Early Reagan

by Anne Edwards

  Sitting across from Nelle during the long train ride was a constant reminder of Jack and his dedication to—and his mother’s belief in—the Democratic party. Moon’s defection to the Republican party in 1932 had hit Jack hard. Reagan feared his own might well disturb Nelle, who was unmovable in her faith that Mr. Roosevelt and the Democrats would see the country safely through its current crisis.

  The 1941 climate in America was tense. As apprehension of entering the war grew, waves of hysteria began to roll over the land. Private citizens were all too ready to campaign against the swift undertow of espionage, sabotage and subversion. It seemed everyone was suspect—”aliens, ethnic and religious minorities, labor unions, Communists, non-Communist radicals and the simply idiosyncratic.” As early as the summer of 1940, George Britt’s The Fifth Column Is Here, which claimed there were more than a million subversives in the United States, was a best seller. A congressional bill required that defense workers sign a loyalty pledge, and that the two million WPA workers swear an oath that they were not members of the Nazi or Communist parties. June 1940 found the Justice Department receiving tips on spies and subversives from ordinary citizens at the rate of three thousand a day. The government agency that most exacerbated the escalating hysteria was the House Select Committee on Un-American Activities, generally known in the late thirties as the Dies Committee, after Congressman Martin Dies of Texas, its chairman, and thereafter as HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee).

  HUAC owed its existence to Samuel Dickstein, a Jewish representative from Manhattan’s East Side who wanted “a congressional investigating committee to expose the activities of native Fascists [Nazis].” Dies recognized the power the chairman of such a committee would wield and joined forces with Dickstein. Together, “out of real events, imaginary fears and personal ambitions,” they created a mostly fictitious enemy-within of half a million Nazis, and, in 1938, one very real House investigating committee. Dickstein was then maneuvered out of power by Dies, who became HUAC’s chairman.

  Riding with the swift winds of war hysteria, the Dies Committee published the names of 563 government employees as Communists or Communist sympathizers, claiming they had belonged to a Communist front, the League for Peace and Democracy. (Dick-stein’s original purpose, to alert the nation to an internal Nazi threat, had been lost with his departure.) From the point that Dies took over HUAC, the committee seemed unconcerned about Nazis and concentrated on the danger of the Communists, who were, ironically, to become the allies of the United States. The only evidence HUAC had against the 563 was the inclusion of their names (in many cases unbeknownst to the person) on the league’s mailing list. On December 6, 1939, the New Republic had stated that the United States was “on the edge of a Red Hunt.” By September 1941, when the City of Los Angeles snaked through much of the heartland of America, objectivity had all but vanished. Well-known liberals such as Walter Lippmann had given the Dies Committee their blessings. They agreed “its methods… were disgusting but un-American, unjust methods were necessary because the Committee was dealing with un-American, unjust activities—’it takes a crook to catch a crook.’“

  Sheer mindless violence pervaded the land with not only aliens and Communists at its mercy but the small sect of Jehovah’s Witnesses. During 1940, they had suffered more than fifty attacks that resulted in injuries and death to more than 500 people, many of them women and children, because their religion explicitly forbade them to salute the flag.* The religion was considered to be a hotbed for conscientious objectors, by groups who fed upon unsubstantiated rumors. The Ku Klux Klan doubled its membership to 300,000 in the single year of 1940, and killings and floggings by the white-sheeters whom Jack Reagan had so despised rose proportionately. Fear had overridden all common sense and destroyed intelligent restraint, fear that European refugees could be Nazi spies and that America could fall under Communist influence. Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, had almost no effect. Liberal journals such as The Nation, New Republic and Saturday Review became “more and more worried about democracy and more and more militant on its behalf.” Reagan’s philosophies had also moved in that direction.

  As they neared Dixon, Nelle and Reagan read the Bible together. He retained the same ardent belief in the Book. He had also been restudying the Constitution, which he described to someone as “the Bible of democracy.” The train journey was the first time in many years that he had spent such an uninterrupted span of time in Nelle’s company, bringing back memories of those hot, humid summer afternoons of the Chautauquas. Nelle still remained the most remarkable woman he knew. Since Jack’s death, she had become even more obsessed with what she called “her Christian duty.” She had decided to join him on this trip only after she realized she could share her new experiences with her old friends in Dixon, with whom she had never stopped corresponding and to whom she remained bound.

  Reagan claimed “he never felt that far from the Rock River.” He had not forgotten the old friends. He remembered names, could attach them to their proper faces. Providing Dixon had not been leveled by some catastrophic stroke of nature, he could have found his way to any town landmark, street or former friend’s front door. Dixon was imprinted on his mind as indelibly as if a cartographer had inked it there.†

  As the City of Los Angeles drew haltingly into Dixon’s North Western Station, Reagan stood in the doorway of his Pullman car spotlighted by the glare of the midday sun. The thousands of hometowners and neighboring residents who had waited patiently for the celebrity train began to shout and wave their WELCOME HOME, DUTCH! banners before Parsons had made her appearance. He returned the waves, helped Nelle down onto the platform and then called out, “It’s good to be here!” If he was aware that Parsons was not exactly overjoyed at the homage being paid him, he did not show it by pulling back, nor did he limit his words when she handed the microphone to him, expecting him to say a gracious sentence or two and then return it to her. Nor did the spectators want him to cut short his speech. Louella Parsons might well have lived in Dixon, but Dutch Reagan had been a part of their lives.

  The Reagans, mother and son, along with the other thirty members of Parsons’s group, were to stay at Hazelwood, the guests of Myrtle Walgreen. According to his own admission, nothing that had previously happened to him in his life had made Reagan feel such a grand success. Charles Walgreen had died in December 1939. Life went on as usual at Hazelwood, which meant that a great many celebrity guests came and went. But Mrs. Walgreen was to remember Louella Parsons Day as “one of the gayest events in Hazelwood’s history.”

  The celebrities were put up in the main house, the others in the guest “cottage” (which had nineteen bedrooms). “The fall weather was so fine that we could eat most of our meals out-of-doors under the trees,” Mrs. Walgreen recalled. “We had a hilarious time… every time our old-fashioned country telephone rang its five rings on a party line [Bob Hope] would grab the receiver to answer, ‘Walgreen’s Sanitarium for Tired Movie Actors.’“ Her prized memento was a photograph of Joe E. Brown seated alone at a very long table covered by a checkered tablecloth with more than a score of places set. At the bottom, the comedian had written, “Joe E. Brown and His Friends.’ Someone had snapped it when he sat down before the big bell rang.”

  Ruth Walgreen Dart was also at Hazelwood that week, but her relations with her ex-husband had remained fairly amicable and Reagan’s friendship with Dart did not create any difficulties.* Reagan was in such high spirits, it is doubtful that anything could have dampened them. Mrs. Walgreen claimed that his “forthright candor won everyone. We became real friends.” He told stories of his caddying days at the club, his adventures as a lifeguard at Lowell Park, and his awe at being a guest at Hazelwood, “the castle on the hill.” Nelle rode with him in the opening parade, waving to the crowds in an uncharacteristically royal attitude while a movie camera on top of a truck revolved constantly, filming the procession.

  On Monday night, after two days of accelerati
ng activities, International Squadron was shown for a benefit world-premiere performance (for the Dixon Hospital), with tickets at the high price of five dollars at the Dixon Theater. This had not been Dixon’s or the theater’s first experience with a world premiere. On January 25, 1924, “movie-goers of this locality witnessed the first showing of Wesley Barry’s film, ‘George Washington, Jr.’… The popular young star… appeared in person at the showing… and awarded prizes of pencils to winners of a contest.” Contemporaries of Reagan’s claim he attended this gala premiere, but did not, unfortunately, win a pencil.

  Nelle strode up the red carpet on the arm of her son as blazing searchlights crisscrossed the skies in Hollywood-premiere fashion. She faced the battery of flashbulbs, cameras and cheering crowds with surprising calm. The premiere was the exciting climax to the trip to Dixon, and she had been the guest of honor with her son in a series of local festivities. Attending the premiere as Nelle and Reagan’s guests were all the members of Nelle’s former True Blue Bible class. Nelle “acknowledged the plaudits of the crowd and a huge ovation greeted her son.… Dutch described his feelings as ‘the thrill of thrills’ to return to the motion picture theatre where once he, too, had been merely a member of the audience.” “Only once before,” he said, “have I appeared on this stage. That was back in the days when we had a Y.M.C.A. and I was the lower-end man of a pyramid during a gymnastic demonstration which collapsed just before the curtain was drawn.

  “Folks have reminded me since I have been here,” he added, “that I was born in Tampico, but until the time I stepped off that train yesterday morning I hadn’t started to live. Dixon is my birthplace from now on.

  “Some day,” he concluded, “I’m coming back to Dixon with my wife and I want to sit down and talk to all the 10,000 people here.”

  The crowd went wild. Finally, the lights in the theater dimmed, then went out. In the same theater where he had seen so many movies and formed so many dreams, Dutch Reagan watched himself on the screen.

  The next day, the Dixon Evening Telegraph reviewer wrote, “While ‘International Squadron’ will not go down in film history along with ‘Birth of a Nation’ and ‘The Covered Wagon,’ it is a technically accurate record of the defense work being done in the skies over Britain.

  “Its climaxes, although not new in theme and plot, nevertheless are supported by good dialogue and offer Ronald Reagan a part which displayed his capabilities as an actor. The ‘Jimmy Grant,’ smart, wise-cracking American pilot, who demanded that life serve him on his own terms—often at the cost of tragedy to others—is not the ‘Dutch Reagan’ which Dixon knows best.” (When the film was finally shown in New York on November 13, 1941, The New York Times would comment: “Ronald Reagan is excellent as the slap-happy hell-diver who finally pays for his moral failures with his own death in combat.” And the New York Post confirmed: “Reagan’s performance is tops in breezy, even style… he carries the starring burden and proves he can shoulder it.” Even Variety would state that he was “excellently spotted as the expert flyer”—and promised that the picture would “elevate his audience standing.”)

  The audience at the Dixon Theater that night found the film “pulse quickening entertainment,” and applauded a good three minutes after “The End” glided across the screen, bringing Reagan to his feet and onto the stage where he gave a second speech, this time a thank you that might have been a bit more appropriate to an Oscar recipient. The audience then remained seated for the presentation, live, of Louella Parsons’s network-radio program Hollywood Premiere, with short appearances by all the stars on the tour. To great enthusiasm, Reagan then repeated his musical debut in the film and sang two choruses (noticeably off-key) of “The Man on the Flying Trapeze.”

  The tour prepared to leave the afternoon of the next day. Reagan announced to a reporter that he was working on “an original story”: “I Knew Them Better in Five Minutes Than Their Mothers Did in a Lifetime,” purportedly dealing with his experiences as a lifeguard at Dixon’s Lowell Park. “Each person reacted differently,” he told the Dixon Evening Telegraph reporter. “Only one or two ever thanked me [for saving their lives].… It’s hard to understand. You’d think nothing would make a person more grateful. But I believe it’s a combination of embarrassment and pride. Almost invariably they either argued they weren’t in any trouble or were so mad at themselves they wouldn’t admit someone else had succeeded where they had failed.” He then smiled knowingly. “One of the first things a life-saver learns, is that the person who can shout for help isn’t in serious trouble. It’s when their lungs are so full of water they can’t sound off with more than a gurgle that they need attention.” Confidingly he added, “I remember one time when Dixon’s most popular girl waved to me. At least I thought she was waving. My chest puffed out a little and I waved back. Then I turned away for a moment. When I looked again, she was going down. She had tried to signal for help.

  “The one time I was really scared was about a blind man. He started for a float guided by a friend’s calls. But the river current pulled him away. He was a big fellow—outweighed me by 60 pounds or so—and he was thrashing badly. It looked like a tough time. But amazingly the moment I touched him, he relaxed completely. Just to know that someone was near was enough. He’s the one who thanked me.”

  Bill Thompson drove Reagan and Nelle to the station for the group’s departure in the same open-topped car in which they had ridden in the Celebrity Parade. By now Nelle had become quite adept at white-gloved, measured waves. In what proved a tactical miscalculation, Parsons boarded the train first—the Reagans last. The hometown boy who made good in Hollywood despite his humble origins stood in the Pullman-car doorway as the diesel train slowly drew out of the station. Therefore, the last glimpse the crowds caught of Louella’s entourage was of a smiling, waving, youthful Ronald Reagan.

  Interviews, a trial to many of his fellow performers, held no terrors for Reagan. He granted them readily, talked entertainingly and answered even the most hackneyed questions as though they were fresh and original. His radio experience in Des Moines had honed his talent for public conversation. But that was not entirely responsible for his ease. Reagan liked being a public figure and had always enjoyed being in the limelight. First there had been his days as a lifeguard at Lowell Park, then the “heady wine” when he presented the motion to strike at Eureka. His memories of Des Moines centered on the star interviews he conducted and the events he emceed, a curious fact in view of his main position as sportscaster and his intense love of sports.

  Movies had fed him his earliest fantasies. He had always been able to see himself as the hero of these celluloid dramas. His desire to be an actor was propelled by his strong drive to be recognized—preferably as the stuff of the heroes. He remained an avid moviegoer. The new house was to have a screen and projection machine. His idols were Spencer Tracy, James Stewart and Gary Cooper. He had seen Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe several times each, as well as Tracy in Boys Town, Stanley and Livingstone and Edison, the Man, and Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Destry Rides Again* The main characters in these films represented his idealized version of a real man and a real American—humble but strong, dedicated but vulnerable, impervious to corruption; men who took the fate of others in their hands with the faith and knowledge that this was right because their principles were solidly American. It seemed never to occur to him that only in films could things be so black and white, that the real world was made up of a spectrum of grays, often muddied.

  His triumphant Dixon trip had buoyed his spirits and given him a new and stronger sense of self-confidence. “He came back [from Dixon] looking like the last reel in a Gary Cooper movie,” one old friend commented. He went straight to work, first on short retakes for Kings Row, and then, with only a weekend off, opposite Ann Sheridan in Juke Girl.† Sheridan was a good friend of Wyman’s, the kind of woman able to be best friends with both sexes. A tall, well-built, red-haired Texas beauty, Annie (a
s her friends still called her) had given her first truly dramatic performance in Kings Row. She was also madly in love with George Brent (whom she married a few months later). Juke Girl had actually been developed for English actress Ida Lupino (who liked to refer to herself as “the poor man’s Bette Davis”). Lupino had scored strongly in three successive films—The Light That Failed, They Drive by Night and High Sierra—and her loan-out fee had soared to seventy-five thousand dollars per film, while Warners still paid her fifteen thousand. The good economics of this could not be overlooked by the studio. Lupino was loaned out to Twentieth Century-Fox for two films ‡ and Sheridan inherited the castoff Juke Girl, which had a strong resemblance to They Drive by Night. Jack Warner wanted Adele Longmire for this role too, but once again could not convince Wallis that she could carry the part.

  Juke Girl dealt with fruit workers in Florida who become enmeshed in a murder. The film was overly melodramatic and filled with some outright, overboard hokum. Yet it did distinguish itself from other films of the same genre by its enlightened view of the agricultural scene. It did not match the realism of The Grapes of Wrath, but in its own jazzy vein it was a movie story with a sense of social responsibility, unlike most of Reagan’s other films from this period. Reagan and Sheridan turned in extremely good performances (one of his best in this author’s opinion). A chemistry that never existed in any of Reagan’s other films flowed between the two. (Alex Evelove, Warners’ publicity director, to Ken Whit-more: “Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan had a hot love scene that took them all through Wednesday to Friday. The next Monday they did the spot in the story where as strangers they meet for the first time and have a falling out.”) Curtis Bernhardt once again directed Reagan. Most of the film was shot on location at Burbank and the Calabasas ranch and involved much night work. One night the temperature dropped to 27 degrees and ice formed on the tops of cars and trucks; breaths of players became so visible that filming had to stop.