First Lady and Second Features

If you wish to believe the way Nancy and Ronald Reagan put it, the couple “met cute” in November of 1949, when she was a fledgling starlet, newly signed to a contract at MGM, and he was president of the Screen Actors Guild. Then known as Nancy Davis, the New York City-born actress purportedly spotted her name on the Hollywood blacklist, which barred employment of various entertainment professionals based on their suspected membership in the Communist Party or their alleged Communist sympathies.

According to the future First Couple, Nancy asked Ronald for assistance in having her name removed from the list so she could maintain her career as a guild actress. Reagan allegedly informed her that she had been confused with another actress of the same name. Mervyn LeRoy, who directed Nancy in the 1949 crime melodrama “East Side, West Side,” headlining Barbara Stanwyck, James Mason, Van Heflin, Ava Gardner, and Cyd Charisse, had said the other Nancy Davis performed in “leftist theater.”

According to documents in the Screen Actors Guild archives, however, Nancy’s blacklisting problems actually began in January of 1953, nearly a year after she married Ronald. Regardless, it was undeniable that she was smitten at first sight. Once the two began dating, a Hollywood columnist observed their outings as “the romance of a couple who have no vices.” In her 1989 memoir My Turn, Nancy remarked, “He was all I had ever wanted in a man, and more.” As for Ronald, he would reflect, “How do you describe coming into a warm room from out of the cold?”

Following her graduation from college in 1943, Nancy Davis, with the help of friends of her mother (herself a radio actress), including Spencer Tracy and Walter Huston, launched her acting career in theater. Famed director George Cukor (noted for the 1954 version of “A Star Is Born”) directed Nancy in her screen test for MGM, after which he advised the studio that she lacked talent. Nevertheless, she promptly signed a seven-year contract with MGM in 1949. She later recalled, “Joining Metro was like walking into a dream world.”

 

Nancy Davis poses for a glamor shot in 1950.

Although she competed for roles with the likes of Debbie Reynolds, Janet Leigh, Jane Powell, and Leslie Caron, Nancy was never able to break through the ceiling to Hollywood superstardom. More often than not, according to Ronald Reagan biographer Lou Cannon (author of five books about the President), she was cast as the “loyal housewife,” the “steady woman,” or the “responsible young mother.”

In 1950, Nnncy Davis and James Whitmore portrayed a homespun American couple in the fantasy drama “The Next Voice You Hear…” For one week, a voice claiming to be God preempts all radio broadcasts worldwide. Even though all nations understand the voice, the moviemakers opted to have the voice unheard by filmgoers, which might have been a decision to avoid criticism and controversy; likewise, Jesus is never mentioned, but it’s interesting to note that the lead characters are named Mary and Joe, and Mary is pregnant.

 

James Whitmore, Nancy Davis, and Gary Gray (Joe, Mary, and Johnny Smith)
strike a heavenly pose in "The Next Voice You Hear..."

Nancy Davis' most memorable role came in the 1953 cult sci-fi classic “Donovan’s Brain.” Based on the 1942 novel by Curt Siodmak, who wrote the screenplay for the original 1941 “The Wolf Man,” the story concerns attempts to keep alive the brain of a megalomaniac millionaire after a plane crash that go awry when the brain starts to possess other people.

 

Veteran character actor Gene Evans and Nancy Davis
share a tense scene in "Donovan's Brain."

As much as “Donovan’s Brain” garnered a cult following, 1957’s “Hellcats of the Navy” earned a kitschy reputation as the only motion picture to star the Reagans, although Nancy still billed herself as Davis.  The World War II submarine melodrama was deemed derivative and corny, with bargain basement production values and stiff performances, by most critics.

 

Mirroring real life, Nancy can't keep her eyes off Ronnie in "Hellcats of the Navy."

Nancy Reagan retired from acting in 1962 but not before costarring with husband Ronald in an episode of the western anthology series “Zane Grey Theater” (pictured below). She would insist that her acting aspirations had always taken second place to her “greatest ambition” of a “successful, happy marriage.”

Also in 1962, husband Ronald, until then a diehard Democrat, converted to the Republican Party. His abrupt shift to the political right has often been attributed to Nancy and her father, both staunch conservatives. Ronald quit motion pictures in 1964.

"The Killers" (1964) was the only movie in his career that cast Ronald Reagan
as a bad guy. Maybe it came easy for James Cagney to get tough with a dame
(right), but Reagan was uncomfortable slapping around Angie Dickinson (left)
and regretted making the film, which proved to be his swan song to the screen.

Beginning in 1967, due in no small part to the urgings of his wife, Reagan served two terms as the governor of California. Once Reagan took office as the 40th President of the United States in 1981, Nancy took it upon herself to champion drug abuse prevention by founding the "Just Say No" campaign, singlehandedly molding the template for the activism of first ladies to come. It's no secret that she exhibited a strong influence on her husband and played a major role in his personnel and diplomatic decisions. Nancy stirred controversy when she consulted an astrologist to help plan her husband's schedule after the 1981 assassination attempt on his life.

Nonetheless, theirs was a love story for the ages.  After Nancy Reagan passed away at 94 of congestive heart failure on March 6, 2016, her son, Ron Reagan, appearing on “Today,” recalled the aforementioned assassination attempt, which left his mother filled with “anxiety and fear.” Ron said, “I don’t think she ever had another day during his presidency where there wasn’t some fear involved and, in particular, when he went out in public.”

During his eulogy for Nancy Reagan, Ron Reagan noted, “In my mother’s world, you were either helpful to her husband or you were not…You didn’t want to get on my mom’s bad side, particularly by hurting her husband.”

Ron Reagan affectionately touches his mother's remains.

Standing alongside his mother’s casket, Ron Reagan said, “From here, she will be able to keep an eye on things, just saying, ‘No slacking.’” He added, “But more importantly, she will once again lay down beside the man who was the love of her life…They will watch the sun drop over the hills…As night falls, they will look out across the valley and my father will tell her that the lights below are her jewels.”

In contrast to the conservative politics of his parents, Ron Reagan staked his reputation on becoming a liberal political analyst and talk radio host. Born Ronald Prescott Reagan on May 20, 1958, he was expelled from a private high school and dropped out of Yale University in 1976 after a single semester to become a ballet dancer (pictured below). In 1980, he joined the Joffrey Ballet.

When Papa Reagan finally got around to seeing his son dance on stage, he noted in his White House diary that Ron’s performance was reminiscent of Fred Astaire. Over the years, Ron had frequently been criticized by the gay press for not coming out. He observed that being labeled a closeted gay man “can be used as a weapon against my father, even posthumously.” Ron once laughed, “I’ve been married for 23 years. Pretty good for a gay guy.”

In 1986, Ron Reagan had a supporting role in “Soul Man,” a tasteless, dated blackface comedy with C. Thomas Howell, Rae Dawn Chong, James Earl Jones, Leslie Nielsen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Roger Ebert compared it to a “dim-witted sitcom.” Ron also appeared on the TV series “Webster” and “Dream On,” and had a small part in the 1998 made-for-television movie “My Date with the President’s Daughter” (Dabney Coleman, not Ron Reagan, played the President.)

Ron Reagan (right) makes the most of his 15th-billed role in "Soul Man."

Ron Reagan (below) hosted “Saturday Night Live” in February 1986 (with musical guests The Nelsons), and in 1991, he hosted “The Ron Reagan Show,” a short-lived syndicated late-night talk show geared toward political issues.

Interestingly, all four of the Reagan children dabbled in show business. Maureen Reagan, born on January 4, 1941, was the first child of Ronald Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman, to whom Ronald was married from 1940 to 1949. Wyman, who won a Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of a deaf-mute rape victim in 1949’s “Johnny Belinda,” became a familiar face to TV viewers in the 1980s as Angela Channing, the domineering owner of the titular wineries on the prime-time soap opera “Falcon Crest.”

 

Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan's first wife, shares a scene with Lew Ayres
and Charles Bickford in "Johnny Belinda."

In 1964, Maureen Reagan had a bit part in the Elvis Presley musical “Kissin’ Cousins” as part of a group of man-hungry mountain women known as the Kittyhawks.

 

Maureen Reagan gives Elvis the once-over in "Kissin' Cousins."

Maureen Reagan guest-starred on a number of TV series in the 1970s, including “The Partridge Family,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “The Love Boat.” Maureen, aged 60, succumbed to melanoma in 2001, three years before her father died.

Maureen Reagan is flanked by Fred Grandy and Bernie Kopell on "The Love Boat."

Michael Reagan, adopted by Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman shortly after his birth on March 18, 1945, had small roles in movies and on TV since 1985, including several appearances on “Falcon Crest,” alongside his mother, Jane Wyman.

In 1987, Michael Reagan appeared in “Cyclone,” a low-budget science-fiction thriller about a super motorcycle. Directed by Grade-Z movie auteur Fred Olen Ray (known for “Beverly Hills Vamp,” “Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers” “Bad Girls from Mars,” and “Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold”), the flick’s eclectic cast featured TV’s “The Fall Guy” costar Heather Thomas, cult film icon Jeffrey Combs (“Re-Animator”), Bond Girl Martine Beswick (“Thunderball”), “Count Yorga, Vampire” star Robert Quarry, future Oscar winner Martin Landau, 1940s’ Bowery Boy Huntz Hall, ‘50s and ‘60s heartthrob Troy Donahue, and Tim Conway Jr.

 

Look out! Michael Reagan's got a gun!...in "Cyclone."

Like her younger brother, Ron, Patti Davis, who was born Patricia Ann Reagan on October 21, 1952, is a liberal activist. As a matter of fact, Patti and her parents were notoriously estranged for years due to their diametrically polarized political views. She and her mother, Nancy, reconciled after Ronald’s death in 2004. Patti and Nancy appeared together in support of stem cell research, which is adamantly opposed by many conservatives.

In the 1970s, Patti lived with Eagles co-founder and guitarist Bernie Leadon. Together, they co-wrote the song “I Wish You Peace,” which appeared on the Eagles album “One of These Nights.” Leadon famously left the band in 1975 by pouring a beer over Glenn Frey’s head.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Davis, who changed her last name to her mother’s maiden name to pursue an independent career, acted in the TV series “The Love Boat ,” “CHiPs,” “Fantasy Island ,” “Vega$,” “Hart to Hart,” “Trapper John, M.D.,” and “Simon & Simon” before publishing her first novel, Home Front in 1986.

Gregory Harrison (the co-star of TV's "Trapper John, M.D.") plays an aspiring
actor who moonlights as a stripper in the 1981 made-for-television movie "For
Ladies Only," costarring Patti Davis.

On the big screen, she had small roles in 1983’s “Curse of the Pink Panther” and 1989’s “Tango & Cash.”

 

Patti Davis shows off early '80s hair in "Curse of the Pink Panther" (left)
and late '80s hair (right) in "Tango & Cash."

Never a stranger to controversy, Patti Davis famously posed nude for an explicit pictorial in Playboy magazine in July of 1994.

In her eulogy for Nancy Reagan, Patti Davis commented, “It’s no secret that my mother and I had a challenging and often contentious relationship…I tried her patience and she intimidated me. We were never mild with one another…Our encounters burned up the color chart. Nothing was ever gray, but there were moments in our history when all that was going on between us was love.”

Postscript:

Just in case you were wondering, the Reagans weren’t the only White House denizens with offspring who dabbled in show business. Although his parents didn’t come from Hollywood, Steven Ford, the third child and youngest son of President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford, appeared in several series – “Happy Days,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Columbo,” “JAG,” “Baywatch,” “Walker, Texas Ranger,” “Babylon 5,” “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” – and movies – “Escape from New York” (as a Secret Service agent), “When Harry Met Sally,” “Eraser,” “Contact,” “Starship Troopers” (pictured below), “Armageddon,” “Black Hawk Down,” and “Transformers.”

Bonus Feature: First Lady, Second Impressions

The phrase “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” has been around – in various wordings - for so long that it’s impossible to separate the original expression from its imitative rephrasings. That being said, Nancy Reagan herself has been the subject of a number of comic impressions and dramatic portrayals. Let’s screen some of them in the Moviehouse…

In the mid-1980s, Terry Sweeney, "Saturday Night Live's" first openly gay male
cast member, skewed First Lady Nancy Reagan in a number of sketches, usually
with future wingnut Randy Quaid as a rosy-cheeked Ronald Reagan.

In a hilarious sketch from a 1989 episode of "SNL" an afternoon tea shared by
outgoing First Lady Nancy Reagan (the late Jan Hooks) and incoming First
Lady Barbara Bush (the late Phil Hartman) escalates into a knockdown brawl
when Nancy refuses to leave the White House.

Holland Taylor (familiar to TV viewers as the mother of Charlie Sheen
and Jon Cryer on "Two and a Half Men"), portrayed Nancy Reagan in
"The Day Reagan Was Shot," a 2001 television movie featuring Richard
Crenna as the President and Richard Dreyfuss as U.S. Secretary
of State Alexander Haig.

James Brolin and Judy Davis starred as the First Couple in "The Reagans,"
a 2003 filmed-in-Canada miniseries. Criticized for being leftist revisionism,
rife with historical inaccuracies, the production was originally scheduled
for CBS, but controversy moved the network to dump it on their subsidiary,
Showtime. According to Patti Davis, no family member or close friend of the
Reagans was consulted by the filmmakers. Ronald Reagan was not the first
historical figure played by James Brolin. In 1976, critics lambasted his
portrayal of Clark Gable in "Gable and Lombard." Judy Davis portrayed
Judy Garland in a 2001 TV movie. (Incidentally, James Brolin's son, Josh
Brolin, played another notable Republican, President George W. Bush, in
the 2008 Oliver Stone film "W."with Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney.)

Undoubtedly the most peculiar casting choice for a portrayal of First Lady Nancy
Reagan had to be Jane Fonda in the star-studded 2013 historical drama "The
Butler," featuring Forest Whitaker. By the way, that's the late Alan Rickman
(Severus Snape in all eight "Harry Potter" films) hiding behind the Halloween
makeup as Ronald Reagan.

Among other head-scratching casting oddities in "The Butler" were Robin Williams
as President Dwight D. Eisenhower (we liked Robin better as Teddy Roosevelt in
the "Night at the Museum" comedies) and John Cusack as President Richard Nixon.
Apparently, the makeup department took the day off
when Cusack sat in the Oval Office.