A man who served the crowd well

B.W. COOK

Hans Prager often recounted his days as a $1-an-hour potato peeler in

the kitchen of the fashionable Los Angeles dining room once known as

Scandia.

Prager passed away two weeks ago at the age of 74 following

several years of declining health. The man who rose from potato

peeler to star bon vivant, best known for his chic Ritz restaurant in

Newport Beach, has been lovingly eulogized in print by many who

cherished his friendship.

A memorial service on Jan. 26 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport

Beach filled the main ballroom with admirers and loved ones. More

than 1,000 people came to say goodbye, followed by one last toast

across the street from the hotel at Prager’s Ritz, now owned and

managed in the spirit of Prager’s passion by Las Vegas restaurateur

Freddie Glusman. Prager’s family, including widow Charlene, joined

Glusman in welcoming the sentimental crush of people wanting to hold

on to the memory of a man they so admired.

There is considerable import, and surely a message to be shared,

associated with the life and death of Prager. In these times of

tremendous divisiveness in our nation and world, Prager, one man in

one time, was a true American patriot whose life of torment to

triumph and rags to riches was far more than just another “Horatio

Alger” tale.

Prager represented the best American ideal of overcoming the worst

of odds to find success and fulfillment in life. He did so with

great sacrifice along an often-turbulent path that included divorce

and family estrangements, alcohol dependency, financial ups and downs

and in the end a struggle with failing health. Prager was not a

saint, but he was a rare and special man of substance.

Born a Jew at the dawn of Hitler’s rise to power in early 20th

century Germany, Prager, at the age of 10, would witness the

imprisonment of his father in the concentration camp Buchenwald

following “Kristallnacht.” The infamous “night of broken glass” was

indelibly imprinted in Prager’s psyche. Hitler’s troops ravaged the

streets, breaking the glass storefronts of any and every Jewish

business, murdering Jewish citizens and beginning the path of horror

known as the final solution associated with the Third Reich.

Prager’s mother had the presence of mind and the apparent ability

to trade the family liquor business for her husband’s freedom and

passports to China. They got out with their lives and landed in

another world, penniless. Within a matter of a few years the world at

war would reach them in Shanghai. The Japanese invaded, bringing a

new wave of anti-Semitism. Once again, the Prager family was at great

risk. Prager’s father, suffering from the advanced stages of diabetes

without the benefit of medical care, would take his own life, not out

of self pity but rather to spare his family the burden of his care

under circumstances of siege and trauma. It was the ultimate

sacrifice again witnessed by a now young teenager forming his view of

life, of the world, of people.

To become a man of tremendous optimism, a man of social conscience

following such harsh lessons of life, the worst experiences that life

can deal, is surely a testament to the soul of Hans Prager.

Throughout his remarkable life he often credited his mother with

giving him the gift of hope and purpose in the face of adversity.

Margaret Prager eventually left Shanghai and came to America and

reunited with her son. They shared a very close relationship until

her death some years ago.

Fast-forward a lifetime and the community has gathered to thank a

man who was at the center of milestone celebrations fueled with joy

and meaning for thousands touched by Prager’s legacy via his

formidable career as host, restaurateur and raconteur. As Cantor

Sheldon Marshall sang the haunting Kol Nidre at Prager’s memorial, an

age-old Jewish prayer traditionally chanted on the high holy days of

repentance and reaffirmation, the merging of differing and often

conflicting life experiences, values and rituals woven together by

this one man in a short 74 years offered so much about who we all

are, and what kind of people we want to be.

* THE CROWD appears Thursdays and Saturdays.