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

by Darwin Porter

  By now, Jack Warner no longer opposed his publicity department’s policy of posing Reagan with the most beautiful women on the Warners lot for cheesecake photographs. Instead of spoiling his clean cut image, Warner felt it enhanced his sex appeal. He ordered more of the same.

  It was at this same time that the studio mogul picked up on the refrain, calling Reagan “A better swordsman on the Warners’ lot than Errol Flynn.”

  He also wanted Reagan to systematically escort Warners starlets to premieres, events where they’d be widely photographed. When Hayward heard that he’d be escorting other women on studio-arranged “dates,” she warned him: “Make sure you escort them and nothing else.”

  Ironically, she, too, was ordered to encourage photo ops with rising young male stars, so she came to realize it was strictly business.

  Stubbornly, Reagan had not listened to Joan Blondell’s mandate about keeping his hands off her younger sister, Gloria. He didn’t listen to Hayward’s mandate, either.

  Soon, the publicity department notified him that he’d be Lana Turner’s date at the next Warners’ premiere.

  ***

  Wearing a dinner jacket borrowed from Warners’ wardrobe department, Reagan, with his hair slicked back, took a taxi to retrieve the starlet Lana Turner, at her home, as part of the process of escorting her to the world premiere of Jezebel (1938), starring Bette Davis and Henry Fonda.

  The date was March 7, 1938. Months before, Jack Warner had bowed out of the competition for the film rights to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. Subsequently, they’d been sold to David O. Selznick for just $50,000.

  Might it have happened? At least in the talking stage, there arose the possibility of casting Gary Cooper as Rhett Butler and Ronald Reagan as Ashey Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939).

  [At Jezebel’s premiere, Davis was still fuming over her loss of the role of Scarlett O’Hara. Reagan, however, was more philosophical: “I had long ago accepted the fact that I was not going to play Ashley Wilkes, the Southern gentleman,” Reagan said. “The part was better cast with this British actor, Leslie Howard, with Gable as Rhett Butler.”

  In releasing its own Civil War epic, Jack Warner was hoping to capitalize off the growing fame of Gone With the Wind by “striking first.” Selznick had already accused Warner of plagiarizing Gone With the Wind. When Jezebel was released, Time magazine claimed that it resembled the Mitchell novel like “chicory to coffee.”

  Long before Vivien Leigh came onto the screen as Scarlett O’Hara, Davis in Jezebel was hailed by Warner’s publicity machine as “The Most Exciting Heroine Who Ever Lived and Loved in Dixie!”]

  Reagan arrived at a modest little apartment on Highland Avenue, above Hollywood Boulevard. It was a neighborhood filled with low-rent apartments, catering mostly to transients who had flocked to Hollywood to break into the movie business.

  When he knocked on Turner’s door, it was opened by director Mervyn LeRoy, who had discovered Turner and cast her in the now notorious opening scene of They Won’t Forget (1937), where she played a young girl in a sweater who becomes a murder victim. LeRoy offered Reagan a drink.

  He congratulated LeRoy on his casting of Turner in They Won’t Forget, for a Warners release. Her appearance in the film had created a sensation, especially her bouncing bosom, which earned her an appellation as “the Sweater Girl.”

  “Lana signed a contract just four days after she turned sixteen,” LeRoy claimed. “When I first met her, she was so nervous, her hands were shaking. She didn’t have on any makeup, and she was so shy, she could not look me in the face. But there was something endearing about her. I thought she was the right gal to play a murder victim. I wanted to call her Lenore Turner or Lurlene Turner, but she came up with ‘Lana’ on her own.”

  For some reason, perhaps because he was overstocked with beautiful young women, Reagan had been somewhat reluctant to date Turner. He asked the publicists at Warners, “Do I have to go to the premiere of Jezebel?”

  “No, but you’ll be hanging out a lot longer at Warners if you do,” the publicist had responded.

  From the bedroom of her apartment, Turner emerged looking dazzling in a white gown borrowed from the wardrobe department at Warners. Reagan looked stunned when introduced. He finally said, “You’re the most beautiful gal I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’re not bad yourself, buster,” she replied.

