Early Reagan

by Anne Edwards

  Father Dunne was transferred to Phoenix for a time, but did eventually return to Loyola. He has insisted the meeting with Reagan, Murphy, Dales and Wyman (who was not mentioned in Reagan’s version) lasted hours and that the only other person present in the early stages of the meeting was the university public-relations officer, who departed very soon after the SAG delegation arrived.

  * The Lest Weekend also received the award for Best Direction, Billy Wilder; and Best Written Screenplay, Charles Bracket! and Billy Wilder.

  † Reagan was to earn a minimum of $150,500 a year. His 1946 tax return shows he earned $169,750 (Bogart earned $432,000, Bette Davis $328,000, and Errol Flynn $199,999).

  * Undated memo circa 1946-47 from Jack Warner: “Notes for talk with Wasserman regarding Errol Flynn [an MCA client]…. If Flynn is late, if liquor is being used so that from the middle of the afternoon on it is impossible for the director to make any more scenes with Flynn, if liquor is brought on the set or into the studio—we must hold Flynn legally and financially responsible.… We may go so far as to abrogate the entire contract and sue him for damages. Flynn… [has become] incoherent… repeatedly during the last pictures we have made in which Flynn has appeared and we cannot permit it any longer.” Warner was referring to Cry Wolf, Escape Me Never and Silver River. All three had far exceeded their budgets because of Flynn’s inability to perform, causing shooting to halt,

  † Faulkner’s screenplay for Stallion Road is in the Warner Brothers archives at the University of Southern California.

  In 1945, Faulkner had already written The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), The Unvanquished (1938) and The Hamlet (1940). On October 15, 1945, after Warners rejected his screenplay of Stallion Road, he went home to Oxford, Mississippi, and wrote Jack Warner asking to be released from his studio contract:

  “I feel that I have made a bust at moving picture writing and therefore have misspent and will continue to misspend time which at my age [forty-seven] I cannot afford. During my three years (including leave-suspension) at Warners, I did the best work I knew how on 5 or 6 scripts. Only two were made and I feel that I received credit on them [To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep] not on the value of the work I did, but partly through the friendship of Director Howard Hawks…”

  Faulkner shared credit with Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman on The Big Sleep. Fur-thman receives a co-credit with Faulkner on To Have and Have Not. However, very little of Faulkner’s draft appears in either film. He had also written unfilmed screenplays: Air Force, Background to Danger, Northern Pursuit, Mildred Pierce and Stallion Road. Jack Warner denied his request and he attempted a dozen more unfilmed scripts in the four years remaining on his contract. In 1949 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

  * Also on the program, called “Atomic Power and Foreign Policy,” was Dr. Harlow Shapley (U.S. delegate to World Cultural Conference, London) and Colonel Evans F. Carlson, USMC.

  * George Murphy served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1953 to 1954 and was elected U.S. senator from California, defeating Democratic candidate Pierre Salinger in 1964.

  * The first recorded minutes of the SAG, dated July 12, 1933 (Ralph Morgan elected president), lists these members: Alan Mowbray, Morgan Wallace, Leon Ames, Bradley Page, Richard Tucker, Reginald Mason, Tyler Brooke, Kenneth Thomson, Alden Gay Thomson, James Gleason, Ralph Morgan, Lucille Gleason, Ivan Simpson, Claude King and Boris Karloff. Within a few months, Charles Starrett, C. Aubrey Smith, Groucho Marx, James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, George Raft, Eddie Cantor, Chester Morris, Robert Montgomery, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, Edward Arnold, Lyle Talbot, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Miriam Hopkins, Otto Kruger and Paul Muni, among others, had joined. The SAG now had collective power. Eddie Cantor replaced Ralph Morgan as president in October 1933. Kenneth Thomson became a member of the paid staff of the SAG, and was Jack Dales’s assistant during Reagan’s years on the SAG board and as an officer.

  * Rumors later circulated that Ken Thomson had passed money to labor leaders Bioff and Browne in a “little black pay-off bag.” Reagan claimed that Thomson told him the black bag held a typewriter “to take down an account of the meeting in which he told those characters—on behalf of the Guild—to go to hell.” Bioff, Thomson said, held a Colt .45 on him during the entire meeting.

