Ex-Executive a Champion for Charities

Although it was 21 years ago, Bob Rains clearly remembers the day his Hollywood career ended. The Universal Pictures publicity executive, then 56, felt an intense pain shooting down his left arm. He drove himself to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, walked into the emergency room and announced he was having a heart attack.

After a 10-week convalescence, including seven weeks at his Tarzana home, Rains was forced to end his 32-year tenure at the studio--and to figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

Fortunately for Habitat for Humanity, the American Red Cross, St. Martin-in-the-Fields School and dozens of other nonprofit groups, the energetic executive decided to donate his time and talents to the community.

“It changed my life,” Rains, 77, said about his decision to join Executive Service Corps of Southern California, for which he volunteers 30 hours a week. “I’m challenged every day. My work keeps me alive.”

Rains joined about 175 other retired business executives who offer their skills as advisors and mentors to executives of nonprofit groups looking to raise public awareness of their organizations.

“Bob’s fantastic,” said the Rev. Ronald D. Culmer, whose St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Canoga Park recently benefited from Rains’ marketing expertise. “What’s amazing about him is that he walked the streets interviewing people, just so he could give us all the options he could to make our presence known.”

Rains, a New York native, attributes his street smarts to skills he developed in childhood, when he had to adjust to 18 different schools in 12 years.

At 17, his family settled in Los Angeles, where he studied journalism at USC. After earning a degree in radio broadcasting at New York University, Rains served in the Air Force, returning to Los Angeles at the end of World War II.

With $17,000 in poker earnings to tide him over until he landed a job, the writer sent out 67 letters to advertising agencies, hoping one of them would hire him.

After seven weeks of waiting, he was hired as a publicist at International Pictures. He got to rub elbows with some of his favorite actors, in what he said turned out to be the job of a lifetime.

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Two decades into his tenure at International Pictures, which eventually became Universal Pictures, Rains met his wife, Shirley. The couple have no children and share the hobby of showing miniature schnauzers. Rains’ first volunteer post was at the Kennel Club of Beverly Hills, where he served as chairman of advertising.

“Bob is a rare guy,” said fellow Executive Service Corps volunteer Fred Cowan. “He works so hard that he makes everyone else feel like a slouch. He’s one of the most impressive people I’ve met in my life.”

Cowan and Rains recently served as consultants for the Brentwood / Westwood Symphony, which sought input on how to raise its public profile. Rains is also advising the Chinatown Service Center and the University of West Los Angeles. He has assisted about 40 organizations in all.

Rains recently completed “Beneath the Tinsel: The Human Side of Hollywood Stars,” a book of anecdotes about the stars he befriended, which will be available on the Internet this summer.

“[Volunteer] work has been a godsend to me,” Rains said. “I believe we must give something back. I’m a workhorse, but a happy one.”