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

by Darwin Porter

  On a professional level, Jane had nothing but praise for Peck. “He was my alltime favorite leading man, very easy to work with, a real gentleman, very serious about his acting, always wanting to get his every scene right.”

  Near the end of the shoot, the cast and crew traveled to Lake Arrowhead, east of San Bernardino and about 100 miles from Los Angeles. Jane rented a cabin on one side of the lake, the Pecks rented one on the other.

  Whenever he was not involved with the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan came to stay with Jane, Maureen, and Baby Michael. The Pecks and the Reagans often dined together, with Reagan at the barbecue, grilling steaks in the backyard.

  When their respective spouses, Greta and Reagan, returned to Los Angeles, both Jane and Peck decided to stay on in their respective rented cabins for solitude and brief vacations. It was during this period that Peck got into his speedboat at night and crossed Lake Arrowhead for dinner at Jane’s. “I loved her cooking. I put on twenty pounds, ending up weighing 184 pounds on a 6’3” frame.”

  On quiet evenings, he told her about his early struggles trying to break into acting. “I was often homeless in New York, sleeping in Central Park on a bench. I got a lot of offers from guys wanting me for a sleepover, sometimes just in exchange for a good meal. I turned them down except once or twice when I’d do anything for a big juicy steak.”

  He told her he’d been exempt from military service because of a back injury he suffered while receiving dance instruction from Martha Graham.

  “Fox didn’t think it was macho to promote the idea that I’d been in a dance class, so Publicity claimed that I injured myself while rowing when I was at my university,” he said.

  “The Welsh playwright, Emlyn Williams, got me my big break as the lead in his play, The Morning Star, in 1942. He believed in the casting couch,” Peck remembered.

  It was in the Reagans’ cabin that Jane and Peck became intimately involved. “Those moonlit nights on the lake under a full moon were very romantic,” director Brown said. “I knew what was going on behind the backs of Greta and Reagan. The whole crew knew.”

  Jane told her girlfriends, Goddard and Blondell, “I followed in Ingrid Bergman’s footsteps. Greg is hypnotic. A gal can fall for him. That deep, well-modulated voice of his is pure seduction. He told me that he’d been a male model before going to Hollywood. He posed for underwear ads, but, as he told her, “the underwear ads were rejected.”

  “Tell me why!” she asked.

  “I’m too embarrassed,” Peck said. “The advertiser instructed the ad agency to find another model. He didn’t want me giving men a case of penis envy.”

  “Men exaggerate so,” Goddard said.

  “But in Greg’s case,” Jane said, “he told the truth. He’s a great lover, a woman’s dream. He’s going to have a big career in Hollywood. He’s getting fan mail from women and homos all over America. He has to give in to temptation once in a while. He’s only human—and all man!”

  In the only statement Peck made in an interview about Jane, he said, “She’s a great woman. Very talented and a hell of a lot of fun to be with.”

  The Yearling was released in Los Angeles very late in 1946, in December, as a means of making it eligible for Oscar consideration in that year. Its official premiere was celebrated during January of 1947 at Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall, where it was a big hit.

  Most reviewers and columnists lauded Jane’s performance. Photoplay claimed that “The Yearling’s chief acting honors belonged to Jane Wyman as Ma Baxter. Devoid of glamorizing makeup, she is a care-worn, embittered woman with one goal in life: Food and shelter, and maybe a well outside her door so she need not trek a mile for every precious drop.”

  Parents Magazine stated, “It is Jane Wyman as Ma Baxter who does the most creative acting, for she suggests a whole lifetime of denial in the mother’s fear of losing Jody if she loves him too openly. Her intense pride in rising above poverty and being beholden to no one is true of pioneer dignity. And she makes understandable the bitterness of backwoods women.”

  Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote: “Jane Wyman, demonstrating an amazing versatility, is the surprise of the picture. She plays the drab, nagging, miserable farm wife with such authority and definition as to make it almost impossible to believe that this weary creature and the glamorous little cookie of Night and Day came from the repertoire of the same actress.”

  Peck himself pronounced The Yearling as “a bit too saccharine for me, too many Walt Disney elements.” Despite his reservations, he was nominated for Best Actor, although he lost to Fredric March for his performance in the box office hit, The Best Years of Our Lives. