JOSEPH F. PREVRATIL : President, RMS Foundation Inc.

Joseph F. Prevratil, 55, has become a Captain Fix-it for Long Beach’s landmark Queen Mary. When Walt Disney Co. abandoned the liner last year, it seemed as though the city might sell it. Enter Prevratil, a Fullerton resident who once ran the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park and operated the Queen Mary during most of the 1980s. With the financial backing of Robert Gumbiner, chairman of FHP Inc. in Fountain Valley, Prevratil plans to reopen the ship Feb. 26. He was interviewed by Times Staff Writer Chris Woodyard.

Question: Where do things stand now on the Queen Mary project?

Answer: On Jan. 5, I signed the lease as the chief executive officer and president of the RMS Foundation to take control of the Queen Mary, the dome and the 55 acres of land surrounding the ship and the London Town Village. Our security people are there now guarding the ship. About 60% of my key staff is over there now getting ready to take care of the necessary preparations to open the ship. We are in process of cleaning the ship, which has sat for a long time. And we’re planning how we’re going to open progressively over the next several months.

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Q: You have a hotel venture in Riverside. You live in Orange County. Why would you want to take on the Queen Mary project?

A: Well, one must remember I spent 12 years of my life here in Long Beach. From 1981 to 1987, I ran the Queen Mary for the Wrather Corp. I was chief executive for the port for a year and for the past four years have been working on the Convention Center expansion. So my interest in Long Beach is major. The Queen Mary project itself is key to the city, so despite the fact I have other business, my prime business has always been in Long Beach.

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Q: What makes you think this project can work?

A: During the campaign to sell the Queen Mary, a great deal of disinformation went out. An unbelievable campaign that the Queen Mary was in terrible disrepair and was about to sink. The vast majority of that disinformation was simply that: It wasn’t true. The Queen Mary needed some repairs. The port has provided the city with funds to make those repairs, about $6.5 million. The second (piece of disinformation) was that Queen Mary has never made any money. The fact is the city never lost any money on the Queen Mary from 1981 until the last few months when the port agreed to subsidize Disney. The vast majority of the time the city was receiving occupancy taxes, retail sales taxes and rent.

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Q: So why did the city lose money from 1971, when the ship opened, to 1981?

A: The major reason during that period was that the city leased the hotel, the food and beverage (services) out. And the city performed maintenance and managed the tour. When you have an operation with so many different segments to it, it’s hard to coordinate in a businesslike way. When it was leased to the Wrather Corp., Wrather took over all the operations--food and beverage, hotels, merchandise stores, tour, maintenance. For those years, we made $5 million to $7 million annual positive cash flow.

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Q: Do you think it can still make that kind of money?

A: No, I don’t. For one, I had the privilege of opening the Spruce Goose, which was a brand new attraction. Two, the economy was in full gear and three, I believe that it is a different time and a different place. It will be successful now, however my concept of how to operate the Queen Mary is quite different.

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Q: How is it different?

A: The prior management charged an admission fee that was pretty large and a parking fee that was pretty large, which made it pretty unaffordable to the ordinary individual. Today, people’s discretionary income is very limited. If you look around and see areas that are packed on weekends--Redondo Pier, Santa Monica Pier, Shoreline Village, various areas around Marina del Rey. They have a modest parking charge, no admission price and a high degree of food, beverage and merchandise and a lot of things to see and do down by the water.

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Q: What would you do for children?

A: My idea is create a Tivoli-type ride area for smaller children with a rather large Ferris wheel, and I believe that will give people an opportunity to give children something to do. The rides will have a modest charge.

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Q: The Queen Mary has been criticized as a place that people see once, but won’t make repeat visits. Is that true?

A: I disagree with that. I think that may be true if your admission charge is rather large, but people go back over and over to visit Santa Monica Pier, to visit Olvera Street and I think they will come back because the Queen Mary is on the water, you can walk around at least four decks. You stop to think about the square footage on those decks. When we have the full complement of everything open, we can hold 12,000 to 15,000 people. That’s a lot of people enjoying themselves. And we intend to put different types of entertainment there so people will come back. The Queen Mary has a unique historic nature. You’ll never find such a historic ship again, and it’s a great history lesson for the Art Deco period. But mostly, it’s on the water, and the water has a magic charm all of its own.

* Q: What kind of attendance do you expect?

A: Attendance is hard to gauge when you’re not doing paid attendance. We expect we will do a couple of million people a year, and probably substantially more because we won’t be able to count some of them.

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Q: Given all you have been through, would you still have become involved in this project a year ago if you know what you know now?

A: Well, there is an old saying: Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

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Q: Will this be successful in two or three years?

A: I would not have entered into this if I did not think it would be. . . . It’s an opportunity that does not come along very often.

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Q: On the lure of the Queen Mary. . .

A: “You’ll never find such a historic ship again, and it’s a great history lesson for the Art Deco period. But mostly, it’s on the water, and the water has a magic charm all of its own.”

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Q: On the importance of the Queen Mary to Long Beach. . .

A: “If you travel internationally, or nationally, and you say ‘Long Beach,’ people say, ‘Oh, the Queen Mary.’ ”

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Q: On why the Queen Mary should be a successful tourist attraction. . .

A: “The Queen Mary, a tremendous attraction, has been priced unaffordably to the average person. Charging no admission and a price of $3 to park your car, makes it very affordable.”

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Q: On the Walt Disney Co.’s care of the ship. . .

A: “They sometimes take unfair criticism of their operation. They are a very fine company and I think they left the Queen Mary in good condition from a public presentation standpoint. We appreciate that tremendously.”

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Q: On who will become captain. . .

A: “I’ve had a number of applications for the position of captain, who also want the right to live aboard. There will be no live-aboard captain.”