Love Triangle: Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, & Nancy Davis (Blood Moon's Babylon Series)

by Darwin Porter

  He confided to Reagan that he’d refused any involvement in the latest Busby Berkeley musical, and that Jack Warner had reacted by placing him on a twelve-week suspension with no pay.

  “I’ve got to invent a new screen life for myself. If I don’t, I’ll be washed up in pictures.”

  “You’ve got more courage than I have to defy Warner,” Reagan said. “I take whatever crap they throw at me.”

  “I’m desperate to expand my range, but Warner won’t let me do it,” Powell said. “He made me play Lysander in A Midsummer’s Night Dream (1935), although I was wrong for the role. A Shakespearean actor I’m not. All this anxiety is fucking up my marriage to Joan (Blondell). She’s pregnant, by the way.”

  “Congratulations,” Reagan said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Powell said. “I’m not a happy camper at home. After supper, I retreat.”

  Powell was instrumental in securing Reagan a seat on the board of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

  The board included not only established stars like Walter Pidgeon and Robert Montgomery, but a broad representation of those who worked in the industry, including free-lancers and extras. Reagan filled his seat on the board in his capacity as “a new, young contract player.” SAG would play a large role in his future, and he referred to it as a “damned noble organization,” although initially, he had opposed a union for actors.

  During the course of filming Cowboy from Brooklyn, Reagan resumed his liaison with Priscilla Lane. He remained discreet, not letting Susan Hayward find out. She sometimes showed up unexpectedly on the set, perhaps hoping to catch him in something.

  Lane certainly didn’t limit her charms just to Reagan. On two different occasions, Reagan noticed Lane emerging from Powell’s dressing room after long visits. Additionally, sometimes, Wayne Morris showed up to take Lane to lunch. In a private moment, alone with Reagan, Lane urged, “Don’t tell Wayne about us,” she warned Reagan. “He’d turn you into pulp.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Reagan said.

  One weekend, when Morris was out of town, Lane asked Reagan if she could spend the weekend with him. He told her that he had already committed himself to escort Hayward for an Italian dinner with his family on Sunday night.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Lane said. “I’ll come by your place late on Sunday morning. We’ll go for a swim, have lunch, and later take care of business.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said. “But you’ve got to promise to leave something left over for Susan.”

  On the set that Monday, an exhausted Reagan, fresh from separate sexual performances with both Lane and Hayward, rendezvoused with Lane for coffee. She discussed a rising star, Ann Sheridan, who’d been given a small role in Cowboy from Brooklyn.

  “Ann and I get together to talk about the men in our lives,” she said. “Bogie’s okay in bed, she told me, but when a gal lies under him, and he’s kissing her, she has to swallow a pint of saliva.”

  “Thanks for warning me,” Reagan said jokingly. “He’ll not get into my bed, that’s for damn sure.”

  Reagan later confessed to Powell, “When I met Ann, it was love at first sight.” He’d gotten off to a bad start with Sheridan, suggesting that she resembled June Travis, his girlfriend from the time they made Love Is on the Air (1937). Her resemblance to Travis was an ongoing sore point with Sheridan, because in 1936, her first screen test had originally been turned down at Warners because—according to their wisdom at the time—she looked too much like Travis.

  But she forgave him and invited him to her home out in San Fernando Valley. He lied to Hayward, telling her he was going mountain hiking that weekend “with some of the boys.”

  Having emerged from a childhood in Denton, Texas, Carla Lou Sheridan was four years younger than Reagan. After winning a beauty contest, she quit college and headed to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actress, making her film debut in 1934 at age 19.

  Going nowhere at Paramount, she migrated to Warner Brothers in 1936, signing a long-term contract with them and changing her name to Ann Sheridan.

  Tagged as “The Oomph Girl,” a sobriquet she loathed, she became a popular pinup girl, once receiving 250 marriage proposals from fans in the course of a single week.

  When Reagan met her, she was unhappily married to the actor, Edward Norris. “We’ll be divorced no later than next year,” she confided to Reagan and others of her friends. “The marriage was a mistake.”