  * Reagan quit AVC one year later, when rumors circulated that it had been “infiltrated with Communists.”

  * No explanation was given as to why Reagan took HICCASP’s minute books or what became of them.

  † By autumn of 1947, HICCASP was concentrating its efforts on the cause of the Hollywood Nineteen, and later the cause of the Hollywood Ten.

  * Where Reagan boarded his horse, Baby, and where Pepitone trained horses and riders for films.

  * Reagan was one of at least eighteen informants used by the FBI to gauge Communist infiltration in the film industry. The reports on Reagan’s activities for the FBI obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal numerous missing pages and contain several dozen blackened paragraphs.

  * Baby made enough money with his appearance in Stallion Road to “take care of his own feed for seven months,” a proud Reagan declared. After the filming was completed, he entered the horse in the Northridge Horse Show. When the horse refused to take a hurdle, Reagan flew over his head, to the horror of the audience (who all rose to their feet). Stunned, Reagan got up in a matter of minutes and rode the horse back to the stable.

  † On September 27, 1946, a strike ballot was sent to the SAG membership. Out of 8,740 ballots, approximately 40 percent, or 3,257 ballots, were returned. A breakdown revealed that 2,748 voted no, 502 voted yes, and 7 ballots were unmarked. At this time, Montgomery was still president and Reagan third vice-president.

  ‡ Roy Martin Brewer rose from obscurity to national prominence during his eight years as leader of Hollywood craft labor. On September 13, 1953, he resigned after having led the fight to rid the union of “Communist elements.”

  * The three arbitrators (known as the “Three Wise Men”) were William C. Doherty, president of the International Postmen’s Union; Felix H. Knight, president of the Trainmen’s Union; and William C. Birthright, president of the Barbers Union.

  * The Emergency Committee consisted of SAG officers and board members Reagan, Robert Montgomery, George Murphy, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith, June Allyson, Dick Powell, Walter Pidgeon, Robert Taylor, Edward Arnold and Gene Kelly. Within the group there was really only one strong liberal voice—that of Kelly—and no one who might have been part of the “inner nucleus.”

  † Reagan claimed that the police insisted he be “fitted with a shoulder holster and a loaded .32 Smith and Wesson,” which he “mounted… religiously every moming and took off the last thing at night.”

  * Harry Bridges, director of the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO), was accused of Communist affiliation in 1939 but officially absolved the next year. In 1948, he was ousted as head of the CIO because of his support of Henry A. Wallace for president. For many years a conspiracy to deport Bridges to his native Australia on grounds that he was a Communist was fought through the courts. Finally, in 1955, a federal district judge ruled that there was absolutely no proof of this accusation. But Bridges’s power in Hollywood had been obliterated.

  † The SAG minutes of September 17, 1946, state: “The Guild is not interested in the merits of the case, but feels that all possible steps should be taken to prevent a strike.”

  * Montgomery accelerated his political activities at this time. He headed (1947) the Hollywood Republican Committee to elect Thomas E. Dewey as president. That same year, he testified as a “friendly witness” for HUAC. In 1951, he worked for Dwight Eisenhower’s election and was “Special Consultant” to the president on TV and in public communications during his term of office.

  * Minutes for these “hush-hush” meetings between Brewer and several producers’ representatives were
produced by Congressman Carroll Kearns years later in a congressional investigation into labor. How Kearns came to have these minutes was never revealed, but they do validate Father Dunne’s allegations.

  15

  DURING THE TIME OF REAGAN’S STRIKE ACTIVITIES, he had been filming Night Unto Night, a dramatization of a Philip Wylie book, playing opposite Viveca Lindfors, who had begun a prestigious stage career in her native land (Sweden) before signing a Warner Brothers contract earlier in the year. After many months had gone by with her only appearance in front of a camera having occurred in the studio’s still photography gallery (“Wet your lips, Viveca. Look this way or that way, up or down, over your shoulder. Look sexy”), Lindfors threatened to leave America and go home to her two small children and her husband. “Warners have a picture for you,” her agent called to say. “Beginning September 15th [1946]. ‘Night Unto Night’ starring Ronald Reagan.”*

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. A young star under contract.”

