Marc Richard Perkins was born on August 5, 1944, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the first child of Marion and Dr. Roy F. Perkins. Dr. Perkins completed his residency in Internal Medicine in 1949 and migrated west to Alhambra, California with several Mayo colleagues, where they founded the Alhambra Medical Clinic in 1950. Marc attended Ramona School in Alhambra from kindergarten through third grade.
In 1952 the family (now two children) moved to San Gabriel, California where Marc attended McKinley Grammar School from grades four through eight. At age nine, the first signs of "the collecting bug" emerged. Marc became enamored with 1953 Topps Baseball cards and established a formidable collection before he was roughed up by older kids who stole most of the collection.
While a very good student, Marc was quite often a disruptive force and several teachers found it necessary to move his desk outside the classroom. Marc took a liking to sports and distinguished himself as an outstanding Little League baseball player. The swimming pool, however, became the bane of his existence. He was the only child (until age 10) at the city plunge who wore the hideous orange vest to ensure he didn't drown. Sick of being laughed at and the subject of constant derision, he began to "study" and "break down" the swimming "process." Suddenly, overnight, he declared "I can swim and I'll show you!" He competed in competitive swimming, age group 11 to 12 years, and excelled. The Alhambra YMCA, age group 11 to 12, won a National Title in 1956 in the 200 Meter Freestyle Relay at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Pool.
Marc attended San Gabriel High School from 1958 to 1962 where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He was accepted at Occidental College, a 1600-student Liberal Arts college in Los Angeles in 1962 and graduated in 1966. He began as a pre-med student, presumably to please his Internist father, but did an about-face two years later in Biology Class when he refused to dissect a frog. A fellow student suggested he change his major to Economics, which he found more satisfactory.
In 1966 Marc joined the Graduate Program at UCLA. Several significant things happened in Westwood at the time. Under the tutelage of (deceased) Professor Herbert C. Kay of Santa Barbara, and classmate, and now billionaire Robert W. Duggan, Marc became interested in the stock market. It was also in Westwood that he met Mary Poston of Redlands, California. At the time, the war in Vietnam was raging. Young men basically had three choices: get drafted and join the war, go to Canada, or join the National Guard. Marc chose the latter after graduating in June 1968 with an MBA degree. He then worked as a Securities Trader at Manning & Company in San Francisco. He was called to Fort Ord, California in October 1968 for Basic Training and subsequently Advanced Infantry Training. When completed in April 1969, he joined former Oxy classmate Paul Pflueger as Assistant Portfolio Manager at Steadman Securities, a Washington D.C. investment firm with an office in Los Angeles. Several months later, in a declining stock market, Steadman closed their L.A. office, and Marc decided not to go back east.
Marc and Mary Poston married in September 1969. They were fortunate to find a rental property on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Mary was a first-grade teacher at Warner Avenue School, adjacent to UCLA. Marc had accumulated a small six-figure net worth through investments but was a 25-year-old without a job and uncertain about his future. In early 1970 he noticed that a dilapidated bar next to their rental right on the ocean, 150 yards away, seemed to be undergoing a renovation. Chart House Enterprises, a small chain of 8 restaurants featuring a salad bar along with a limited menu of steaks and seafood was several weeks away from opening. A perfect opportunity, he felt, for a recent graduate with a Masters Degree to help them on a corporate level. Sadly they declined his offer but said he could help with clean-up prior to opening. Desirous to begin doing something, he got on board.
Soon Marc became a busboy, then a waiter, then a broiler man, followed by meat-cutter and Kitchen Manager. These new types of restaurants (Chart House, Chuck's Steak House, Steak & Ale) were quickly changing the "typical" restaurant model.
A smart group of young Stanford graduates had started a chain called Victoria Station, hooking together several boxcars and serving only Prime Rib. Upon the recommendation of an old high school friend, Marc was hired in 1971 by Specialty Restaurants Corporation, an American Stock Exchange company which wanted to emulate the Victoria Station concept. Marc began driving from Malibu to corporate headquarters in Long Beach, CA, and was enthusiastic about the project which was to open in Claremont, CA. He was doing all the necessary work to begin competing with the Stanford group, even locating railroad memorabilia to decorate the facility.
The thing about restaurants is they are most successful when done by a single visionary and/or a small team. This was not the way Specialty operated. Someone picked the color scheme, someone else the carpeting, others the flatware, still others the tables and chairs, etc. Marc was becoming disenchanted.
On an especially hot Southern California summer day, a gentleman walked into Marc's office at Specialty
Restaurants (air conditioning always off to save money). He had an empty building in Pasadena, California which had formerly been a Blum's Candy store and wanted to convert it into a steak and salad bar restaurant. He had heard about Marc from a friend. Mary and Marc were now living in a small apartment in Westwood. Marc, with an MBA degree, no equity (having stupidly never asked for any) and a wage of $10 per hour, began commuting 50 miles daily to Pasadena, helping the owner with every aspect of starting a restaurant other than name and decor. "Sawmill" Restaurant opened in 1973 to huge business.
Mr. Perkins was quite convinced he could now do this on his own. In 1974 he found a 5000 square foot building on Arroyo Parkway Boulevard in Pasadena which was vacant and had formerly been an Aamco Transmission shop. It was the first unreinforced brick building with bow-string trusses in Southern California to be turned into a restaurant. "Emily's" opened in May 1975, and flourished, doing 500 plus dinners per evening.
Upon hearing that a Pasadena mansion might be coming on the market, Marc purchased a 14,000 square foot Paul Williams estate in 1975.
While Mary and Marc had absolutely no furniture, Marc's "collecting bug" arose and he began purchasing exquisite white carrara marble statuary from the 19th century. The sixty-piece collection was auctioned in March 1995 at Butterfield & Butterfield in Los Angeles. The main buyer, in the audience that evening, Sylvester Stallone. The estate was twice used as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design in 1985 and 1995. Some sixty plus feature films, and major television shows were filmed on location in the twenty years the couple lived there. The home was used as the "Playboy Mansion" in the 1983 feature film "Star 80" the story of Playboy model Dorothy Stratton.
In 1978 Mr. Perkins purchased the 1850 seat Raymond Theatre in Pasadena, CA built in 1920. Live musical concerts were produced from 1979 through 1985. Some of the acts appearing at "Perkins Palace" were Smokey Robinson, Ramones, Pretenders, Oingo Boingo, Go Go's, Talking Heads, Air Supply, Tina Turner, and Guns & Roses.
Somewhere during this time Mr. Perkins became fascinated with watches. He sold most of his 50 piece collection in December 2007 at Bonhams & Butterfield. Three exceptionally rare watches were:
The "collecting bug" reared its ugly head once again in 2006 when Mr. Perkins succumbed to the deceitful, dishonest, forgery-ridden hobby of autograph collecting. Making every mistake possible and lured in by every con artist around, Mr. Perkins finally settled down and focused his initially scatter-shot approach. Given his seemingly obsessive nature, he established the world's largest collection of legitimate, authenticated, signed Marilyn Monroe photos, Bruce Lee signed photos and letters, and Al Capone signed items, all to be offered through RR Auction. Mr. Perkins quit collecting upon Mary's death in January 2024. He always maintained she was his North Star, supporting and encouraging him in every crazy endeavor he embarked upon.
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