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

by Darwin Porter

  He soon forgave Flynn, mostly because of De Havilland’s urging: “Errol can’t help being Errol.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Reagan said.

  The very next afternoon, between takes, Flynn was talking with Reagan again, yesterday’s embarrassment seemingly forgotten.

  “I want to be taken seriously,” Flynn said. “I feel I’m inwardly serious, thoughtful, even tormented, but in practice I yield to the fatuous, the nonsensical. I allow myself to be understood abroad as a colorful fragment in a drab world.”

  Later, Reagan would write in his first memoir, “Errol was a strange person, terribly unsure of himself, and needlessly so. He was a beautiful piece of machinery, likable, with great charm, and yet convinced he lacked ability as an actor. As a result, he was conscious of every minute of scenes favoring other actors and their positions on the screen in relation to himself. He was apparently unaware of his own striking personality.”

  As a means of proving his point, Reagan recalled an all-night shoot at the Warner ranch. “My fellow actors and I were sitting around the campfire with Errol. I was right next to him, and he asked Curtiz to move me. I was placed behind two actors taller than me. My face would barely show in the shot—in effect, there would be only a glimpse of me. But I set out to protect myself. During rehearsal, I secretly piled up a mound of loose earth with my feet. When the cameras rolled, I quietly moved to the top of my newly created gopher mound so that my head showed above the two actors in front of me. I then dropped my one line like the gentle rain from heaven on the heads of the tall ones in front.”

  Ava Gardner: At a party, Mickey Rooney described this sultry star to Reagan. “She has big brown nipples which, when aroused, stand out like some double-long, golden California raisins.”

  But when Reagan saw the final version, he was horrified. Flynn had demanded that Reagan’s only line, uttered from the top of a low mound next to the campfire, be cut.

  Late one afternoon, a luscious Tarheel beauty from North Carolina arrived on the set. Ava Gardner introduced herself to Reagan. She had arrived to meet Flynn, who had promised to take her to Palm Springs for the weekend.

  She told him, “If I were a man in a picture with Errol Flynn, I’d be terrified—the competition would be too great. He’s probably the most beautiful man I’ve ever dated. He has a perfect body—one that’s at home in a swimsuit or on a horse. Actually, The Perfect Specimen (did you catch his movie?) looks better with no clothes on at all. He’s fun, gallant, well mannered, and with a sense of humor. When he walks into a dark room, it’s like a light being turned on. He drinks too much, and he fucks too much, but he’s got style, honeychile. Real style.”

  Before heading off to Flynn’s dressing room, she kissed Reagan on the cheek. “Give Ava a call some night. I might help liberate you. I’ve been known to turn many a square into a bouncing ball.”

  During the shoot, Reagan couldn’t believe how vicious Curtiz was. The Hungarian threw a fit when he learned that he had to use a dummy instead of Massey’s real body during his hanging scnee. “Wardrobe knows how to put choke to protect Massey’s neck. Maybe he won’t really hang, maybe. I don’t want god damn dummy. But Warner moron insists.”

  When the filming began, an elderly actor playing the minister stood on the scaffold with Massey, who would then disappear as a ségué shot showed the dummy dangling. Curtiz kept yelling, again and again, for the elderly actor to step back. After he screamed to step back a final time, the older actor fell off the scaffold, a vertical distance of twelve feet.

  “That ruthless tyrant, Curtiz, walked over and looked down at the actor, who was in agonizing pain, and crying out for help,” Reagan said. “He’d broken his leg. Curtiz took one look at him and then yelled at his production assistant, ‘Get me another god damn minister!’”

  A handsome young actor, Gene Reynolds, played Jason Brown, John Brown’s son. In a scene, as he lay dying, Errol Flynn bends over him, offering him loving comfort. When Warners’ released a publicity still of Reynolds together with Flynn, Lundigan was furious. “Hell, Errol, you look like you’re playing a love scene with Reynolds. I bet you want him more than you want me.”

  Flynn rushed to Lundigan’s side to assure him that “You’re my one and only.”

  During the second week of the shoot, Reagan was introduced to a young beauty, Susan Peters (formerly known as Suzanne Carnahan) from Spokane. Spotted by a talent scout, she had recently been given a contract at Warners.

  Although the script of Santa Fe Trail ordained that Reagan would lose De Havilland before the end of the movie, it called for him to be introduced to “the right girl” and for him to subsequently fall for the character played by Peters. He found her a lovely girl, and befriended her, and she seemed to view him as a kind of father figure, although he was only a decade or so older than her.

  During the months ahead, after the picture was finished, Peters continued to call Reagan for advice. She felt lost and lonely in Hollywood, and he offered her reassurance.

  In 1942, in a panic, she came to him after Warners’ failed to renew her contract. Consequently, he advised her to go to MGM. Within weeks, she had a contract with Metro, which had offered her a role in Greer Garson’s Random Harvest (1942). [This film eventually brought Peters an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress.]

  The doomed and very depressed Susan Peters turned to Reagan as a father figure, not as a lover.

  [For Peters, at least, triumph was followed by tragedy. She had married Richard Quine, the film actor and director. On January 1, 1945, he had invited her to go duck hunting with him. During the hunt, his rifle accidentally discharged and a bullet lodged in Peters’ spinal cord.

  When Reagan visited her in the hospital, he learned from her doctor that she would be permanently paralyzed, and that she’d have to live in a wheelchair.

  Because of her physical limitations, she appeared in only a few productions after that. (One of them was a role in a regional production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.) In 1952, she died at the age of 31. Doctors noted that her death was hastened by starvation and dehydration because Peters’ had “lost interest” in eating and drinking, and had lost the will to live.]

  The shooting schedule of Santa Fe Trail took place in the oppressive heat of midsummer, the temperature often soaring to 110°F. The men were dressed in heavy military uniforms, the women in long 19th-century dresses. One location was Sun Valley in the arid Santa Susanna Mountains, a short distance north of Los Angeles. Stars and first-tier cast members were housed in small cabins. There weren’t enough cabins for singles, so even the stars doubled up, Flynn sharing his cabin with Lundigan. The extras and crew slept dormitory style.

  William Hopper, Hedda’s son, had been assigned an uncredited role in the film as a military officer. When he arrived on the set, he informed the production assistant making housing assignments that he was Reagan’s closest friend, and that he wanted to share his cabin.

  Reagan had continued his friendship with William and occasionally went out with him, but he felt uncomfortable sharing such small quarters with him. William made it even worse when he told Reagan, “My passion for you has continued unabated.”

  “Get over it!” Reagan cautioned him.

  “I won’t get over it until my curiosity is satisfied,” William said.

  “If you think having sex with me one time will satisfy you, you’re wrong. It would only whet your appetite. You’d be begging me every night for more.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” William said.

  The two men slept peacefully in a double bed, and William respected Reagan’s privacy and did not move in on him during the night.

  The next morning, Reagan woke up hot and sweaty and headed for the shower. He turned on the cold water. When he emerged, William, in his underwear, was sitting on the toilet, holding up a bath towel for him.

  “What the hell?” Reagan said. “Get out of here.”

  “You mean I can
’t even look? What harm is that causing?”

  “None, I guess,” Reagan said, taking the towel. “Look, but don’t touch.”

  “You really know how to break a guy’s heart,” William said.

  He faced more disappointment when he went to a screening of the final cut of Santa Fe Trail. His only scene had been removed from the narrative.

  During location shooting, some of the staff suffered injuries. Flynn got a saber cut on his thigh, and Massey’s right leg was seared with a blank cartridge. Some of the horses also suffered leg injuries and had to be put down, which prompted an investigation by the ASPCA.

  At the end of the shoot, Flynn, against Reagan’s wishes, gave him a kiss on the mouth. Reagan wanted to pull away, but didn’t want to antagonize Flynn, since he’d learned that they might be co-starring soon in another picture together.

  He would later tell Jane, “Now I know how a woman feels when she suffers unwanted attention from the male animal.”

  “You live in Hollywood,” Jane said. “Get used to it. Every third guy here is a homo.”

  Reagan did not attend the film’s premiere in Santa Fe, but De Havilland accompanied Flynn. Warners sent three men from their publicity department to ensure that their star stayed sober for the premiere. They did not succeed. On the night of the big event, Flynn showed up drunk.

  When the film opened across the country, it was a big success, earning some one and a half million dollars, a lot of money in the early 40s.

  Reviews were mixed. The highly critical Bosley Crowther of The New York Timeshad faint praise: “It’s got everything that a high-priced soap opera should have—hard riding, hard shooting, hard fighting, and a bit of hard drinking by Errol Flynn.”

  Variety weighed in with slight praise for Reagan, claiming, “He also scores.”

  He was annoyed by a review written by Charles Whittaker. “Ronald Reagan recedes into the scenery when confronted with Errol Flynn’s charismatic and magnetic on-screen personality.”

  Many critics noted that politically, the movie seemed to reflect a Southern point of view, with Brown cast as a villain. Another noted that “blacks are depicted as wide-eyed simpleton Sambos. However, Reagan’s Custer seems more sympathetic to Brown wanting to rid America of slavery.”

  [In later years, Santa Fe Trail is often confused with another loosely historic Flynn movie, They Died With Their Boots On (1941). Directed by Raoul Walsh, it represented the eighth and final film collaboration of Flynn with Olivia de Havilland. In this release—in vivid contrast to Santa Fe Trail—Flynn portrayed General George Armstrong Custer in a not historically accurate rundown of his life and career, including a heroic spin on his last stand, and death, in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

  In 1968, United Artists Television, the owner of the copyright for Santa Fe Trail, did not renew it, and the Flynn/Reagan movie entered the public domain.]

  Reagan learned that after the premiere of Santa Fe Trail, Flynn invited Lundigan and some other friends to go on what he defined as a “Good Will Tour” of Central and South America. The exact venue of that tour would be hotly disputed for decades to come.

  Among Flynn supporters, it was said that he was on a spying mission for British intelligence. His detractors, however, including author Charles Higham, claimed that he was meeting with foreign agents, especially in Buenos Aires, turning over secret information to the Nazis.

  As a film star, Flynn was invited by various U.S. ambassadors to visit American Army and Navy installations.

  As part of his South American tour, Flynn took along his pimp, Johnny Meyer, also known for working for Howard Hughes. On what became defined as Flynn’s “chicken hawk” tour, Meyer rounded up beautiful boys and girls in the twelve-to-fourteen year old bracket. They were invited aboard Flynn’s yacht for sex orgies.

  Lundigan later told his gay friends, “Usually Errol has to go to Mexico for such pleasures. Hell, in the States, he could be charged with statutory rape.”

  Reagan later discussed these rumors about Flynn with key administrators of the Screen Actors Guild. “I don’t trust Flynn,” Reagan told the board. “Never did, never will. I think he’s capable of almost anything, at least in sexual terms. But thinking of this Aussie as a Nazi spy is a bit much for me, although he does have a number of suspicious friends.”

  ***

  In a phone call to Paulette Goddard, Jane Wyman was ecstatic. “I can’t believe my good luck,” Jane said. “Although I don’t like Ray Enright as a director, the bastard called to tell me I’m going to co-star with my dream man, Dennis Morgan, in this thing called Bad Men of Missouri (1941). Of course, Wayne Morris is in the picture, too, but I can keep him at bay. Tell me, am I going to break my marriage vows?”

  “Such vows are made to be broken,” Goddard claimed. “Imagine pledging to be faithful to just one man. It’s inhuman. I’m sure Ronnie is slipping around on the side since he’s always surrounded by all these beauties at Warners’.”

  “Do you really think so?” Jane asked.

  Not all men from Missouri (the “Show-Me-State”) are bad: In the photo above, Wyman appears with Wayne Morris (left) and Dennis Morgan, each of whom were or would become her lover.

  “The only faithful husband in Hollywood is my dear Charlie [Chaplin],” Goddard claimed.

  “Now you’re being sarcastic, my dear,” Jane said.

  “Keep me posted on this Morgan thing,” Goddard said. “And pray that he doesn’t have a small dick. I’ve been so disappointed by these so-called Hollywood studs—Clark Gable and John Wayne come to mind. Of course, Charlie makes up for it. Right now, he’s sleeping with this blonde bitch, Carole Landis. I think your Ronnie knows her. Watch out for her! On a movie set, she’s known as ‘Legs Apart’ Landis.”

  Jane’s script was sent over to her that afternoon. As usual, Bad Men of Missouri was a disappointment to her. It told the story of the Younger brothers who, enraged by carpetbaggers infringing on the war-ravaged American South, move to the lawless frontier in this fictional western. They include Cole (Dennis Morgan); Bob (Wayne Morris); and the very talented Arthur Kennedy, cast as Jim. Jim is in love with Mary Hathaway, the character played by Jane. Ohio-born Alan Baxter had been hired to play a ruthless Jesse James.

  After reading the script, Jane felt that its writer “should be horsewhipped. I have to repeat lines to the Younger brothers like, ‘They say you did a lot of bad things—but a lot of good things, too.’ I get to kick Walter Catlett in the shins and call Victor Jory a ‘no good, low-down carpetbagger.’”

  When Jane reported to wardrobe, she learned that she was to wear a snood and shapeless gingham dresses in many of her scenes. “I’d dyed my hair a whorish blonde, but it was to be hidden in some scenes with a bonnet. Actually, a snood was coming back into fashion since women were using them to secure their hair when working with machinery in defense plants.”

  When she met the film’s scriptwriter, Charles Grayson, she protested, “I wish you’d given me something more to do. I’m playing second fiddle to a bunch of men who outnumber me by a thousand to one. Now and then, amidst all that gunfire, I’m permitted a meow or two. I get to look through a window as the rain comes down. I get to shake the hand of Dennis Morgan. Imagine with Dennis in the movie, you cast Kennedy as my lover. Who in hell is going to believe that? Wayne Morris would be better as a lover than Kennedy. Kennedy’s very average looking—not the kind of guy a girl would go for when hunks like Dennis and Wayne are in the picture.”

  When she met her on-screen boyfriend, he introduced himself as “John Kennedy” of Massachusetts. “I thought Grayson said your name was Arthur Kennedy.”

  “It is,” he said. “But I haven’t gotten used to it yet. Arthur, which is my middle name, is my new billing. Up to now, I’ve billed myself as John Kennedy.”

  He had just appeared with James Cagney, playing his brother in City for Conquest (1940). “Jimmy discovered me. He likes to discover young men.” He sighed. “To each his own.”

&n
bsp; [This was not the only picture Jane would make with Arthur Kennedy. In their future lay Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.]

  Enright appeared with Victor Jory, introducing the actor to Jane. He’d been cast in their upcoming movie as the villain, William Merrick, a crooked banker who buys warrants on back taxes and then dispossesses farmers and their families. As the plot unfolds, the Younger brothers set out to avenge his misdeeds. Their father, Henry Younger (Russell Simpson), had been killed by Merrick’s henchman. The brothers then begin a series of bank and train robberies, often stealing from Merrick, before turning their loot over to the impoverished farmers.

  Jane congratulated Jory on his success playing Jonas Wilkerson, the brutal and opportunistic overseer in Gone With the Wind. “I don’t think I can ever forgive you for being so mean to Scarlett,” Jane said. “You were such a bastard. I think you’re terrible.”

  “You won’t believe that when I started out, I was cast in romantic leads,” Jory said. “Then directors got a glimpse of my coal-black and threatening eyes. I’ve been the bad guy ever since.”

  Jane also met actor Howard da Silva, thinking he was Portuguese. He corrected that impression. “I was born to Bertha and Benjamin Silverblatt, two Yiddish-speaking Jews in Cleveland. I have no relatives in Brazil or Portugal. I just liked the sound of Da Silva.”

  [She would later work with Da Silva and Ray Milland during her breakthrough role in The Lost Weekend at the end of the war.]

  Jane was intrigued with Faye Emerson, a Southern belle who would later marry into the First Family at the White House. By the end of the 1940s, she would become “The First Lady of Television.” Reagan was soon to work with her in one of his future movies, and he’d get to know her far better than Jane did.

  Although Emerson had married a naval aviator, William Crawford, she was known to be sleeping around. She aroused Jane’s jealousy by making a play for Morgan, who spurned her advances. When she didn’t get him, she pursued Morris, finding him an easy conquest. Jane saw her leaving Morris’ dressing room on several occasions.