Early Reagan

by Anne Edwards

  His Universal contract for this film paid him the originally agreed salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, a fee considerably out of line in 1953 for a film of the caliber of Law and Order. Reagan rode one of his own horses in the movie. He had expanded his operation at Yearling Row Ranch in the short time of its existence. His brood mares included half sisters to such outstanding thoroughbreds as Solidarity and Pedigree. He also raised jumpers and hunters, which he rode and helped train, and announced that the next season would see some of his horses racing at Hollywood Park.

  Patricia Ann (Patti) Reagan, weighing in at seven pounds, was born by Cesarean section at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on the afternoon of October 22, 1952. Nancy had a difficult predelivery that had begun the previous night when she went into hard labor at the International Horse Show at the Pan Pacific Auditorium. For the next six weeks, Reagan stayed home as Nancy slowly regained her strength. He had little to occupy his time because on August 27, slightly more than a month after the MCA waiver negotiations, he had decided to retire as president of the SAG.* He had been the union’s president longer than any other person (six of its nineteen years of existence). No reason was given to the press when it was announced he was stepping down.

  Dales stated, “He wanted to get out and also he was beginning to be a power within the Guild to the point where he recognized it, that he was having too much influence, that he was able to handle the board. And, I say, he recognized it, specifically, in words to me, saying, ‘Jack, I’m not comfortable. I’m beginning to wonder, is there anything that I can’t get out of the board?’“

  He remained on the board and continued to be verbal in his anti-Communist philosophies. “His hatred of the Soviets goes way back,” Dales commented. “He’s convinced that the world will come to an end, you know, if they get too much power.”

  As the 1952 presidential election grew near, the Republicans nominated the most popular man in America, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The general had been born in Denison, Texas (1890); raised in Abilene, Kansas; graduated from West Point; and had ascended meteorically by 1941 to be named chief of army operations in Washington. With the advent of war, he was appointed United States commander of the European theater of operation, commanded the North African landings (November 1942), and in February 1943 became chief of all Allied forces in North Africa. Shortly thereafter, he was made supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and was largely responsible for the cooperation among British, American and other Allied forces for the integration of land, sea and air operations. At the war’s end, Eisenhower was a five-star general and a national hero, but his astounding achievements did not stop there.

  After stints as commander of the United States Occupational Forces in Germany and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, he had taken a leave of absence from the army to become president of Columbia University. In December 1950, he returned to the army as supreme commander of the Allied powers in Europe. The unanswered question was whether or not Eisenhower was a Republican or Democrat. No one knew. The Republican governor of New Hampshire, Sherman Adams, a member of the Republican committee to draft Eisenhower (who was in Europe and unresponsive to political requests), wrote the county clerk in Kansas, where the general maintained his home, to discover whether he had registered his preference. A prompt reply was received.

  “Mr. Eisenhower has never voted in this county as far as I know.… Dwight’s father was a Republican and always voted the Republican ticket up until his death, however that has nothing to do with the son as many differ from their fathers.… I don’t think he [Eisenhower] has any politics.”

  The general’s name was written in on several primary ballots and often only as “Ike.” The response was overwhelming. He resigned his command in May 1952, requesting he should also be allowed to waive his pay, privilege and pension.* The Republicans could not have hoped for a more impressive and attractive candidate to oppose the Democratic nominee—the intellectual and energetic liberal governor of Illinois, Adlai Stevenson. The general was self-assured, “accustomed to command, accustomed to accommodating rival points of view, accustomed to success and power, he spoke with unmistakable authority. He carried himself erect. His blue eyes were penetrating and alert. His gestures conveyed an impression of strength. Eisenhower had presence.”

  Eisenhower and the Republicans decided on Senator Richard Nixon for the number-two spot for three reasons: They believed he could deliver the West Coast; he brought youth to the campaign (Eisenhower was sixty-two, Nixon thirty-nine); and in the time of the growing anti-Communist hysteria of McCarthyism, “had there been a medal for hunting Communists in 1952, Nixon would have received it.” Within two months, Nixon threatened to plunge his party “into a swift descent into oblivion.”

  When the campaign began, Republicans considered Nixon a young man destined for great things. One hundred of his supporters (mainly businessmen) contributed two hundred dollars each to a fund for his personal use. The fund was discovered at the height of the campaign. The Democrats picked up this political football and ran with it. Nixon tried using claims of “a Communist smear” to block them, but their footwork was too swift. Placards reading NO MINK COATS FOR NIXON—JUST COLD CASH greeted his campaign train. The Republicans were terrified about keeping him on the ticket, and equally fearful that if they dropped him the loss of trust in the party would be so overwhelming that they would lose the election. Eisenhower withdrew to consider the possibilities. Silence followed for several panic-filled days. Then Nixon decided to take the crisis into his own hands; he bought a half hour of national television time and made arrangements to broadcast from the stage of the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.

  Just before the broadcast, New York’s Governor Thomas Dewey telephoned him with an ultimatum: “There has been a meeting of all Eisenhower’s top advisors. They have asked me to tell you that it is their opinion that at the conclusion of the broadcast tonight you should submit your resignation to Eisenhower.”