  That Saturday, Reagan drove out to Sheridan’s home. They had a late morning swim in a nearby pool and enjoyed barbecued ribs, Texas style, for their lunch. His afternoon, as Reagan would later relate to Powell, was spent in bed with this former beauty queen from the Lone Star State.

  Over sunset cocktails, she talked about having worked on the film, Black Legion(1936), with Bogart. “I came right up to him and introduced myself. I said, “’How in the fuck are you, Mr. Humphrey Bogart?’ He shot right back at me, ‘You wanna feel it and find out?’”

  “Bogie told me that what really attracted him to me was that I smoke three packages of cigarettes a day,” Sheridan said.

  That Monday at lunch, Reagan confided in Powell. “There’s something so frank and down to earth about Ann that I’m very attracted to her. She has this come-hither look. What red-blooded American male can resist her? She’s luscious,” Reagan claimed. “After my weekend with her, I’ve nicknamed her the Texas Tornado. I’ve arranged to see her again two nights from now. “That is, unless Susan Hayward hears about it and gets militant. Perhaps you’ll take Susan off my hands.”

  “Imagine having such delicious meat on your plate as Susan,” Powell said. “And you want to scrape her off. Enjoy your run of luck while it lasts—and don’t hand out any marriage proposals. A man’s salad days last only a short while.”

  When Cowboy from Brooklyn was released, it didn’t lose money, but didn’t attract hordes at the box office either.

  On July 14, 1938, The New York Times wrote: “To have built a standard length comedy out of an almost piteously frail satirical idea embodied in Cowboy from Brooklyn was an engineering achievement equivalent to the reconstruction of a giant diplodocus from a fossilized great toe. The best of the film’s comic passages are slapstick, and the best, incidentally, are none too good.”

  A month after he’d finished work on the film, the director, Lloyd Bacon, called Reagan with news of his upcoming next picture. Entitled Boy Meets Girl (1938), it would star James Cagney and Reagan’s friend, Pat O’Brien, once again.

  When he heard the list of supporting players, he told Bacon, “That might be a problem for me. Not only is Susan Hayward likely to show up on the set, but you’ve cast two of my girlfriends, Carole Landis and Penny Singleton. How am I supposed to service so many starlets?”

  “Listen, pal, at the rate you’re going, it’s gonna fall off by the time you’re forty,” Bacon said.

  ***

  The respective fans of Susan Hayward and Ronald Reagan barely noted, or perhaps never realized, that both of them were associated with one of Humphrey Bogart’s most unusual films noir, The Amazing Dr. Clitter-house (1938). In it, Bogart co-starred with Edward G. Robinson and Claire Trevor. The screenplay was written by John Huston and John Wexley, and the picture was directed by Anatole Litvak, who was (unhappily) married at the time to Miriam Hopkins.

  Scary Dr. Clitterhouse: Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor, Humphrey Bogart. Bogie hated the film so much, he (unofficially) renamed it “Dr. Clitoris.”

  As the respected and “well-connected to society” Dr. Clitterhouse, Robinson is writing a book on the physiological reactions and psychological motivations of criminals, but decides he needs first-hand knowledge. Consequently, he becomes a criminal himself, robbing jewelry from the safes of the rich and famous. He later meets Rocks (as played by Bogart), a gangster and bona fide jewel thief who’s working with a gang of safecrackers. Before the end of the film, the doctor realizes that he needs a final chapter—one on homicide. He gives Rocks a
poisonous drink and studies his reaction as he dies.

  On the set, Bogie encountered Reagan, who was complaining about his meager role in the film as a radio announcer. “They’re not even letting me show my face in this film—just my voice.”

  “Would you say that’s better than having to show your ass?” Bogie asked. “Listen to me, Reagan, you’re a good looking guy—not my type, but good looking enough, I guess, although I prefer men with more kissable tits. I saw a picture of you without your shirt.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Reagan said. “I was told you like to put people on.”

  “You’re gonna go to the top,” Bogie said. “I’ve told you this before. You’re going to become a bigger star than I could ever hope to be. It’ll take a few more Bs for you, then it’s Grade A prime rib beef movie roles for you. As for me, with my kisser, I’m stuck in the Bs. Jack Warner has told every director on the lot that I’m not good looking enough for a romantic role. He also considers me a midget. He complains that I’m losing my hair. Then there’s the question of my lisp.”

