Love Triangle: Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, & Nancy Davis (Blood Moon's Babylon Series)

by Darwin Porter

  “Of course, you don’t really have to chase after the skirts. These horny pussies will be calling you. If you’re a stud, our gals will keep you busy. Most of them can’t get enough. I sample a different one every day myself.”

  Reagan was finally allowed to say something. In the brief moment allotted, he thanked Jack for letting him become a member of the Warners family.

  “You’re welcome, and you seem personable enough,” Jack said. “But don’t get difficult like that god damn mutt, Rin Tin Tin, the Wonder Dog. He was our ‘mortgage lifter’ in the 20s, but I fired him in ’29. The first time I met the beast, he bit off a hunk of my flesh. He often attacked his director, too.”

  “I’m eager to cooperate,” Reagan said.

  Jack glanced at his watch, “I’ve got Miss Bette Davis waiting, and she’s threatening to scratch my eyes out, wanting better roles. What a bitch!”

  In the anteroom to Warner’s office, Reagan was introduced to Hal B. Wallis, who told him he would be the co-producer of Love Is On the Air. Reagan shook his hand and said how eager he was to begin shooting his first film. Wallis would later refer to Reagan as “that hick radio announcer from the Middle West.”

  Foy then introduced him to Bette Davis, who wore a funny hat. “I’m honored to meet you, Miss Davis,” he said. “I consider you the greatest tragedienne on the screen.”

  “Of course you do, dear boy,” Davis snapped.

  “You were thrilling in Of Human Bondage,” he said

  “Of course I was,” she replied. “So why didn’t I get the fucking Oscar?”

  After she abruptly departed, heading in to Jack’s office, she continued talking. Apparently, Jack had slipped into his adjoining toilet, leaving Bette and Wallis together and alone.

  From his position in Warner’s anteroom, Reagan heard Davis say, “What a silly boy.”

  “The kid’s name is Ronald Reagan, some hayseed Jack has put under contract,” Wallis said. “He was hired to replace Ross Alexander.”

  “Poor pathetic homo Ross,” Davis said. “Even though he was always pestering me to marry him, I was sorry to hear he committed suicide. He thought that by marrying me, his perversion would be camouflaged. It figures that Jack would hire another homo like this Reagan boy to replace Ross.”

  Wallis suddenly shut the door to Warner’s office, and Reagan could hear no more. He was infuriated, but maintained a polite façade. Davis had insulted him, but he didn’t dare strike back.

  Director Nick Grinde recalled, “I had to teach Reagan how to kiss on camera. He was wet-lip-ping Travis and ruining her makeup. I made the ultimate sacrifice and used my own lips to show the fucker how it’s done. He learned fast after that.”

  Foy sensed his anxiety. “Lesson number one in the film business: Take it on the chin until you have the power to get even.”

  Foy introduced Reagan to his first-ever film director, Nick Grinde. Grinde was married at the time to actress Marie Wilson, with whom Reagan would work on the 1938 film, Boy Meets Girl. Like Reagan, Grinde was from the Middle West, hailing from Wisconsin. He’d written the script for the film Toyland (1934), which had co-starred Laurel and Hardy and some of the music (including “March of the Toys”) by the noted composer, Victor Herbert.

  “I heard you were a radio announcer in Des Moines,” Grinde said. “You may end up playing the role of Andy McLeod as yourself.”

  Co-starring in the film as its second lead was Eddie Acuff, a minor actor and another Middle Westerner who would become better known playing the recurring role of the postman, Mr. Beasley, in the Blondie movie series. He and Reagan quickly became friends and started having lunch together in the commissary.

  For the remainder of his first day at Warners, George Ward drove him to the Santa Monica Pier. Reagan wanted to go swimming.

  As he was emerging from the water, Ward came up to him. “My God, you’re an Adonis from the deep. We’re going to have to pose you in a bathing suit for publicity photos.

  That weekend he arranged for a Warner photographer to take “beefcake” pictures of Reagan in swimwear. [Of course, they weren’t called beefcake back then.]

  Reagan said, “I used to be a four-letter man in college, but I didn’t think that gave me an excuse to stick out my chest and expand my biceps publicly, every time someone mentioned the word ‘health.’”

  Even before the release of Love Is On the Air, these beefcake photos, when published, generated fan mail. Most of it originated with teenage girls, but a number of homosexuals wrote to him too, relaying in graphic detail what the letter-writer would do to him if and when he removed his trunks. He found fan mail from either gender embarrassing. “For the first time in my life, I was being treated like a slab of beef.”

  The next day, he reported to casting director Max Arnow. “Good to see you again, Reagan,” he said. He looked him up and down. “Where in hell did you get that bargain basement white jacket? You look like a Filipino refugee.” He was then informed that he’d have to supply his own wardrobe. Throughout the course of his involvement in Love Is On the Air, there would be a dozen changes of suits, and he owned only four.

  He solved that dilemma by “doubling,” which involved wearing the same suits at the beginning of the film and again at the end, hoping that the audience would have a brief attention span.

  He also met Percival (“Perc”) Westmore, who was widely acknowledged as the best makeup artist in Hollywood. Reagan would later become friends with both Westmore and his wife, actress Gloria Dickson. Perc regularly applied the makeup of such Warner stars as Kay Francis and Bette Davis, and was credited with the creation of thirty-five shades of blonde.

  With his razor-sharp instincts, he appraised and evaluated Reagan’s physicality: “Your neck’s too short, Kid,” he said. “Jimmy Cagney has the same problem. I’ll send you to his shirt maker, who can design a trick collar that will conceal your deficiency.”

  Young Reagan, after his transformation by Warners’ Wardrobe and Makeup Departments.

  He later complained, “Too many homos took liberties with my physique in both makeup and wardrobe, but they did a god damn good job. You’ve got to hand it to these guys. They’re outrageous, but they know their business.”

  Westmore continued, oblivious to the alarm his appraisals were causing: “And your head is too small. It doesn’t leave room for your brain. We’ll have to disguise that fact as well, Ronald.”

  Having been called Dutch for most of his life, Reagan was not yet accustomed to the name “Ronald.” Throughout his life, he had always regretted having been named that.

  Then Westmore introduced him to the writers in Warner’s publicity department, instructing them to “hide the fact that he’s a no-necker with a pinhead.”

  Reagan later said, “It’s amazing that Perc and I became friends after all his insults to my physicality.”

  Almost immediately, the Publicity Department ground out a press release, citing Reagan’s broad shoulders and slender waistline. According to the release, the Hollywood newcomer “was almost proficient in every sport, an expert marksman and horseman.”

  With his newly coiffed pompadour, his hair no longer parted in the middle, Reagan showed up on the set for his kissing scene. Director Grinde was there waiting to introduce him to his leading lady, June Travis.

  ***

  Love Is On the Air was a minor crime drama whose plot and premises had already appeared, in another variation, on the screen. Its plot was a rehash of the 1934 movie, the badly titled Hi, Nellie, one of Paul Muni’s less impressive films. In it, Ronald Reagan, age 26, was making his screen debut.

  Reagan was shown a memo that Grinde had received from the Breen office, the official censor of Hollywood films. New to both movie making and to censorship, he read it with embarrassment and astonishment:

  “Mr. Reagan, in the role of the radio announcer, must not be unduly exposed in the scene where he strips off his pajamas and starts to dress. If he is photographed in his underwear, make sure he
wears white boxer shorts with an athletic supporter underneath. At no point should there be a mound of his genitalia on display, even if it’s covered by fabric.”

  At that point, his leading lady, June Travis, emerged from makeup. With her dark brown hair, her green eyes, and her round, rosy cheeks, she was beautiful, standing 5’4”, and relatively new to films. Born in Chicago, she was the daughter of Harry Brabiner, who in the 1930s was vice president of the Chicago White Sox.

  Two years earlier, she’d appeared in Stranded with Kay Francis and George Brent. Howard Hawks had directed her in Ceiling Zero (1936), starring James Cagney and Pat O’Brien. For her role in that film, Amelia Earhart, a friend of her family, had instructed Travis in flying, aeronautical navigation, and parachute jumping.

