Early Reagan

by Anne Edwards

  † Raoul Walsh to Hal Wallis, February 13, 1942: “The Epstein boys have added a little zip to the script, why not let them continue with it and keep ahead of me?” (They did.)

  * A British film, The Invaders, starring Raymond Massey (who appeared as the German colonel in Desperate Journey) had almost the identical story line in reverse. A Nazi landing party is stranded when its submarine is sunk in Hudson Bay—and the six Nazi survivors trek across Canada, being murdered one by one.

  † In the final cut, Kennedy was wounded, not dead, during the interchange, and then died.

  * Reagan turned in a creditable performance in Desperate Journey despite a fairly mixed bag of reviews. (“Reagan scores solidly,” Hollywood Reporter; “Folks who will sacrifice reason for fast action and the joy of seeing ‘Nazis’ foiled should find it entirely gratifying. Terry and the Pirates will do as well for the rest of us,” Bosley Crowther, The New York Times. Charles Einfeld, director of Warners’ publicity department, wrote Warner, “The critics take the picture for a ride, kidding it as though it was a Horatio Alger yarn. I’m not at all concerned, because the business is terrific and the audience loves it.”)

  REAR

  GUNNER

  “Yes, and the Rear Gunner—the little fella in the flying fish bowl—the hawk-eyed shooting man who clears the sky in the rear so that his plane can fly forward…”

  —Rear Gunner, a Warner Brothers short subject made with the cooperation of the Army Air Force, with Ronald Reagan as narrator

  13

  TEN DAYS BEFORE REAGAN ARRIVED AT FORT MAson, Bataan had surrendered to the Japanese, and General George Marshall and Harry Hopkins were in London discussing aid for Russia by launching a second front. A few weeks later, Corregidor fell, the Japanese had taken Mandalay, forcing the British to withdraw along Chindwin Valley to India, the Germans launched the V-2 rocket and Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, representing the USSR, signed, in London, the Anglo-Soviet twenty-year alliance. The world was at war and America and her allies were suffering the worst blows.

  Reagan was Fort Mason’s only movie star. His commanding officer, Colonel Phillip Booker of the regular army field artillery, was a short, trim Southerner “with the wiry physique of a horseman.” An intraservice rivalry existed between the cavalry and the artillery. “Never knew a cavalryman who knew a damned thing,” Booker would grumble. A sharp, no-nonsense man, he was not much impressed with Reagan’s background.

  “Colonel Booker, you and I have something in common,” Reagan remarked over dinner on his first evening at the fort.

  “How’s that, Reagan?”

  “Well, I understand that you are a graduate of Virginia Military Institute, and I once played in a picture about VMI called Brother Rat.”

  With a cold stare, the colonel replied, “Yes, Reagan, I saw that picture—nothing ever made me so damned mad in my life.”

  In many ways, Reagan found army life satisfying. He much enjoyed the company of men, the chance to ride daily (Fort Mason was primarily a cavalry post) and to dress in cavalry uniform, which included riding breeches, boots and spurs. His one complaint was the fact that he could not put his spurred boots on the glass top of his desk, and he tells the story of another lieutenant who took off his spurs and slipped them into a drawer so that he could swing his feet to his desk top without fear of breaking the glass. At that moment, “Colonel Booker came swinging through” the office the lieutenant shared with Reagan. “The Colonel didn’t pause in his stride,” Reagan recalls, “and it didn’t seem that he looked down as he passed the spurless younger officer. ‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll catch cold, son?’“ he commented and was out the door before an answer could be given.

  Despite the cool attitude of the colonel, Reagan was a celebrity at Fort Mason; and although he did not receive special treatment, the men on the base were impressed. Reagan was bombarded with requests for information, introductions and statistics about many of the more glamorous women stars, which he good-naturedly answered when he could. At the end of two months, most of his fellow officers were transferred to other bases preparatory to being sent overseas. Clearly, the army was going to have to find a domestic post for Reagan, and he was more than apprehensive as to what that might be, realizing he would have to sit out the war there. Luckily, he was granted a weekend leave to be present “at a giant rally of picture people [in Hollywood] for the purpose of launching the newly created USO program.”