  “Yes, I was wondering about that,” Reagan said. “I was told to stay away from guys who lisp in Hollywood.”

  “Good advice, kid.”

  “I also got my report card from Jack Warner,” Reagan said. “A little bird told me.”

  “You mean a certain secretary in Warner’s office, the one with the shapely legs.”

  “Something like that,” Reagan said. “Warner thinks I’m nice looking—of course, that’s damning with faint praise. He says my best quality is my voice, very friendly. As for my acting, he thinks I’m a bit stiff but okay for B pictures. He thinks I have no comic timing, so I can only do drama. But, and here’s the rub, he thinks I have ‘no heat’ on the screen.”

  “If you and I did a love scene together, we’d burn up the screen,” Bogie said.

  “You’re such a kidder,” Reagan said. “I was warned about you. Fortunately, man-on-man kissing scenes will never be shown on the screen—we can thank God for that.”

  “As I said, hang in there,” Bogie said. “You can play romantic leads throughout the 40s and into the 50s. If you’re still around in the 60s—and that’s highly unlikely—you’ll have to switch to villain roles.”

  “What about you?” Reagan asked. “Do you still plan to be a villain in the 1960s?”

  “No, not me,” Bogie said. “When the 60s roll around, I’ll be resting comfortably in Forest Lawn.”

  “I’m going to hang around for two or three more years,” Reagan said. “If I don’t make it, I’m going home, back to radio.”

  In the final cut of The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, moviegoers didn’t see Reagan, but they heard his voice as a radio announcer.

  It was even worse for Hayward, who lamented to Reagan, “My walk-on part in the film ended up on the cutting room floor.”

  The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse earned a profit of only $10,000. The New York Times defined it as “sad and aimless.”

  ***

  Reagan’s eighth film, Boy Meets Girl (1938), was directed by Lloyd Bacon, who had just helmed him in Cowboy from Brooklyn. Although it had been successful as a play on Broadway, Boy Meets Girl had a rough launch as a film.

  Reagan appears in Boy Meets Girl with Marie Windsor, who played a pregnant waitress, and with Dick Foran (right) who was cast as a celluloid cowboy.

  Two famous comedians, Olsen and Johnson, were slated to play the leads, but other commitments made each of them unavailable. Ultimately, the roles went instead to James Cagney, who had been absent from Warners for two years as part of a self-imposed exile, and Pat O’Brien, the star of Reagan’s previous film.

  The notoriously independent Cagney refused to accept George Abbott as director, but agreed to Bacon. Marion Davies, mistress of William Randolph Hearst, was cast in the female lead. She made so many demands on Bacon—ranging from her dressing room to what she defined as a poorly written script, that Bacon finally, in exasperation, replaced her with Marie Wilson.

  In supporting roles was a talented cast, including Ralph Bellamy, Frank McHugh, and Dick Foran. Once again, Reagan was cast in a very minor role as a radio announcer. “If this keeps up, I’ll be playing a radio announcer broadcasting the Second Coming,” he said.

  The film was actually a spoof of movie studio manias and politics, and Reagan was surprised that Jack Warner had personally approved the script. Bellamy plays a studio honcho with some subtle similarities to Warner himself.

  The plot revolves around the studio’s most visible cowboy star (Foran), who needs a hit movie to revive his fast-descending career. The two writers, as portrayed by Cagney and O’Brien, invent a plot that involves the infant son of a waitress in the studio’s executive dining room, as played by Wilson. Subsequently, the baby, “Happy,” becomes a star. Foran, partnered with the toddler, goes on to make a series of hit pictures.

  Other than the cute baby, the picture clearly belonged to Cagney, who frequently jumps around like a crazed man, with O’Brien rather gloomily playing his more restrained counterpart. Reagan’s role as a radio announcer, which appears only at the end of the picture, was so minor, he wasn’t even given a screen credit.

  Reagan arrived on the set several days before he was needed, mainly as a means of bonding with O’Brien and Cagney, his Irish Mafia friends. Though back on the lot, Cagney was still feuding with Jack Warner, frequently denouncing him in obscene Yiddish. Cagney was now the “bad boy” on the lot, known for his leftist politics and his court battle with Warners. The studio had violated his contract by billing another star over his name. Cagney also wanted to limit his films to four a year and to have a say in his choice of scripts. Reagan and O’Brien offered their support as friends, but each of them was terrified by the thought of antagonizing Warners the way Cagney had done.

  Cast in a bit part, Penny Singleton sought Reagan out, chastising him for not calling her after the brief fling they’d had together. He used a standardized excuse, “I’ve been too busy.” He also reminded her that she was a married woman.

  “But my marriage is on the rocks,” she told him. “I’m on the verge of divorcing that lout. We’ve each agreed to date other people.”

  Penny Singleton as Blondie Bumstead was cast opposite Arthur Lake in a series of Blondie movies based on the comic strip characters.

  She’d later tell the future President, “Every picture is Blondie does this, Blondie does that. Why not you and me starring in Blondie Fucks Reagan?”

  “So,” he said. “It’s a typical Hollywood marriage.”

  She was very excited at a recent turn in her career. She had just signed for roles in a series of Blondie pictures with Arthur Lake, based on Chic Young’s popular comic strip of Dagwood and Blondie.

  Reagan resumed his affair with Singleton, visiting her dressing room on several occasions. She shared the space with Wilson, with whom she had an agreement. A red ribbon tied to the doorknob meant that Singleton was occupied. Wilson waited out the liaison by sipping cups of coffee in the commissary.

  After one of their trysts, Singleton “introduced” Reagan to Carole Landis, who had been cast in an uncredited role as a commissary cashier. At the time of their “re-introduction,” Landis and Reagan didn’t give the slightest clue that they even knew each other as David knew Bathsheba.

  On a night off from Susan Hayward, Reagan visited Landis at her apartment. He later told O’Brien, “My love-making usually cheers her up, but she’s very depressed these days.”

  Landis had already appeared in bit parts in an amazing twenty-one films. “Nobody ever talks about my talent,” she had lamented to Reagan. “Rumors keep circulating that I’m sleeping my way to the top, and not just with Busby Berkeley. The rumors are so persistent, and so vicious, that a powerful group of studio wives are protesting to their husbands about using me in future pictures. Even worse, a blind item appeared recently in a gossip column about how ‘a little blonde starlet is trading sex for fame.’”

  “Don’t
let these women get to you,” Reagan had urged. “I bet most of these studio wives began as starlets screwing their way to the top, or at least into a marriage license.”

  The following night, he met with Hayward, who also seemed far more concerned with her career than in lovemaking. “If Jack Warner would give me a decent role, I would succeed. I’m pulling in $150 a week mainly by posing for publicity shots and doing some one-line walk-ons. I’ve heard rumors that Warners is not planning to renew my contract. My option comes up in a few weeks.”

  Years later, Hayward’s close friend, Martin Rackin, said, “Jack Warner used to boast that one actor on his ass was worth two on his feet, and he kept them that way. Susan was very shy and very insecure back then. She really got kicked around, and I think it got to her. After the Warner treatment, she never let down her guard. It made her a loner, and she never changed.”

  Hayward had told Reagan that she’d recently made a movie, Men Are Such Fools (1938), starring Wayne Morris, Priscilla Lane, and Humphrey Bogart. Then, with a veiled ferocity, she told him, “On the set, I met one of the bit players, this trampy blonde, Carole Landis. I told her that if she met up with you, she’s to look on with admiration, but that she’s not to touch.”

  On hearing that, Reagan opted not to tell her that he’d spent the previous evening in Landis’ apartment.

  In the final moments of Boy Meets Girl, Reagan appears as a radio announcer on a red carpet welcoming stars to a premiere. Known only to insiders, his scene was conceived as a subtly mocking satire of Errol Flynn.

  For months, Flynn had been urging Warners to film a script he had (partially) written, The White Rajah. In the final moments of Boy Meets Girl, Reagan announces the arrival of stars at the premiere of a (non-existent) The White Rajah, with the subtle implication that it starred Errol Flynn.