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

by Darwin Porter

  Sexual innuendo, censorship, film noir, Betty Grable, A corrupt NYPD, and Victor Mature

  “I think the same thing will happen to ShirleyTemple,” he answered. “She lacks the talent to endure as an adult star.”

  After Reagan had helped cool Grable’s rage about Landis, he suggested they go inside. Over a second drink, he confessed that he’d learned that Jane was having an affair with John Payne, with whom Grable had worked before.

  She did not look surprised. “John and I had an affair when we made Tin Pan Alley (1940), and, years before that, we were a singing duet on a 15-minute daily show for CBS. Like you and Jane, John and that wife of his, Anne Shirley, are written up as ‘The Perfect Couple,’ but we both know that that isn’t true. Both of them cheated on each other all the time.”

  “John plans to do what Gable did at MGM—that is, seduce all the beautiful leading ladies like you did at Warners. Not just me, but Linda Darnell, too. Now, he’s making Sun Valley Serenade. When she’s not on her skates, Sonja Henie summons him to do the dirty deed. I suspect he’s already had Alice Faye, and he’s got Gene Tierney in his sights right now, too. His thing with your Jane will be over before it really begins.”

  “I certainly hope so,” he said. “I’m worried. Payne is a tough act to follow. I have doubts I can’t satisfy Jane the way he does.”

  “Have no doubts,” she assured him. “You do just fine. That reminds me.” She got up and excused herself, appearing fifteen minutes later in a see-through black négligée. “Let’s quit talking about all these other hunks and hussies, and get down to the main attraction of this fast-fading afternoon—you and me, baby!”

  ***

  After the longest kiss (upper photo) in cinematic history until then, Jane told her leading man, Regis Toomey (lower photo), “Don’t even think about ever trying that again.”

  Jane would later remember her 1941 film, You’re In the Army Now, because of one scene with the Pittsburgh-born actor, Regis Toomey, who played her love interest, Captain Radcliffe. They indulged in what had been until then the longest kiss in cinematic history, lasting three minutes and five seconds, or four percent of the film’s duration.

  She later told Reagan, “Thank god our director, Lewis Seiler, didn’t call for retakes. Regis had bad breath. He must have eaten skunk meat for supper. The sacrifices I make for my career!”

  Alerted the day before the kissing scene was to be filmed, Reagan appeared on the set as an observer. Jane complained that his presence there made her uncomfortable, but her husband handled it very well, according to Toomey. At the end of the liplock, Reagan approached Toomey. “I didn’t know if he was going to punch me in the nose—or what. Actually, he was quite friendly and shook my hand. He said, ‘How did you get Jane to sit still that long’?”

  Betty Grable, the #1 pinup girl in the world.

  The film dealt with a timely topic. President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the United States would eventually enter World War II, and he had re-in-stated the draft. It became the topic of the day, as young men throughout the nation speculated on getting drafted and how it would disrupt their lives, or even end their lives.

  Warners had cast Jimmy Durante and Phil Silvers as Jeeper Smith and Breezy Jones, two vacuum cleaner salesmen who accidentally get inducted into the Army.

  Jane played “Bliss Dobson,” the daughter of Colonel Dobson (Donald MacBride), who is opposed to Jane dating Toomey. Her leading man had started out in romantic roles in 1929. His scenes with Jane would virtually be the last of those kind of parts, as he’d soon switch to character roles minus his toupée.

  Emerging from the streets of the Lower East Side of New York, Jimmy Durante was known as “Schnozzola,” because of his big nose. When Jane worked with him, he was one of the most popular comedians in America, known for his throaty way with a song, his jovial good spirits, his one-liners, and his clipped gravelly speech, along with his comic butchery of language, all of it delivered with a New York accent.

  On the surface, Durante had a bubbling, upbeat personality, yet Jane sensed a deep sadness in him. Finally, he told her the bad news. A doctor had informed him that his wife, the former Jean Olson, whom he’d married in 1921, had a serious heart ailment and had only months to live.

  [His wife died on Valentine’s Day of 1943 at the age of 46.]