  Like Reagan, she had emerged from origins in a small town, having been born in the mining hamlet of Wallace, Idaho. She was almost eighteen when she first met Reagan. After she kissed LeRoy goodbye, she headed out the door with Reagan.

  Years later, in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Turner recalled her first date with Reagan to author Darwin Porter. “He said I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, but he was not the best looking man I’d ever seen. I mean, he was handsome but not a beauty contest winner. I found him very appealing, with the most wonderful manners, and he knew how to treat a lady. He made me feel grown up even though I was only a teenager, around eighteen at the time.”

  He complimented her on They Won’t Forget.

  “Oh, please,” she said. “Don’t bring that up. I’m still embarrassed. My mother, Mildred Turner, told me I move with coltish grace, sinuously, undulating. But all I saw on that screen was those jiggling jugs of mine. The boys in the theater whistled and catcalled. I scrooched down in my seat in embarrassment. Later, I fled from the theater in horror. As I walked along, I tried to keep anything from bouncing.”

  He had rented a taxi to take her to the theater, because he felt that his own car was too battered to show up at a premiere with such a glamorous star.

  “I hear that Jezebel is an unashamed rip-off of Gone With the Wind, even though Selznick’s movie hasn’t yet been released,” he said.

  “Like everyone else, I read Gone With the Wind, but I knew I could never play Scarlett,” she said to him. “It wasn’t right for me. But Warners sent me over to MGM to do a screen test. I was embarrassed to learn that a great director like George Cukor had been assigned to the test. I rushed through it as quickly as I could, both Cukor and I knowing that nothing would come of it.”

  [Years later, Turner was deeply embarrassed when screen tests, including hers, of actresses wanting to be cast as Scarlett were shown on TV. “I was held up to ridicule,” she lamented at the time.]

  Before arriving at the premiere, Turner turned to Reagan and gripped his hand. “I’m afraid! All eyes will be on us. Deep down, I’m still a frightened little girl. But when that car door opens, I’ll try to camouflage my insecurities by throwing my head up high in the air and walking along the red carpet like I own Tinseltown.”

  At the theater, a pedestrian walkway had been built above the traffic of the boulevard in front. A reporter for The New York Times later wrote that “Lana Turner on the arm of Ronald Reagan made a dazzling appearance crossing the bridge of stars, even though they aren’t stars yet. Klieg lights brightened the night sky over Hollywood, as hundreds of fans showed up.”

  After the premiere, where the night and most of its credits belonged to Bette Davis, Reagan invited Turner to dinner. He was happily surprised that she enjoyed the same type of food that he did: Hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, barbecued ribs, and spaghetti with meatballs.

  When their food was served, she removed a bottle of chili peppers from her purse. She sprinkled it over the ribs, telling him that she was convinced that it removed toxins from one’s body.

  What happened after dinner has grown hazy in Hollywood lore, with various versions repeated, most of them inaccurate.

  On the golf course the following Sunday, Reagan confided to Dick Powell that, “Lana is just as oversexed as I am. I spent the night with her after seeing Jezebel, and I hope it’ll be the beginning of many more nights to come. I’ve got to slip around, though, because I don’t want Susan Hayward to find out.”

  In riding costumes, Lana Turner poses with Ronald Reagan for publicity shots. His friend, Di
ck Powell, later revealed, “Lana was one of Ronnie’s grandest conquests, a flamoyant feather in his cap.”

  Later, Lana denied the affair, probably because of her friendship with Nancy Davis.

  Edmund Morris, Reagan’s official biographer, noted, “Dutch was not yet a one-girl guy. He was soon seen squiring dishy Lana Turner around town, joking that he ‘wasn’t acting’ in her company.”

  His pursuit of Turner was made easier when Warners’ publicity department asked them to pose for pictures together for distribution nationwide.

  “Lana and I did whatever the studio wanted us to do,” Reagan later said. “Put on our clothes, take off our clothes. Susan would kill me if she ever heard me say this, but Lana looks hotter in a bathing suit than she does.”

  When Lana Turner walked down the street in They Won’t Forget (1937), she was dubbed “the Sweater Girl” and became an overnight sensation. She always claimed she wore a bra; viewers of the movie doubted that.

  At the movie’s preview, a young man in the audience yelled out, to almost universal applause: “Get a load of that kid! Whatta pair of tits!”

  Late one morning, Reagan, in his battered car, drove Turner to the Warners ranch outside Los Angeles, where they would be photographed together in riding costumes. An expert horseman, he taught her how to ride.

  That night, back at her apartment, she cooked a meal for him, filet mignon coated with cracked peppercorns, lots of salt, and mustard. He was no longer surprised when she sprinkled hot sauce over it. “Too much sauce gives me the runs,” he said. “You must have a cast-iron stomach.” He also noted that she was “the world’s slowest eater, chomping down on a piece of steak for at least fifteen minutes before swallowing it.”

  News of the Reagan/Turner affair eventually reached Wayne Morris at Warners. One afternoon, he confronted Reagan in the commissary. “What is this shit about you moving in on Lana? Before you, I was taking advantage of the big crush she had on me.”

  “Isn’t Priscilla Lane enough for you?” Reagan said.

  “Isn’t Susan Hayward enough for you?” Morris asked.

  “Touché,” Reagan answered.

  In her memoirs, Lana—The Lady, The Legend, The Truth, she was discreet. She did recall posing for pictures with Reagan, defining him as “a nice young man,” but provided no other insights.

  In his memoirs, Reagan didn’t even mention her.

  ***

  A friendly young reporter from Des Moines visited Reagan at Warners. He had seen pictures of him posing with Turner, and he asked what it was like for a local boy to find himself dating glamour queens.

  “Miss Turner is an actress of natural beauty that gets worked over by the studio makeup department that creates a make-believe character for her. She is very down to earth, kind and considerate. Young girls across America, so I’m told, are trying to imitate her. Of course, Hollywood publicists like to rewrite her story. If a girl gets a high school diploma, it suddenly appears in print that she’s got a doctorate. If she spends all Saturday afternoon in the beauty parlor, that isn’t talked about. Magazines and newspapers print that she spends all her spare time helping homeless refugees from Europe.”

  Reagan would have more or less agreed with Patrick Agan’s conclusion in The Decline and Fall of the Love Goddesses. “To millions, the Love Goddesses were surrogate mistresses, ladies of incredible beauty who afford at least a visual satisfaction that men were able to indulge in even in the company of their wives. The Love Goddesses were an inspiration, Everests of glamour for both men and women.”

  Now there’s a movie star! A view of Lana Turner in 1947, during her filming of Green Dolphin Street.

  After Reagan had been elected to the Oval Office, author Darwin Porter met with Turner in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel. “Now that Ronnie is President, the press is always asking me about my former relationship with him,” she said. “Somebody wrote that I didn’t even remember dating him—that is pure crap! Of course, I remembered him. I’ve even been asked to describe what kind of lover he is. I’ll never tell, but I’ll give you a hint. He’s a man who likes to take his time, unlike another future President of the United States I used to know.”

  “I liked Ronnie right from the beginning, and we became friends. Later, I got to know Nancy Davis when she was a starlet at MGM. After she married Ronnie, I visited their home on many occasions.”

  “I recall one very formal party I attended with Ronnie in the mid-50s,” she said. “I was still trying to hold onto my beauty, but for the first time, I realized that he’d lost his looks. His face had aged a lot. That Midwestern farm boy appeal of his had faded with my romance with Artie Shaw. He still had that beautiful head of hair, perhaps dyed, but he had begun to look the way he did when he was governor of California.”

  “I liked Nancy, but detested Jane Wyman,” Turner continued. “I first met her when we were both starlets at Warners. Later, for the 1982-83 season, I appeared with her on TV in Falcon Crest. After an initial introduction and a chat, she didn’t even speak to me. She always resented my beauty. Not only that, but she learned that I had dated Reagan before she got her claws into him. She was one icy cold bitch.”

  Turner’s daughter, Cheryl Crane, wrote: “After Reagan became President, mother couldn’t help but think of him as that young guy from Warners. When she met him after the election, she said, ‘Well, if it isn’t El Presidente.’”

  Along with a handful of other movie stars, Lana Turner joined that very exclusive club of women who had been seduced by both Reagan and John F. Kennedy.

  ***

  When director Lloyd Bacon called Reagan with his next film assignment, Cowboy from Brooklyn (1938), the actor was disappointed when he learned of his role. After starring parts, he’d been demoted to seventh billing. “You wouldn’t exactly call this climbing the ladder to success, now would you?” Reagan asked Bacon, who answered with a vague overview about how stardom isn’t always achieved overnight.

  The stars of the picture were Dick Powell, Pat O’Brien, Priscilla Lane, and Dick Foran, with Ann Sheridan and Johnnie Davis in supporting roles.

  The plot for Cowboys from Brooklyn spoofed cowboy singing stars such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Although he’s afraid of animals, Brooklyn-born Elly Jordan (as played by Powell) becomes a singing cowboy at a dude ranch in Wyoming owned by Ma and Pop Hardy. Their daughter (as played by Lane) teaches him the ways of the West and also falls in love with him.

  O’Brien and Reagan were cast as two Broadway hustlers looking for their next meal ticket. At the dude ranch, they discover the so-called singing cowboy and sign him to a radio contract. Typical of a 1930s comedy, complications inevitably follow as part of the light and fluffy plot.

  O’Brien had become a sort of father figure to Reagan, who was all too aware that this tough-talking Irishman was a scene stealer. On screen, he was a fast talker. To counter that, in his scenes with him, Reagan spoke slowly and softly. “Bacon failed to tell me that I was screwing up every scene,” he complained. “Without my knowledge, he was cutting my scenes and rewriting them, putting them into the mouths of other members of the cast.”

  One day, Elisabeth Risdon, a veteran English character actress, invited Reagan to lunch in the commissary. Before approaching the subject of his failure as an actor, she told him about herself.

  During the filming, Pat O’Brien (right) invited Reagan to become a member of the “Irish Mafia,” an informal clique which pointedly excluded Jews like Edward G. Robinson

  Born in London in 1887, she had originally played beautiful society ladies. She spoke of her affair with George Bernard Shaw, who had cast her in some of his best plays. “I was once the leading lady to George Arliss,” she said. “That long, bony face of his was such a turn-off for me, but I thought of God and country when he kissed me. I decided that a love scene with him was something to endure, like a kidney stone.”

  She finally got around to telling him what was going wrong with all his scenes with O�
��Brien. “Pat’s got this high-pitched, rather nasal speedball patter. He comes on like he’s announcing that the building is on fire. Then you speak and you send the plot to the cellar with your slow drawl. Then he comes in again, with just a hint of Irish brogue, and he has to pick up the pace after you’ve put the audience to sleep. You seem to have trouble keeping up with the movie’s race-to-the-finish comic pacing.”

  Elisabeth Risdon in 1941... Teaching Reagan how to act.

  Heeding her advice, Reagan met privately in O’Brien’s dressing room. Without the director’s knowledge, O’Brien walked him through their next scene, telling him exactly how to play it opposite him.

  In the next scene, after his coaching from O’Brien, Reagan was called upon to enter Grand Central Station in New York City to face the press. With a straw hat and cane, he did a carnival shill to introduce singing cowboy Powell. When Bacon called for action, “I came through like gangbusters,” Reagan later wrote. “I bounced the cane off the floor, caught it in mid-air, and launched into my pitch. Bacon didn’t have to give my lines away anymore.”

  These two Irishmen, O’Brien and Reagan, bonded so well that Reagan was invited to become a member of the “Irish Mafia” clique in the commissary. “If you got invited to their table, you’d arrived,” Reagan said. “On any given day, you could dine with Dick (Powell), Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Frank McHugh. Edward G. Robinson wanted to join us, but Pat rejected him for being ‘too Jewish.’”

  One afternoon, when they weren’t needed on the set, Reagan and Powell remained behind for extra cups of coffee. Powell appeared to be going through a career crisis. “I feel trapped by my Warners contract. How long can I go on playing a crooning man-boy? God damn it to hell and back, I was born in 1904. It’ll soon be 1940. I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore.”