enterprises Inc., the $1.5-billion recreational vehicle business he founded in 1950.

The couple’s commitment to giving half of their income to charity will continue. “You get an income and you can only wear so many pairs of shoes, drive so many cars--so you give the rest away,” explained Crean, who, when he sells his 14% stake back to Fleetwood for $176.8 million cash, will put half the proceeds into a family charitable trust.

Since 1956--when Crean was making about $6,000 a year--the couple have shared their income with nonprofit institutions. “We feel God has blessed us,” said Donna Crean, whose favorite philanthropies include the Children’s Bureau of Orange County and the Pacific Symphony’s musical education programs for children. “What we have, we are supposed to share.”

John deadpanned: “You know the saying, ‘Money is like manure; it doesn’t do any good unless you spread it around.’ ”

When Peggy Goldwater Clay, director of major gifts for the Irvine Barclay Theatre, invited the Creans to help underwrite a performance by Cosby, she wasn’t surprised when the couple made a generous contribution. “They share,” Clay said. “And they don’t just stick to one nonprofit. With all the proposals they get, when they see a need, they try to fulfill that need.”

On Saturday night, the Creans hung out with Cosby in a dressing room before his performance. (Afterward, they joined about 130 theater supporters for a Valentine’s Day supper backstage.)

“You look awesome, man,” Cosby, 60, told John Crean. “Isn’t this cheaper than Vegas?”

Laughing, Crean replied: “The only time I ever lost any serious money was with you in Las Vegas.”

Drawing his wife near, Crean invited the comedian to the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary dinner in May at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach.

Cosby said he’d check his calendar.

Onstage, the comedian told a packed house about the Creans’ upcoming anniversary and joked about his own marriage of 34 years.

He said when men ask him about the secret to marital longevity, he tells them: “Just keep coming home. They can’t put you out, man.”

For him, it’s a matter of survival, he said. “It’s if I can stay alive . . . if she doesn’t kill me.”

Before the show, John and Donna Crean shared their own advice for a successful marriage: “Learn how to suffer,” John said. “I’m serious. You get married, you go along, and every once in a while it gets to be rough, so you sweat that out, go through it, and come out on the other side. People just don’t know how to suffer through it; that’s why we have so many divorces.”

Advised Donna: “Make the commitment. Work at it. It really doesn’t come naturally.

“And have a sense of humor. You’ve got to have a sense of humor to last 50 years.”