It is probably appropriate that Ronald Reagan passed away on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion. He was the kind of President who might have been more at home during wartime than peacetime (even if we were in the middle of the Cold War). His speech on the 40th anniversary of D-Day is still well-remembered. But our purpose here is not to talk about his performance as President, but rather his career as an actor.
It is generally believed that if Reagan had not been elected president of SAG, then governor of California, and then President of the United States, he would be remembered simply as an actor who achieved modest success in Hollywood (after WWII, he was actually for a time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood), and later went on to host a couple of popular TV shows.
While that may be true, it's also the case that we really don't know what kind of great performances we were robbed of by the voters of California and the United States. Because he certainly turned out to be a better actor as a politician than anybody might have guessed based on his movie performances! (Some critics, in fact, have argued that he was a better actor than is generally believed. See SF Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle's column on the subject.)
Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in Illinois (a private school associated with the Disciples of Christ). He began his career as an entertainer by working as a sportscaster, doing Cubs games. He signed on with Warner Brothers in 1937, and appeared in both A and B pictures, but mostly starred in the latter.
Reagan made his debut in Love Is on the Air (1937), followed by Accidents Will Happen (1938), Hollywood Hotel (1937), Boy Meets Girl (1938), The Cowboy From Brooklyn (1938), Brother Rat (1938), Going Places (1938), Dark Victory (1939), Naughty but Nice (1939), Hell's Kitchen (1939), Secret Service of the Air, An Angel from Texas (1940), Knute Rockne - All American (1940) (as "the Gipper"), Santa Fe Trail (1940), Million Dollar Baby (1941), Nine Lives Are Not Enough (1941), and International Squadron (1941). He was kept quite busy in those days.
His best-remembered film was Kings Row (1942), in which he plays a man whose legs were amputated, and when he wakes up from surgery, looks down and asks, "Where's the rest of me?"
Reagan joined the Army Air Corps at the outset of WWII, and though he wanted to see combat, his eyesight kept him out of the fighting. However, he spent the war narrating training films. Upon his return, he starred in some decent films, such as The Voice of the Turtle (1947), The Hasty Heart (1949), and Storm Warning (1951). But most of his work consisted of B films, westerns, and comedies that haven't held up over the years, including the notorious Bedtime for Bonzo (1951). The Winning Team (1952), playing pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, Cattle Queen of Montana (1954), and Hellcats of the Navy (1957), in which he starred with Nancy, are some of the more memorable films. In 1947 he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild and held that post from 1947-1951, and again in 1959. He turned to television in the 1950s. He appeared often on The Orchid Award (1953-54), and hosted General Electric Theatre (1954-61), and Death Valley Days (1964-66).
Reagan married actress Jane Wyman in 1940. They produced two children, Michael and Maureen, and were divorced in 1948. He married Nancy Davis in 1952. They also had two children, Ron and Patti. After achieving political notice during the Goldwater campaign of 1964, he was elected governor of California in 1966, staying in that post for eight years. He lost the 1976 Republican primary to Gerald Ford, but won in 1980 and again in 1984. The rest is history. I hope you will enjoy this tribute article, including links to places on the Web where you can learn more about Ronald Reagan's movie career. (For other, non-Hollywood, history, see the Google Directory.)