  Lindfors says, “The formula was to match a new foreign girl with a big American star. Ronald Reagan was not that. The director was fairly unknown, too [Don Siegel]. He had made only one film so far [The Verdict].’“ Why Warners ever made Night Unto Night is puzzling. They had bought the book at a time when they were making emotional dramas, gray in tone, social in content. (Audiences now wanted to be entertained.) The story dealt with a widow (Lindfors) who believes her dead husband is communicating with her; Reagan played a scientist, a hopeless epileptic, who cures her delusion as they fall in love. Then she saves him from attempting suicide. Even Laurence Olivier could not have given credibility to the solemn pretentiousness of this story, which was filmed in a gloomy beach house [also used for Mildred Pierce] on inclement days to give the picture an even more somber atmosphere.

  When the company was not on location, more drama occurred at the studio gates than on the set. Filming on Night Unto Night began on September 20. All the actors and the crew had to pass through an extremely hostile picket line to make their way into the studio. Jack Warner had obtained big buses driven by members of the Teamsters Union, whose rank and file had voted unanimously not to cross the picket lines.* Four days into the production, violence erupted, cars were overturned and set on fire, people were screaming, many were injured. “I heard one studio patrolman tell another, ‘Take Reagan home and stay on patrol all night,’“ Lindfors recalls. “‘He is established in the picture now and we don’t want to take any chances.’“ Two weeks later, he flew to Chicago for the convention, a three-day trip.

  Lindfors recalls him as being “bland and smooth and seemingly pleasant.… I don’t remember a single conversation of any substance. I do remember some chit chat about sex, which was up my alley, since I was in love with Don [Siegel, the director; they married subsequently].… ‘It’s best in the afternoon after coming out of a shower,’ he said, and then he laughed [an] embarrassed laugh.…”

  The film ran over schedule because of the strike interference and the difficulty of obtaining the proper light on the beach location. Thanksgiving passed and Christmas approached. The cast worked the morning of Christmas Eve, “grey, heavy, humid.… Eggnog was served all over the place.… By two o’clock in the afternoon, everybody was drunk… except for me [Lindfors].” Reagan had left early to go to the SAG offices. The film was finished on December 29. In February, Jack Warner saw the first print of Night Unto Night and decided to shelve it. While Reagan waited to begin his next film, an adaptation of John Van Druten’s successful play The Voice of the Turtle, he immersed himself in the SAG, which was attempting to renegotiate its contract with the producers during the adverse conditions caused by the strike. This contract, upon which Reagan, Murphy and Arnold did most of the negotiating, was viewed by many of the membership as a sellout. Rumors persisted that the three men—all of whom had gone to Chicago—had agreed in secret meetings for SAG to cross the picket lines so that production would not be held up on any films. In return, the producers had acceded to certain favorable points in the new contract.

  Rains came to California in biblical force in January 1947. Above the Reagan house on Cordell Drive, the mud was sliding, carrying trees and brush with it, undermining the less substantial homes. Despite the violence of the weather and the violence inside the industry, Jane Wyman was in high spirits. She had been nominated for Best Actress of 1946 for her performance in The Yearling and she was pregnant.

  The Reagans’ marriage had been suffering difficulties since his return from the service. She earnestly tried in 1946 and part of 1947 to share his new involvement in the SAG with him. Some of his viewpoints she agreed with, but not all, and none could she approach with his intensity of purpose.

  The SAG had become an obsession with Reagan. He spoke of almost nothing else. Wyman found it difficult to discuss with him her own concerns, which seemed lightweight against such heavy issues as the strike, violence at the studios, gangsterism in the unions, talk of Communist infiltration in the industry, or the negotiations on the producers’ contract. At home, he was either on the telephone in conference calls, working with various members of the Emergency Committee or writing speeches. He had very little time for the children, but Wyman hoped that once the strike was settled things would go back to some sort of early, dimly remembered normalcy. She hated guns, and he now had a collection mounted on the walls of the den and wore a loaded one, holstered to his shoulder, during his waking hours. At night, it rested on the bedside table; she told one close friend there had been more than one night that she had awakened to see him holding the gun, sitting up in bed, having thought he had heard noises in the house.