  Nixon replied that it was too late to change his speech. Dewey suggested he give the prepared speech and then “tack on, at the end, a formal resignation offered to Eisenhower,” and added, “Can I say you have accepted?”

  “You will have to watch the show to see—and tell them I know something about politics too!” Nixon snapped.

  Talking in a “tear-choked” voice, Nixon was alternately contrite and aggressive. His wife, his finances and his dog, a Spaniel named Checkers, were put on public view. In a moment of pure melodrama, he pointed to Checkers (a gift from an admirer to his children) being held by Pat Nixon and vowed that whatever the outcome of his crisis he would not give up the dog. He defended his position and challenged all the men campaigning on the presidential and vice-presidential ballot (a shock to Eisenhower, who was listening) to reveal their political contributions. He then leaned in close to the camera, with an earnest, tortured look, his dark eyes brimming with tears, his hands clenched. “I am submitting to the Republican National Committee tonight, through this television broadcast, the decision it is theirs to make… wire and write [them] whether you think I should stay or whether I should get off; and whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.” Then, as an addendum, voice strong again, he signed off with, “And remember, folks, Eisenhower is a great man. Believe me, he’s a great man. And a vote for Eisenhower is a vote for what’s good for America.”

  Within the next twenty-four hours, Nixon received “scores of dog collars, handwoven dog blankets, a dog kennel and enough dog food to feed Checkers for a year.” He also received more than two million favorable letters and telegrams (sent to the Republican National Committee) and Eisenhower’s “blue-eyed smile of benediction.”

  Reagan, although still registered as a Democrat, voted the winning Eisenhower-Nixon ticket. Reagan himself was installed as honorary mayor of Malibu Lake (the area of his ranch) on May 2, 1953 (with the Republic Studio Orchestra playing a concert of western music in his honor). The next day the announcement was made th
at he would head the campaign for the reelection of Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron. He stated that he had taken on the job “because of the threat of good government posed by some of the sinister forces opposing the reelection of Mayor Bowron.” He was also approached by Holmes Tuttle, who had a group of California businessmen who wanted him to run for the Senate. “I turned the offer down with thanks. I’m a ham—always was and always will be,” he laughed.

  As the fifties rocked through the century, stars’ staggering salaries and the accelerating fees of the independent producers and directors became a standard by which to measure success. Audrey Hepburn (who had just made Roman Holiday) was earning $350,000 a picture and John Wayne had signed a three-picture deal for $2 million. Film budgets soared accordingly. To combat the growing threat of destruction from the little but mighty television screen, the film industry was producing epics, or at least larding budgets so that a chicken could look like a goose (and often more resembled a turkey). In such an atmosphere of high budgets and high rollers, actors of Reagan’s modest box-office potential were an endangered species. The performer under contract to one studio swiftly became extinct. Competition was savage for roles in any independent films.

  Reagan’s expenses were high. The ranch was years from being a money-making proposition, and the horses had to be fed and cared for and the staff paid. He later made statements that he was unemployed for fourteen months (during 1952-53), but he had made The Last Outpost, the two Pine and Thomas films and, toward the end of 1953, Prisoner of War for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. A no-film gap had occurred between May and December of 1953. The MGM film was a grim account of the atrocities practiced on prisoners of war by North Koreans. Reagan appeared as a volunteer for the United States government who parachutes behind enemy lines to check reports of POW brutalities and becomes a prisoner himself. Scenes of “brutal beatings, calculated tortures, senseless killings and other inhumanly conceived treatments, fill the footage,” one critic wrote.

  Prisoner of War was made in twenty-eight days and released within a few months to cash in on its topicality. Unfortunately, the shocking material was blunted by the hackneyed script and the broad “play acting” of the cast—Reagan included. His salary for the film had been thirty thousand dollars, two thirds of what Pine and Thomas had paid him. Five months after Patti was born, Nancy had tried to return to work (this was the time she claimed the mix-up in names at Columbia). MCA finally got her a low-budget film, Donovan’s Brain, for United Artists with Lew Ayres and Gene Evans (a remake of the much-filmed Curt Siod-mak novel about the scientist who keeps a brain of a dead man alive and then becomes dominated by it). Nancy was paid eighteen thousand dollars for six weeks’ work.

  By the end of 1953, both the Reagans realized their film opportunities were limited. Television might well have been the answer, but in 1953, the word had the scent of a terminal disease.*

  Common sense dictated to Reagan that he stood no chance on Broadway, never having appeared on the legitimate stage. “The MCA trouble shooters,” as Reagan referred to them, came up with “another source of loot.” Art Parks suggested they help him put an act together and open in Las Vegas. The agency had never lost its power in the nightclub world. Reagan had grave doubts. What would he do? No more than he did at charity benefits, or had done on tour with Parsons, Parks assured him. He added that for a two-week engagement he felt confident he could get him thirty thousand dollars, equal to his salary for Prisoner of War. Reagan gave in. Art Parks contacted Beldon Kattleman at the El Rancho Hotel, who agreed to put Reagan on the bill as master of ceremonies with a stripper. Reagan refused. Twenty minutes later, Parks had a more acceptable deal for him at the Last Frontier Hotel.

  Reagan would emcee a fifty-minute “revue,” as the act was called, and join in with the other performers in songs, dances and jokes. “I’ll introduce something new in men’s fashions, as well,” he told a reporter. “It’s a streamlined tuxedo, minus any pockets except for a change slot at the waist. It’s in coal black. If the debut doesn’t work out, I’ll be ready for mourning.” The press sensed a good story here, the fading film star fighting to survive. The gossip columns that had ignored him for most of his career now gave him a jab or two in print. He came back with a fifteen-hundred-word article that Variety published on January 6, 1954:

  … Our business [is] the most ruthlessly competitive there is.… A producer can be denied financial backing for one failure, an actor can go from $100,000 price tag, to unemployment on the supposition that a picture’s failure was due to his lack of boxoffice appeal. No one questions whether he can act. In fact, everyone will admit he is a superb actor… but, because Joe Schmoe, the moviegoer sat up with a sick friend… instead of seeing our hero at the Bijou, he faces starvation or a job on television.…”

  To his old friend Bob Thomas he decried the way studios had cut down their star lists to a minimum, driving “the stars into other mediums.” (He added that he was “against the benefit bureaucrats who make their living—and a very good one—by lining up free talent for charity appearances.… Whatever happened to the good old American custom of simply giving for a worthy cause? Why does entertainment have to be given in exchange?”)

  In his new guise as nightclub performer, Reagan was to work with a male quartet called the Continentals, who had appeared on bills at the Waldorf, Cocoanut Grove and Mocambo and been seen on the Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle television shows. “We expected to have to carry Reagan,” Ben Cruz of the group confessed. “At first he was rough as a cob. But then he really opened our eyes… by the end of the first week [of rehearsals] he was moving like the rest of us. He knew the choreography as well as we did.… He was into [self] fitness… didn’t drink or smoke. He had a daily massage, and on trips from Los Angeles to Las Vegas [stopped for the night] in Barstow rather than complete… a too-long drive.

  “Nancy would sit through all the rehearsals… some up to four hours long, and then all the shows, sipping nothing more than a glass of ice water.”

  The show was premiered at the Statler in downtown Los Angeles, a businessman’s hotel too far from mainstream Hollywood to attract attention. They played two nights there before the Las Vegas engagement, where Reagan, the Continentals, an act called the Blackburn Twins, all supported by a line of gorgeous show girls dressed in South American costumes and two-foot-high plumed headdresses, opened on February 15, 1954. Reagan cracked jokes in an Irish brogue, a straw hat perched on his head, carrying a cane as a prop. He did a barbershop-quintet routine with the Continentals as a silent fifth member. (While the group sang in four-part harmony, they pretended to shave him as he sat on a “chair” formed by the legs of two of their members.) A beer-garden skit followed in which Reagan spoke in a guttural German accent and wore an apron advertising Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, with “Vos vils du haben?” incorrectly written across it. From this low he descended into an old-time baggy-pants vaudeville routine where the five men raced around the stage beaning each other on the head with rolled-up newspapers. At the finale, Reagan stood alone, spotlighted center stage in his black tuxedo, and recited a sentimental poem about the glories, sacrifices and contributions made by actors.

  The act did not take Vegas by storm. The nightclub critics found him personally ingratiating but the material “third rate” and wondered in print if Las Vegas was now going “to have to suffer a retreating army of fading Hollywood stars.”

  The desert heat had begun to beat down for the day as the Reagans headed homeward the morning after the last night of the engagement. Reagan had hit rock bottom. “Never again,” he told MCA’s Taft Schreiber, “will I sell myself so short.”

  * By 1986, a similar house in Pacific Palisades would be worth many, many times that price.

  * Fine Day was released as Steel Town. Both of these scripts were filmed with John Lund in the roles refused by Reagan.

  † The award went to Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire.

  ‡ William Pine and William Thomas, who produce
d numerous low-budget films. The Last Outpost was released April 8, 1951, for Paramount.

  * See Excerpts from Speeches, page 539.

  * Negotiations had begun on June 6, 1952, between the SAG and MCA. The minutes for that date record: “On Friday 6/6/52 a meeting was held with Laurence Beilenson who represents MCA Artists, Ltd. which is now producing TV presentations under the name Revue Productions, Inc. Mr. Beilenson felt that it might be possible for them to work out a formula with the Guild which would break the deadlock in present negotiations.” The week of June 13, 1952, the minutes include the information: “… discussions were held with Revue Productions which is in the rather peculiar position of being on both sides of the fence inasmuch as they are agents for actors as well as being producers.” On June 30, 1952, there was “further discussion with Mr. Beilenson, representing Revue Productions, who stated that if a deadlock exists, they would still be willing to help break it. In connection with the negotiations with Revue [the proposed waiver] it was pointed out that this is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MCA and that the pattern of agents’ interest in production in television, as in the radio field, is well established. Consequently, it appears desirable to recognize the right of agents to engage in TV film production and package show operation, subject to reasonable regulation by the Guild.”