  Jane appeared with him. She seemed to be managing well in his absence. Nelle was taken care of, and on August 14, 1942, Jack Warner sent Reagan a “bonus check” of six hundred dollars. (On July 29, 1941, Warner had also sent a like amount as a gift, “to buy something for your home…”) Warner was now a Lieutenant Colonel, Public Relations Division, Army Air Force, with offices at 4000 West Olive Street, Burbank, which in fact was the studio.

  A short time after Reagan returned to Fort Mason from his Hollywood weekend, he was ordered to prepare a program at the base to celebrate “I Am an American Day.”* Colonel Booker helped him work out the details of the military part (parade, etc.), but he introduced the idea of obtaining a celebrity to sing the national anthem. Who? the general wanted to know. “My newly acquired instinct led me to hesitate and avoid a direct answer long enough for the General [(“Hap”) Arnold, commanding officer of the entire base] to express his own preference.” General Arnold turned out to be a Jeanette MacDonald fan. One hour later, Reagan had managed to contact the gorgeous forty-year-old soprano and get her to agree to appear, not as difficult an assignment as one might imagine, for Metro, where she had reigned for nine years as the prima donna of film operetta, had just terminated her contract and she was happy to be given something to shore up her shaken ego. The ceremony was held at a nearby dog track. Standing on an improvised stage made in the box seats, the glorious Jeanette, still in fine voice, sang the national anthem as well as her most famous film songs. The audience of seventeen thousand soldiers loved her, and she had them standing, singing along with her, when she closed with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Reagan’s instinct had proven hugely sound.

  The air force remained part of the army until the end of the war, and so it was not as curious as it might sound today that Reagan, an army cavalry officer, was soon transferred to the air force, which had begun a First Motion Picture Unit at the old Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, newly dubbed “Fort Roach.” Although he would be billeted during most of the week at Fort Roach, he would be able to see Jane and Maureen frequently. “I would regret one price I had to pay for this assignment: no more boots and breeches…”

  Fort Roach (also sometimes called “Fort Wacky”) was a strange mixture of the real and the surreal. Thirteen hundred enlisted men and officers—most without previous military training—were stationed there. Air force regulations stipulated that only flying officers could command a post. Paul Mantz, a film stunt pilot, was the only flying officer at the fort who qualified and so he was made post commander. Very few of his men had ever been up in a plane. They had been writers, actors, directors, cameramen, cutters, sound men, wardrobe men, prop men, makeup artists, special-effects men—many of them the best Hollywood had ever hired. Their assignment at Fort Roach was to make training and documentary films and to prepare aerial photographers for combat camera crews.

  Reagan began his new job as a personnel officer (Assistant AAF Public Relations), “interviewing and processing applicants for commissions.… For the most part,” Reagan recalled, “our volunteers were ineligible for regular military duty and simply and sincerely wanted to serve.… A great many people… harbor a feeling that the personnel of the motion picture unit were somehow draft dodgers avoiding danger. The Army doesn’t play that way. There was a special job the Army wanted done and it was after men who could do the job. The overwhelming majority of men and officers serving at our post were limited service like myself.” (At one time or another during the war, Arthur Kennedy, Burgess Meredith [there with Reagan], Clark Gable, Alan L
add, Van Johnson and George Montgomery, among other film performers, were also stationed at Fort Roach.)

  Within a matter of weeks, Reagan’s job shifted to his prewar expertise—acting before the cameras. On August 5, 1942, a request was made by Colonel Jack Warner, through the Burbank public-relations office, on behalf of 2nd Lieutenant Ronald Reagan for a promotion to 1st Lieutenant. This was denied by the War Department by command of Lieutenant General Arnold and signed by Clifford P. Bradley, Colonel A.C. Chief, Military Personnel Division, Washington, August 25, 1942.

