Reagan

by Bob Spitz

  Good to their word, the Outlaws welcomed Dutch as a guest on the set. Because of the weather, they were shooting indoors that day, giving him a chance to see how movies were made. It was an eye-opening experience—not at all like being onstage, where you had to know your lines cold and the action never stopped. There was really very little discipline involved in moviemaking. It employed a different kind of acting technique that relied on image more than ability. Dutch had a sense of his own appeal, and he knew he could act. “You know, just from watching, it sure looks interesting making pictures,” he told Gene Autry. “I think I might like to get into that business.” Republic’s casting director offered to hear him read through a script sometime after spring training was over, but Dutch sensed the man’s lack of enthusiasm and shrugged it off.

  It was still on his mind that evening as he made his way back to the port. Movie acting seemed like a lark. Was there a place in Hollywood for him? It was an intriguing idea.

  As luck would have it, he was stranded in L.A. Lousy weather made it impossible for boats and seaplanes to make the trip to Catalina, and Dutch was forced to spend the night in town. He checked into the Biltmore Hotel, downtown on Fifth Street, where it happened that a friend was in residence. He had met Joy Hodges at WHO, where she had started out at the age of twelve as part of the singing Blue Bird Twins (although there were three of them) on a nightly program called Singing Coeds. She had hit the big time in her teens, as a big-band singer and, later, an actress in Hollywood. During a radio interview they did in 1936 to promote her debut film appearance in RKO’s Follow the Fleet, Dutch asked her, “Well, Miss Hodges, how does it feel to be a movie star?,” to which she replied, “Well, Mr. Reagan, you may know some day.” They hit it off immediately. There was an attraction that might have developed into romance had Joy not left town soon afterward for Los Angeles as the singer in Carol Lofner’s swing band. When Dutch reunited with her in 1937, she was in the midst of a three-year engagement fronting Jimmy Grier’s orchestra at the Biltmore Bowl, the hotel’s posh nightclub.

  The Bowl was a scene-making place for Hollywood movie and radio people, an elegant room that hosted the Academy Awards in 1935 when It Happened One Night won Best Picture, and featured the talents of the most important musicians working in L.A. The Dorseys had played gigs there, as had Artie Shaw, Louis Armstrong, and Lena Horne, although the black stars were denied rooms upstairs and quartered instead at the Dunbar Hotel in South Central.

  Dutch sat through Joy’s opening set, then sent a note backstage asking her to join him for dinner. Hodges was an attractive, doe-eyed brunette who had managed to retain much of her Midwestern charm. Their reunion proved delightful. He delivered the requisite Des Moines gossip before tiptoeing toward his hidden agenda. He spoke glowingly about his day trip to Republic Studios and thought, if the time allowed, he might like to visit one of the majors, like Paramount or MGM. Joy offered to help arrange it for him, but she could tell he was dithering about; there was something else on his mind. Finally he spit it out. “He admitted he wanted a movie test,” she recalled.

  She sat back in her seat and stared at him for a moment. “Stand up and remove your glasses,” she said. Dutch obeyed, prompting another staring spell. He was “very handsome,” she thought, as physically appealing as the current crop of male movie stars. If an audition was what he wanted, she was determined to help—on one condition. “Promise you will never put those glasses on again.”

  The next morning, a Saturday, Hodges called her agent, Bill Meiklejohn, who ran a boutique talent agency that fed the studio pipeline. As a favor, he saw Dutch right away. The two men chatted across a desk for a few minutes—Meiklejohn giving the young man a good once-over while Dutch inflated his acting experience—before the agent picked up the phone. “Max,” he said into the receiver, “I have another Robert Taylor sitting in my office.”

  Max Arnow, Warner Bros.’ casting director, was used to such hype, but Meiklejohn had a good nose for talent. He’d “discovered” Robert Taylor, Ray Milland, Betty Grable, and a young contract player named Jane Wyman. And the studio had a dilemma. It was slated to begin shooting a B-feature called The Inside Story and were in desperate need of a leading man. It had originally been cast with a contract player named Ross Alexander, whose easy and charming style made him a natural for the part. But Alexander was anything but easygoing and had a messy personal life; in fact, he had committed suicide a few days earlier. Arnow was charged with finding a suitable replacement who could step in right away. Maybe Bill Meiklejohn had what he was looking for. In any case, he agreed to give him a once-over.

  Within hours Dutch and Meiklejohn were driving into Burbank, past the sign at the corner of Cahuenga and Barham Boulevards emblazoned with the Warner Bros. logo and the studio motto: “Combining Good Citizenship with Good Picture-Making.” (In 1944, during the violent union strikes, screenwriter Julius Epstein would suggest changing it to “Combining Good Citizenship with Good Marksmanship.”) The lot itself was “rural and charming,” according to Olivia de Havilland, one of Warner Bros.’ leading contract players. “The buildings were low and influenced by the Mexican adobe style. There were lawns and flower beds, which were watered regularly—and a tennis court. The soundstages were very well kept. A river ran along one side of the lot, with mountains on the other side. Everything was well-thought-out and beautifully maintained.”

  Max Arnow, a tightly wound man who was all eyebrows and cheekbones, was waiting for Dutch and Bill Meiklejohn in the casting office on the north side of the lot, a stone’s throw beyond Marion Davies’s bungalow. For fifteen minutes, Meiklejohn and Arnow walked around him discussing his attributes as if he were a new car and they were kicking its wheels. “It was the quickest decision on testing I ever made in my life,” Arnow recalled. Evidently, Dutch’s voice closed the deal; there was something in the timbre that appealed to the casting chief—its resemblance to Ross Alexander’s was downright spooky, “a nice resonant voice”—and he arranged a screen test for later that week. To prepare for it, Dutch was given a short scene from Holiday, the Philip Barry play that Warner was considering (it ended up being made by Columbia Pictures in 1938), for a read-through they’d film when he returned. It seemed like typecasting, Arnow thought; the part was for a character named Johnny Case, a clean-cut guy from the Midwest. “You don’t have to memorize it,” Arnow told him. “You can just read the thing.” In the meantime, Meiklejohn hedged his bets by taking Dutch for an interview at Paramount Pictures, but the two walked out when the studio kept them waiting.

  All day Sunday, he and Joy Hodges ran lines from Holiday, working on delivery and nuance. On Monday, it was back to reality. Dutch arrived in Catalina to resume his spring-training duties. Cubs management wasn’t happy about his absence. Charlie Grimm let him know in not so many words that he was shirking his responsibility to the team. That evening, as he cut through the lobby of the Hotel Avalon on his way to meet friends, he noticed two faces he had seen on the screen. “Warner Brothers sent Anita Louise, their blonde ingénue, and me, their brunette ingénue, to Catalina Island on a picture-layout assignment for movie magazines and other publications,” recalls Olivia de Havilland. They were barely out of their teens and were chaperoned by Scotty Welbourne, one of the studio’s resident photographers. “As we descended into the lobby, a sports announcer presented himself, and we chatted for a few minutes.” She could tell that Dutch Reagan was fascinated by moviemaking, but he gave no indication as to his upcoming screen test.

  Almost immediately, he was due back in Los Angeles. That Tuesday, he took the boat to the city and roared off to Burbank in time for his late-morning appointment. This time, he was directed to the studio makeup department for a little powder and color to help counter the harsh lights before heading over to one of the standing sets where a movie had just finished production. Nick Grinde, an important action director from the silent-film era, was waiting for him, along with Joseph Patrick MacDo
nald, his silver-haired cameraman, another veteran of the silent era who was generally acknowledged to be one of Jack Warner’s favorite technicians. Dutch’s lack of experience in front of a camera was evident, but he relaxed after he met his co-star. The studio had arranged for him to test opposite one of its up-and-coming contract players, June Travis, a twenty-year-old green-eyed brunette, whose father, Harry Grabiner, happened to be the vice president and general manager of the Chicago White Sox. She and Dutch had plenty in common—both native Illinoisans, versatile athletes (she was an Olympic-caliber swimmer and “considered one of the best female hockey players in the country”), and spring-training veterans, Travis hopscotching between the studio and the Sox camp in nearby Pasadena.

  The two actors rehearsed for a few minutes, then dove into a scene in which the protagonist, played by Dutch, explains to his fiancée’s sister how he plans to retire after “making a bundle” before he turns thirty. It was filled with snappy repartee that Dutch handled easily and with relative charm. Max Arnow, who watched from the wings, was stunned by the would-be actor’s facility. “He didn’t refer to the script once,” Arnow recalled. “He was letter-perfect and played the scene like it should have been played.” Everyone seemed satisfied after two takes, and they wrapped before noon.

  Before he left the lot, Max Arnow informed him that Jack Warner, the studio chief, probably wouldn’t see the screen test before Tuesday night at the earliest. They’d let him know sometime on Wednesday how it panned out, so it would behoove everyone if he’d stick around until then. This news presented Dutch with a problem. He’d be on a train heading back east with the Cubs on Tuesday, no two ways about it. If it meant losing out on a movie career, so be it.

  His job at WHO in Des Moines was a sure thing. For a once-poverty-stricken young man making $350 a month in the edgy world of late-Depression America, movies were pie in the sky. It would have been crazy to risk his job for that. Still, on the train ride home, he fought the sinking feeling that he might have torpedoed the opportunity of a lifetime.

  Two days later, a telegram arrived for him at WHO.

  WARNERS OFFERS CONTRACT SEVEN YEARS STOP ONE YEAR OPTION STOP STARTING $200 A WEEK STOP WHAT SHALL I DO MEIKLEJOHN*

  Dutch didn’t hesitate before answering.

  SIGN BEFORE THEY CHANGE THEIR MINDS DUTCH REAGAN

  * * *

  —

  Dutch remained in Des Moines, broadcasting Cubs games, through the middle of May 1937. He had plenty to do to prepare for his departure. There were loose ends he needed to wrap up, people to say goodbye to—his brother and sister-in-law in Davenport, his parents in Dixon, and all the friends he’d made in Iowa. He treated himself to a bespoke white sport coat and navy-blue slacks hand-sewn by a local tailor, which he swore off wearing until he reached Hollywood. He also performed a personal makeover, parting his wavy hair on the right instead of in the middle, as was suggested to him by a Warner Bros. hairdresser.

  Try as he might to look the part, he was still a little reticent. “Somehow I can’t see any Robert Taylor in me,” he wrote to a friend back in Illinois, “but who the h—l am I to argue with them.”

  On May 19, his colleagues at the station threw him a farewell party that was broadcast on WHO. It was a measure of Dutch’s esteem and how far he’d come that guests included the mayor of Des Moines, the parks commissioner, the state treasurer of Iowa, and the president of WHO, who presented him with a leather traveling bag. Before they signed off, an emotional Dutch thanked his listeners and everyone who contributed to his success, then took a moment to pay tribute to his mentor, Peter MacArthur, who was unable to be there, as his arthritis had rendered him an invalid.

  Two days later, on Saturday, May 22, he packed his belongings into the trunk of his Nash convertible for the three-day drive west.

  PART 2

  RONNIE

  CHAPTER TEN

  LETTING DUTCH GO

  “The idea of a star being born is bushwa. A star is created carefully and cold-bloodily, built up from nothing, from nobody. Age, beauty, talent, least of all talent, has nothing to do with it. We could make silk purses out of sow’s ears.”

  —LOUIS B. MAYER

  On May 22, 1937, Ronald Reagan steered the Nash convertible across the Des Moines city line “with every intention in the world of taking things easy.” There was no rush getting to California; his contract called for a June 1 arrival. For a change of scenery, he decided to head west across Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah, then veer south through Nevada and the Mojave Desert before coasting into Los Angeles. It was an ambitious itinerary, five or six days driving on hardscrabble roads, but once he left Iowa, Dutch got antsy. The pull of Hollywood was too great. To make time, he drove a punishing 650 miles the first day. The next day he pushed another 600 miles, from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Nephi, Utah, a whistle-stop on the Old Mormon Road. Neither leg, however, was as onerous as crossing the desert in an open-air car; it was “one awful ride,” as he described it, delivering him to his destination sunburned and grimy. Nevertheless, he reported to Warner Bros. the next morning, several days earlier than he was expected.

  The drive out to Burbank from Hollywood was a welcome respite from the cross-country ordeal. Once he crossed the gray-green chaparral hills into the San Fernando Valley, the sweeping vista flushed gold and pink, creating a rich, daydreamy glow. Across the Valley, through hazy sunlight, he could make out the Santa Susana Mountains, which lent the stretch of flatland some scale, a sense of greatness fortified by nature. There was a patchy evolution to what had once been open farmland and citrus groves—little ranches encircled by a snowballing suburbia carved up into small, distinct towns. Burbank was the largest, by far. By 1937, it had already been built out, owing to three movie studios—Warner, Universal, and Columbia—and Lockheed Aircraft, which was building twin-engine planes at a phenomenal clip.

  The city’s growth spurt was a recent development. As late as 1928, when Warner Bros. moved from Hollywood to Burbank, most days you could have fired a cannon in the vicinity and not endangered a life. The land surrounding the studio lot was nothing but open field, site of occasional location filming. In fact, Birth of a Nation had been made just outside the gates on a tract called the Providencia Ranch, now known as Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

  Warner Bros. had grown, too. Until 1927 it had been a Poverty Row studio, one of the struggling independent picture companies clustered along a desolate stretch of Hollywood. The Warner brothers—Harry, Sam, Albert, and Jack—were arrivistes of a sort, the sons of Jewish immigrants who sought to escape a life of poverty through show business. They had operated nickelodeons and were later film exhibitors before deciding to venture into production. Harry and Jack had always wanted their own movie studio. In 1920, they purchased Beesemyer Farm, a former bean field at the corner of Gordon Street and Bronson Avenue, on which they built a barnlike interior stage with an exterior stage out back, the first home of Warner Brothers Pictures.

  At the beginning, it was tough going. The brothers went deeply into debt trying to finance a slate of commercially shaky movies while paying off the mortgage for their new venture. In fact, they teetered on the brink of insolvency until 1923, when an unlikely movie star saved them. Rin Tin Tin was a scruffy German shepherd that had been rescued from a World War I battlefield by an American soldier. The dog’s debut, in a Warner Bros. picture, Where the North Begins, was an instant box-office smash and lifeline for the studio. Over the course of twenty-seven movies, Rin Tin Tin rescued scores of characters in distress but none as desperate as the Warner brothers.

  Then, in 1927, another godsend materialized, also unlikely—a Jewish cantor’s son named Jack Robin (played by the inimitable Al Jolson), whose actual voice in The Jazz Singer ushered in the era of talkies. The movie wasn’t the first to use sound. That distinction went to a sound-synchronized picture called Don Juan, which had premiered at the Egyptian Theater in L.A. the year before. But Wa
rner Bros. took the concept to the masses by wiring theaters for sound to project the actors’ voices—the brainchild of Sam Warner, who died the day before the movie opened.

  It had been a risky venture. The Warners pumped everything they had into the technology. Millions of dollars were invested in wiring those theaters, most of it borrowed from a number of sober-minded banks. The brothers were well aware of the downside: if the bet didn’t pay off, the lenders would take the studio.

  Of course, The Jazz Singer changed motion-picture history. It touched off the sound era, which the Warners rightly believed would be “without a doubt the biggest stride since the birth of the industry.” It launched Warner Bros. Pictures into the forefront of moviemaking and gave the studio a financial safety net. Practically overnight, its stock soared from $9 a share to $132.

  Suddenly the Warners had money, more money than they’d ever dreamed of, and the ambition to compete as a Hollywood moviemaking force. But to leapfrog from Poverty Row to the major leagues—alongside Paramount, RKO, MGM, and Universal—required a bold move. Harry Warner had one up his sleeve. He acquired the mighty First National Pictures, which flourished on the legacy of beloved stars Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. In addition to the massive First National catalog and its chain of theaters, Warner coveted its real-estate assets, most prominently the studio lot spread across a prime seventy-eight-acre chunk of Burbank.

  From that day forth, Warner Bros. beckoned like a beacon on the horizon. You could see its distinctive First National water tower from miles around; it was Dutch’s point of reference as he approached the studio. That tower was a landmark to many, but it also served as a symbol of accomplishment to the ever-striving Warner brothers, who, as historian Neal Gabler wrote, “regarded themselves as outsiders and underdogs.”