  She was very flirtatious with him. “Those green eyes were practically begging me to take her out…or whatever,” he said to Grinde.

  During his first hour with Travis, shooting a kissing scene, Reagan got to know her rather well, at least insofar as her succulent lips were concerned. “I was so eager to get at her that I pressed my face against hers so hard I think I turned her features into pudding. Grinde stepped in to teach me how to screen kiss, using his own stinking mouth on mine.”

  “You don’t come at a gal with your tongue hanging out like Tyrannosaurus rex about to swallow whole some primeval beast.” Then he showed Reagan how to kiss on camera.

  “I learned my lesson, which helped me kiss dozens of beautiful stars in my future. It’s true. I had moved toward June’s mouth like there was no tomorrow. I practically sucked the tongue out of her mouth. Grinde told me I had to kiss the girl without shoving her face out of shape. He told me that our lips should barely meet. I had to leave her as beautiful as she was, even though giving the impression of a fervent kiss.”

  Working with Travis, Reagan developed his first case of “a disease called Leadinglady-itis.” That’s when an actor falls in love with his leading lady and has an affair with her, but only during the shoot. When the picture is wrapped, both parties move on. In some cases, the affair is resumed when the two appear in another picture together. Occasionally, it leads to marriage.” [Such was the case with Jane Wyman and Reagan when they made Brother Rat in 1938.] It’s also common for an actress to develop “Leadingman-itis.”

  At the end of their kissing scene, when Travis whispered into his ear, “I want some more of where that came from,” their affair was launched.

  That was all the encouragement he needed. For the next three weekends, she was in his arms, mostly when he was alone with her in his bachelor apartment. When they wanted diversion, he took her to shoot clay pigeons in an amusement arcade at the Santa Monica pier.

  The ultimate late 30s chic: June Travis, the woman who set the pattern for Reagan’s chronic and oft-repeated syndrome, “LeadingLady-itis.”

  “June was a great shot,” he said, “knocking off every clay pigeon in the shooting gallery. She even licked me throwing baseballs at milk bottles. She was also great at water sports and at hockey, a real girl jock in spite of her delicate beauty. She was also a fine horsewoman, as she demonstrated when I took her riding in Griffin Park.”

  Travis later told the press that she went out with Reagan on only one date, the focal point of which involved a shooting match at a carnival. When he heard that, Grinde said, “Of course, June said that. but that doesn’t mean we have to believe her. After all, a gal has to protect her reputation in this town.”

  One night during dinner together in Hollywood, Reagan and Travis encountered James Cagney, with whom she had previously appeared on the screen. He kissed Travis and chatted with her. Reagan reminded him that he’d conducted an interview with him at his radio station in Des Moines. “I remember that, “Cagney said, “but I have no memory of you. You know, stars meet so many people. It’s all in a day’s work.”

  During the short time he knew her, Reagan was getting serious enough with Travis that he contemplated proposing marriage. There was much speculation about why his affair with her ended so abruptly.

  As he was to learn painfully, she had another suitor who was also ardently pursuing her. He was Walter Annenberg. A playboy born to a wealthy Jewish family in Milwaukee, he eventually evolved into a major media mogul, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. He showed her a far more glamorous life than Reagan could. Annenberg and Travis were seen cruising together along Hollywood Boulevard in his custom-made Lincoln, at his luxurious bungalow on the grounds of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and in Palm Springs. He also escorted her to San Simeon, the exclusive mountaintop castle of the press baron, William Randolph Hearst and his actress/mistress, blonde-haired and vivacious Marion Davies.

  [Reagan eventually retreated from his affair with Travis, surrendering her to Annenberg. There were no hard feelings. In fact, Annenberg and the woman he eventually married, Leonore Cohn, became best friends with Reagan and Nancy.

  After Annenberg convinced Reagan to switch his allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republicans, he arranged for his friend’s first big break: a job as the host of TV’s General Electric Theater from 1954 to 1961. He later encouraged Reagan to enter politics and subsequently became one of his biggest campaign contributors.

  Reagan, with his wife Nancy, often spent New Year’s Eve with the Annenbergs at Sunnylands, their palatial winter estate in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs. “Although born Jewish, Walter and Leonore, whom we called Lee, did not practice Judaism. Nancy and I often celebrated Easter and Christmas with them,” Reagan said.