  Reagan’s first army film was Rear Gunner, in which he was the narrator. The film (script by Edwin Gilbert) dealt with the poignant story of one Pee Wee Williams, a young gunner in the Army Air Force, his education and his brave action under fire. Warner Brothers “produced and paid for the film,” which meant the army supplied personnel and technicians while the studio paid for processing and prints. The original interpretation of the deal was that Warners would receive credit and therefore goodwill by contributing to the war effort. That was not how Jack Warner saw it, however. His plan was to release the short commercially, which caused a furor in Washington. (Coincidentally, on August 14, the day principal photography was completed, Warners issued that second six-hundred-dollar check to Reagan without any explanation of it on the payroll stub in the Warner file. In theory, no serviceman was permitted to accept pay from civilian companies for work also paid for by the army.)

  July 14, 1942

  MEMORANDUM TO: Col. Minton Kay

  AAF Photo Division

  Maritime Building

  18th & H. Streets, N.W.

  Washington, D.C.

  The War Department Bureau of Public Relations imposes no objection to the production of the script “Rear Gunner” for release to military personnel exclusively. However, the release of these pictures through commercial houses for paid admissions, exploiting picture personalities [in this case, Reagan] involves policies which the Bureau of Public Relations is not prepared to announce at this time, hence such approval on this script is withheld.

  FOR THE DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

  V.F. Shaw

  Administrative Executive

  Bureau of Public Relations

  October 2, 1942

  MEMORANDUM: Chief, Pictorial Service

  Army Air Forces

  Maritime Building

  18th & H. Streets, N.W.

  (Attn: Major Keighley)

  Subject: “Rear Gunner”

  1. This office has screened the picture and disapproved any consideration of commercial release because the production violates standing War Department policy in that professional actors who have been commissioned in the Army play leading roles [Reagan and Burgess Meredith]. Under the present decision screen actors now in the Army will not be loaned out to studios for the purpose of producing commercial pictures.

  2. Should you decide to purchase this picture from Warner and pay print costs, this office will be glad to reconsider release as an Air Force project through the War Activities Committee.*

  FOR THE DIRECTOR:

  W.M. Wright, Jr.

  Colonel, G.S.C.

  Chief, Pictorial Branch

  On January 28, 1943, a War Department memorandum signed by Curtis Mitchell, Lt. Col., G.S.C. Acting Chief, Pictorial Branch stated:

  Release of the film [Rear Gunner] fills what appears to be a morale need, [but it also] allows Warners to exploit or to profit from a picture which by a combination of circumstances remains their own property and permits them the use of an officer who was formerly their own star [Reagan] and a free lance star [Meredith].

  In the end, Warners was given commercial rights and Rear Gunner was released as a short to accompany other Warner films. As propaganda it was acceptable and might well have improved the image of the rear gunner. It also was good public relations for Warners and, at the same time, kept one of their players on the screen so that he would not be forgotten. The army must have been pleased with Reagan’s work, for on October 1, 1942, the request for a promotion was resubmitted and subsequently approved. Reagan was now a first lieutenant.

  Reagan claims that those men who did not experience combat had “an almost reverent feeling for the men who did face the enemy.” At Fort Roach this feeling was heightened by the constant viewing of millions of feet of combat film that was processed there, bits and pieces to be used whenever a real effect was needed—air crashes, men enveloped in flames, strafings—all the horrors of war. Reagan might be said to have been sitting out the war on the bench, as he had done the football seasons at Eureka, viewing on a daily basis the players who were in the action. He was not the only one, of course, and he had legitimate reasons for being there. But heroes did not sit on the bench while other men carried the ball. And that thought must have rankled.

  The biggest Broadway hit of 1942 was Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army—dubbed “TITA” by the cast (book, music and lyrics by “Sergeant Irving Berlin,” production assembled and staged by Ezra Stone—performed by men in the service [female roles as well], with all proceeds after costs going to Army Emergency Relief). Berlin, the erstwhile sergeant from World War I, was also in the cast and sang “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.” The song was originally sung by him in a play titled Yip Yip Yaphank (1918), and he nightly stopped the show with his appearance. One other song, “Mandy,” also came from that show. Otherwise, the score was new and mostly crowd stirrers (“This Is the Army, Mr. Jones,” “I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen” and “American Eagles”).

  Jack Warner wasted no time in pursuing it. (Warner appeared to be in the enviable position of holding the rank of colonel while remaining in Hollywood actively engaged in running his studio. All through the war years studio memos flowed from “Colonel Jack L. Warner.”) “I was in California and immediately contacted… Irving Berlin,” he explained to the New York Post. “On the next day, July 4, 1942 [the day of the Broadway premiere], there were fourteen calls between Berlin and me. ‘Put your bid in,’ Berlin said. I said, ‘We’ll advance you $250,000 for Army Emergency Relief and in addition will give you 50% of the profits.’ I immediately called my brother [Abe in New York] and said, ‘Go right over to Berlin and close the deal.’ He appeared and gave Berlin the 250,000 bucks and closed it. Then I called my other brother Harry, and said, ‘I’ve been thinking we should give the Army Emergency Relief the complete profits.’“ Harry reclaimed the contract, tore it up and wrote a new one.

  George Murphy (a navy seaman in 1917 but not a serviceman during World War II) was cast in the role of a former musical-comedy star who turns impresario for the war effort. Reagan portrayed his army private son, Johnny Jones, and carried the romantic lead opposite Joan Leslie (as Eileen Dibble, daughter of a former vaudevillian, played by Charles Butterworth). Other players, including such stellar and disparate names as Kate Smith and Sergeant Joe Louis, had smaller, often walk-on appearances. The service cast received no other remuneration than their usual monthly pay, but the civilian performers were on salary. George Murphy was paid $28,333.33 for his role, for which the studio had originally wanted Pat O’Brien (shooting schedules had conflicted. O’Brien was making Bombardier).

  Berlin literally moved into the studio during the making of the film. He appeared only in the “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning” number, wrote one new song (“What Does He Look Like”) and was not responsible for direction (Michael Curtiz), screenplay (Casey Robinson and Captain Claude Binyon) or production (Jack Warner and Hal Wallis). Yet, as Warner wrote his brother Harry, Berlin was “100 men in one” and functioned on all these levels.

  “We [the company of about two hundred men] were welcomed to the film capital like conquering heroes.” Ezra Stone recalled. “We got off the train six or seven times (so it would seem like six or seven times as many of us in the picture) and marched the several miles to the studio as the [battery of publicity] cameras continued to grind. The entire studio personnel had lined the stree
t to cheer us wildly… as we passed through the gates.

  “After the Major [Ambraz] had approved a vacant field adjacent to Warners’ back lot as the site for our camp… overnight there sprang up thirteen wooden-floored, steam-heated, electric-lighted, furnished tents [outfitted by the studio prop department] in a neat double row… a shower house, administration and dispensary room, three latrines, a PX… and a flagpole court landscaped with trees and shrubbery still bearing nursery tags. We christened it ‘Camp TITA.’

  “The nineteen tents at the camp could not hold the 310 man unit. It barely held the night shift of our most unmilitary guard duty unit. So we all stayed in a great variety of personally secured lodgings from flophouses on Main Street to Cole Porter’s Bel Air mansion,” Stone added.

  Reagan was back on the old lot and, permitted to go home at night. He has said he was introduced to Berlin five times during the first week of shooting (“Each time he was glad to see me.”). After viewing the early rushes, Berlin approached him. “Young fellow, I just saw some of your work. You’ve got a few things to correct—for example, a huskiness of the voice—but you really should give this business some serious consideration when the war is over.”

  To augment the cast, Warners hired extras and dressed them in uniform. Confusion reigned throughout the first weeks of filming, for it was impossible to recognize the real officers from the fakes and a lot of frenzied saluting was wasted. Finally, the studio issued arm bands with a “WB” shield, which all the civilian actors dressed as military officers or enlisted men were required to wear off-camera. “What kind of insignia is that,” one outside observer asked Richard Burdick (one of TITA’s three original dialogue writers brought to the Coast with the film).* “War Bureau,” Burdick replied. “Special agents sent from Washington to report any laxity in duty.” He later added, “Everything was four times larger than the stage show, of course… sets, cast, band… really quite overwhelming.”