  Emerging from Brooklyn, the son of Russian Jews, Phil Silvers was hailed as “The King of Chutzpah.” A veteran of vaudeville and burlesque, he’d been appearing on stage since the age of eleven. Jane found him “all frantic schtick, acting with buffoonish, idiotic behavior, even stealing scenes from Durante.”

  Although the film clearly belonged to Durante and Silvers, within its context, Jane had at least one moment in the spotlight, including the long kiss.

  In a sexy dress that revealed her legs—and as Silvers claimed, “she has beautiful gams”—Jane sang “I’m Glad My Number Was Called” for a USO show. She was followed by Silvers, who, as Jeepers, performs an Apache Dance.

  His comic behavior was just a front he put up. She discovered that most of the time, he suffered from a deep depression. Sometimes he had to be physically dragged out of his dressing room to perform on camera. He always managed to pull himself together to go through his routine.

  Jane had no trouble working with Seiler again. He’d directed her in He Couldn’t Say No (1938), and he’d also helmed Reagan in Hell’s Kitchen (1939). He told her how sorry he was that the public didn’t line up to see the other film he’d directed, Tugboat Annie Sails Again (1940), in which he’d cast Reagan and Jane as a screen team. “This new picture is a cinch,” he told her. “Silvers and Durante will direct themselves.”

  Jane reported to work every day, but often was not needed, since Silvers and Durante were monopolizing most of the scenes—two comedians and an Army tank.

  Seiler noted that during the movie’s shooting, John Payne paid many visits to Jane’s dressing room. She was getting to know the handsome actor, and liked what she learned.

  “Before hitting pay dirt at Fox, where they are building me up as a big star, I drifted around Paramount and also Warners,” he said. “They didn’t know what to do with me.”

  In 1940 alone, Payne had been cast in six films at Fox, including Star Dust, in which Linda Darnell had made her screen debut, and The Great Profile, in which John Barrymore spoofed himself during his dying days.

  “Like most Hollywood hunks, John is worried that he’ll be sucked up into the war,” Jane told Paulette Goddard.

  “If we go to war, I’m going to enlist in Army pilot training, and I hope I’ll be stationed in Long Beach, so I can continue seeing you,” he’d told Jane.

  “Instead of Errol Flynn, I get Phil Silvers (left), ‘the King of Chutzpah,’ and Jimmy Durante (right), ‘Schnozzola,’ as my leading men,” Jane (center) said. “How lucky can a gal get?”

  She said to Goddard, “John does not take acting very seriously. He views it merely as a fun job with good pay.”

  “A lot of people seem to think he’s just a pretty boy with a lot of gals fluttering around him, but he’s a real gentleman with a serious side,” Jane said. “He’s much deeper than people think or the roles he plays. I mean, he reads philosophy, stuff like that.”

  “I’ve fallen into the Robert Taylor category at MGM,” he told Jane. “Fox is building me up as the studio’s pretty boy, their rival to Taylor.”

  When Jane poured out her feelings to Lucille Ball, the actress said, “You sound like you’re in love.”

  “I am,” Jane said, “but in John’s case, love and marriage don’t necessarily go together. He told me that when he divorces that Anne Shirley thing, he may never marry again. But then again, he might. He seems very confused. Do you think I should continue sleeping with John and betraying Ronnie?”

  “Get it while you can, honey,” Ball responded. “That’s what I do, since Desi [Arnaz] is always on the road. I’m sure he knocks off a piece or two in every town in which he appears
.”

  When You’re In the Army Now was released, Jane didn’t expect good reviews, knowing that all the attention would be devoted to the manic comedy of its male leads. One reviewer did single her out, however, citing her for “playing a piquant, saucer-eyed good sport, looking like she was having some fun.” For the most part, the movie was attacked for its heavy slapstick and corny situations.

  A week later, Lloyd Bacon, the director, called her. “In our last picture, Olivia (De Havilland) had the female lead, but in my new picture, Larceny, Inc. (1942). I’m giving the female lead to you. You’re going to be the leading lady to Edward G. Robinson.”

  “In my last picture, I had a record-breaking kiss of three or so minutes. If you’re telling me I’ve got to kiss Ol’ Liver Lips for that long, I’m walking.”

  “It’s not that kind of picture,” Bacon said. “Show up on the set at 7AM tomorrow morning.”

  ***

  Before the final casting of Casablanca (1942), many actors were suggested. The drama had originated as an unpublished play, Everybody Comes to Rick’s. Stephen Karnot, the first reader at Warners, had suggested for the male lead (Rick Blaine), either Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, or George Raft, with Mary Astor cast in the female lead.

  The story was set in that Moroccan city of mystery, Casablanca, the action occurring after the fall of France, as refugees from that Nazi-occupied country gathered there, many of them waiting for exit visas.

  Karnot called it “sophisticated hokum,” but predicted, “It will play.” Based on his favorable report, Jack Warner agreed to pay $20,000 for the adaptation, the highest amount ever paid for an unproduced play.

  When the director, Michael Curtiz, read the first draft of the script, he thought that the role of Rick would be a good vehicle for Raft. The actor read the script and immediately rejected the role. He said he was tired of playing gangsters and that in his past, Rick had been a hoodlum.

  As for Hal B. Wallis, after he reviewed the script, and as he was mulling over which actors might populate it, he sent out a “trial balloon,” a list of candidates. It was published in newspapers nationwide on January 5, 1942. His tentative cast nominated Ronald Reagan as Rick, Ann Sheridan as Ilsa, and Dennis Morgan as Victor Laszlo, the Czech freedom fighter.

  [When he was in the White House, Reagan was asked if he had ever been offered the role of Rick. “It appeared as an item in The Hollywood Reporter,” he answered, “but I don’t recall ever seriously being offered the part.”

  When Ann Sheridan was asked about it, she said, “The female lead was originally to have been that of an American heiress, but the writers turned her into a Europeanwoman. I was never formally offered the role.”

  We remember it well—Casablanca: “We’ll always have Paris.” Depicted above, Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.

  Morgan corroborated his colleagues’ statements, saying, “I was never asked to play Victor Laszlo.”

  As for Raft, although some movie writers claim that he was never offered the role of Rick, Raft’s biographer, James Robert Parrish, wrote, “Warners decided to test Raft in a more or less ‘straight’ role, that of Rick Blaine, ex-smuggler and present café owner. World War II had dampened the gangster film cycle (or, more correctly, Adolf Hitler and crew becoming the new gangsters). Raft rejected the role, reportedly because he did not like the taint of ex-gangster.”

  Years later, at a casino in London, Raft—who was fully aware of Hollywood commentators who claimed that he was never offered the role of Laszlo—was asked about his inclusion in the list of possible contenders for the role of Rick in Casablanca. In response, he asserted, “Warners wanted me to play Rick, and I turned them down. Anybody who says that isn’t true is a god damn cunt!”]

  Before shooting began, Wallis changed his mind, recasting the roles with Bogie, In-grid Bergman, and Paul Henreid as the three main protagonists.

  Hedy Lamarr had lobbied for the role of Ilsa, but MGM would not release her. Actually, Bergman had not wanted the role, viewing it as a B picture, little realizing that she was the star of a movie that would be hailed as the greatest ever made, even better, in the eyes of many critics, than Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.

  When Casablanca was released in November of 1942, Reagan expressed his regrets to Dick Powell that he never got to play Rick. He stood idly by, looking on in envy as the role of Rick became a personal triumph for Bogie, establishing him as a romantic star and not just a screen villain. Casablanca brought him his first Oscar nomination, and also made him the reigning male star at the studio, “The King of Warner Brothers.”

  ***

  To his regret, Reagan ended up assigned instead to a routine sixty-three minute programmer, Nine Lives Are Not Enough (1941), to be directed by the London-born A. Edward Sutherland.

  At first, he was delighted to learn that Jane Wyman would be his leading lady, but he was later informed that she’d been assigned to another picture.

  Reagan’s first question was, “Who is going to be my new leading lady?” He was told it would be the very beautiful Joan Perry, the Florida-born New York City model, a career which had led to a Hollywood contract with Columbia 1935. She had previously appeared with such actors as Melvyn Douglas, Lew Ayres, and Ralph Bellamy. But her biggest coup involved receiving a proposal of marriage from the studio boss, the much-feared Harry Cohn.

  During the hour that the film’s director, A. Edward Sutherland, spent with Reagan on the first day, he talked more about himself than he did Reagan’s upcoming role. Arriving in Hollywood from England, he’d appeared as a bungling police officer in Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914), starring Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, and the formidable Marie Dressler. Sutherland had become known for directing comedians, claiming, “I’d rather dine on tarantula than make another movie with Stan Laurel.” However, he got along with the acerbic W.C. Fields.

  Among Sutherland’s five wives was the legendary Louise Brooks (1926-1928). During their tumultuous marriage, both of them were known for numerous affairs on the side.

  Finally, Sutherland, who had been a protégé of Chaplin, got around to giving Reagan his overall direction as the newspaper reporter, Matt Sawyer, in Nine Lives Are Not Enough. “Play the role with a flip brashness. You know, the aggressive reporter with his hat resting on the back of his head. You can be resourceful and come up with some moves on your own. Play it frantic, like you’re always in a jam. But, remember, you always land on your feet.”

  “With those directions, I should surely win an Academy Award nomination,” Reagan said, sarcastically.

  He studied his script. As a reporter for “The Daily News,” he is known around the office as the “Boy Crusader.” He is constantly getting into trouble with his tough boss, Howard da Silva. Reagan writes an exposé of a local mob boss (Ben Welden), but the gangster clears his name and files a libel suit against the paper.

  Enraged, Da Silva demotes Reagan to the police beat, and threatens to assign him to writing the lonely hearts column if he slips up again.

  Reagan makes the nightly rounds with two policemen (James Gleason and Edward Brophy) in their patrol car. Reagan particularly liked working with Gleason, who was also a playwright and screenwriter. He always played tough but warmhearted characters. Known as the master of the double-take, he was bald, with a loud, craggy voice.

  According to the plot, during their patrol one night, Reagan and the cops discover the body of a missing millionaire. Reagan, as journalist, writes it up for his paper as a murder, although the coroner rules it as a suicide. Once again, Reagan is in trouble with Da Silva, who fires him.

  He is determined to prove it was murder, and he enlists the help of the slain millionaire’s daughter (played by Joan Perry in her role of Jane Abbott.)

  Complications ensue, but in the end, Reagan discovers that it was murder after all. In the meantime, Perry falls in love with Reagan and marries him. She also buys the Daily News for him. His first move as its new owner involves assigning Da Silva the lone
ly hearts column.

  Reagan with Joan Perry in Nine Lives. Before filming began, Reagan received a memo from Harry Cohn, the mogul who ran Columbia: “Hands off Joan. Got that, Reagan?”

  During filming, actress Faye Emerson, cast as Rose Chadwick, paid special attention to Reagan, although he more or less ignored her. He would later regret that.

  As he told Dick Powell, “I wish I had sucked up more to Faye. She was divorcing her first husband, William Crawford. How did I know that within months, she’d be married to Elliott Roosevelt and would move into the White House. If I had become a close friend of hers, I, too, would have been a frequent visitor to the White House, advising Franklin Roosevelt on how to conduct the war.”

  The character played by Reagan didn’t like Da Silva in his screen role, and Reagan, as a private individual, detested him in private. The actor had just completed Bad Men of Missouri (1941) with Jane, Like Walter Catlett, who had blabbed to him about Jane and John Payne, Da Silva was also a nasty gossip. He and Reagan got into several bitter political arguments. Although still a liberal Democrat, Reagan viewed Da Silva as a card-carrying communist.

  Concealed behind the draperies in Nine Lives: Reagan, playing a nosy reporter (“Give me the City Desk”) looks unpresidential.

  [Da Silva was later blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. After that, he was unable to find work in the movies or on television.]

  One day, after Reagan had angered Da Silva, he struck back. “When I made Bad Men of Missouri with your wife, she spent more time with Dennis Morgan than she did before the camera. You’d better check to see what’s going on. Sometimes, a husband is the last to know.”