  By this time, Annenberg was a publisher, owning The Philadelphia Inquirer, Seventeen magazine, and the popular TV Guide. As a philanthropist, he donated $2 billion during the course of his lifetime to educational institutions and art galleries.

  Richard Nixon appointed Annenberg ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1969 to 1974. It was Annenberg who introduced Reagan to Britain’s “Iron Lady,” Margaret Thatcher.

  At a reception, President Reagan welcomes his chief backers, the Annenbergs. Reagan later said, “I was never happier than when I rode around Palm Springs on Walter’s golf cart.”

  After Reagan’s election as U.S. president, he appointed Leonore as the U.S. State Department’s Chief of Protocol.]

  ***

  William Hopper, cast in a small role in Love Is on the Air, was an engaging and extremely handsome actor, the only child of singer and comic stage actor, DeWolf Hopper, Jr., and actress Hedda Hopper. His mother would become a famous Hollywood gossip columnist, the rival of Louella Parsons.

  William is best remembered today for playing detective Paul Drake in more than 250 episodes of TV’s long-running Perry Mason series. He is also known for his role as the father of the Natalie Wood character in James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

  William had made his film debut when he was one year old. His father had cast him in his 1916 silent movie, Sunshine Dad. Hedda divorced DeWolf in 1922, and subsequently moved from New York to Hollywood with her son.

  For William, his role in Love Is On the Air was a bit of a comedown, since in the same year (1937), he’d been Jane Wyman’s leading man in Public Wedding, a picture also directed by Nick Grinde. During the shooting of that film, he’d escorted Jane on two dates. William also had a major role that same year, co-starring with Ann Sheridan in The Footloose Heiress. He had also dated Sheridan, mainly for publicity purposes, hoping that their photos would appear in the newspapers.

  Ironically, therefore, William Hopper bears the double-barreled honor of having dated Ronald Reagan’s future wife, and his longest and most enduring mistress (Ann Sheridan) too.

  Voyeuristically, Grinde watched the burgeoning friendship between Reagan and William. “The boy had stars in his eyes every time Ronnie walked onto the set,” Grinde recalled. “All of us knew that William was a homosexual—all of us except Ronnie. William dated women as camouflage to conceal his sexual proclivities. He‘d later marry twice and serve heroically as a Navy frogman during World War II, bu
t he was always known in Hollywood for having a boyfriend on the side. As William got older, the boyfriends got younger.”

  At one point, William introduced Reagan to his mother, Hedda, who would become his future political ally. In 1937, Reagan was still a New Deal Democrat, and he interpreted Hedda’s opinions as “politically to the right of Attila the Hun.”

  Hedda Hopper, the vindictive “Hellion of Hollywood,” photographed in a rare instance without a hat.

  Hedda’s son, William Hopper, who worked with Reagan on his first picture, is seen here as Paul Drake on Perry Mason, the TV series.

  She liked Reagan and told him, “I’m glad to see my boy Billy running around with a real red-blooded American boy and not one of those queers who are always chasing after him.”

  At the time Reagan met Hedda, her lackluster movie career had nose-dived into cinematic oblivion. “I need a new gig,” she told him. To find another source of income, she was developing a new career as a gossip columnist, something she was adept at. On Valentine’s Day of 1938, her first column, “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood,” would make its debut in the Los Angeles Times.

  In Reagan’s first picture, Love Is on the Air, he appeared with young William Hopper (left). To his chagrin, Reagan learned that he was “becoming the dreamboat of Hopper’s sexual fantasies.”

  William invited Reagan for a weekend of boating offshore from Catalina Island, where his mother had arranged, through a friend, for their occupancy of a small vacation cottage.

  Much of that weekend remains a mystery, although Grinde later shed some light on what happened: “Ronnie was incredibly naïve at the time about the ways of Hollywood,” Grinde said. “He didn’t know it, but William was actually ‘dating’ him, even though they were taking out two girls at the time. William’s real goal involved seducing Ronnie and making him his lover. Hedda’s son really had the hots for Ronnie.”