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His Wikipedia: John Donald MacArthur was born in Pittston, Pennsylvania.<1> MacArthur and his many brothers and sisters grew up in poverty, the children of an itinerant Baptist preacher and his resourceful wife. MacArthur's brother Charles MacArthur was an American playwright and screenwriter, best known as co-author of the play The Front Page. MacArthur's sister-in-law was the esteemed actress Helen Hayes.
Career in Illinois MacArthur made his fortune in the insurance business; in 1935, he acquired the Bankers Life and Casualty Company for $2,500. In subsequent years, he built up a business empire through acquisitions of many small insurance corporations. In the 1950s, MacArthur signed famed broadcaster Paul Harvey to be the radio spokesperson for the company (today, the national spokesperson for Bankers Life is actor Dick Van Dyke).
Real estate investments in Florida MacArthur also grew his vast fortune by heavily, and lucratively, investing in Florida real estate. In 1954 for $5.5 million MacArthur bought 2,600 acres of land in northern Palm Beach County that had been owned originally by Harry Seymour Kelsey and later by Sir Harry Oakes. The land included most of today's Lake Park, North Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens and Palm Beach Shores.<2> For many years MacArthur conducted many of his business affairs from a table in the Colonades Beach Hotel, Singer Island, Florida, where he and Catherine his wife both lived in their Penthouse overlooking the Atlantic ocean and Inland water ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._MacArthurLived under the stifling influence of the South Florida hog invasion of the first wave right-wing, violent racist reactionary Cuban oligarchy, the same ones who control Florida politics, unfortunately.
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