  On March 14, Reagan escorted an apprehensive Wyman and Mary Livingstone (whose husband, Jack Benny, was master of ceremonies) to the Academy Awards, being held for the first time at the massive Shrine Auditorium. Wyman smiled bravely when Olivia de Havilland’s name was called for her performance in To Each His Own* Her disappointment could not be helped, although she much admired De Havilland. Proving to Hollywood that her two roles (The Lost Weekend and The Yearling) were not “dramatic freaks”—that she was of Academy Award caliber—became all-important to her.

  “Maybe we’ll call him [the baby due in September] Oscar,” Reagan kidded to the press. “Jane deserves one around the house.”

  Monday night, March 10, the Reagans attended the regular meeting of the board of directors of the SAG. Seven members submitted their resignations that evening: Robert Montgomery, president; Franchot Tone, first vice-president; Dick Powell, second vice-president; and John Garfield, Harpo Marx, Dennis O’Keefe and James Cagney, all of whom now had a financial interest in the production of pictures in which they appeared.† Upon a motion made by Gene Kelly, seconded by George Chandler and unanimously carried, Reagan was nominated for the presidency. Nominations for Gene Kelly and George Murphy for the same office followed. The election by the board members was held right then by secret ballot, a majority vote required for election. Paper slips were passed out and tabulated by Jack Dales’s secretary, Midge Farrell.‡ A nervous silence followed. Then Jack Dales read the results.

  Ronald Reagan was the newly elected president of the Screen Actors Guild.* Exactly one month later, Reagan had his meeting with the FBI and agreed to be an informant by reporting names of any members of the SAG who he thought had Communist associations. Wyman, a close friend asserts, was in an emotional state, torn, not knowing what to do but not agreeing with his decision.

  Reagan had begun filming Van Druten’s stage hit The Voice of the Turtle (for which Warners had paid the playwright $500,000 plus 15 percent of the total gross receipts) in February. Although this would be a starring role and the film was one of the studio’s top productions for that year, he had not been anyone’s first choice. Warner had tried for Cary Grant, Hal Wallis for Tyrone Power. Both actors had been unavailable for loan-outs from their home studios. Steve Trilling finally suggested Reagan, and all three men agreed. The film was to be promoted on its re
putation as “the greatest stage hit in many years and the most appealing love story of the decade.” For the first time, Reagan was being given a romantic lead in a major A picture. The hope was that he might display the sexual appeal of a James Stewart or a Henry Fonda. Eleanor Parker, a Warner contract actress, was getting her big break in this film, which co-starred Wayne Morris and Eve Arden. Reagan had finally overtaken Morris in the jockeying of players’ credits. However, Jack Warner was banking on Van Druten’s name and the popularity of the stage play to help sell the film.

  The Voice of the Turtle was nothing more than boy (Sergeant Bill Page, a charming back-home type in New York on a weekend pass) meets girl (Sally Middleton—young, beautiful, disappointed in love—whose apartment he is forced, through a set of circumstances, to share). John Van Druten’s bright, slick, double-entendre dialogue and amusing situations gave it a fresh luster. Jack Warner had a screenwriter (Charles Hoffman) add some dialogue to Van Druten’s adaptation. The playwright, in a pique, promptly wired him to remove his own name from the credits. Warner wired back:

  RAN PICTURE LAST NIGHT BEFORE TURNING IT OVER FOR SCORING. AND WANT YOU TO KNOW WE FOLLOWED YOUR SCRIPT VERBATIM. THERE ISN’T OVER V2 PAGE OF CHANGES. IN VIEW OF EVERYTHING THAT’S HAPPENED IN THE PRODUCING OF THIS PICTURE [conflict between Van Druten and Warner over the casting] IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF REMOVING YOUR NAME FROM SCREEN I FEEL YOU WILL BE DOING IMMEASURABLE HARM TO THE DISTRIBUTION AND SELLING OF THE PICTURE. AM DEEPLY SORRY FOR EVERYTHING THAT OCCURRED OVER WHICH YOU AND DE LIAGRE AND I HAD NO CONTROL. BUT WANT TO ASSURE YOU AGAIN WE HAVE PHOTOGRAPHED THE SCRIPT YOU WROTE…

  That same day, Warner also wired his New York office: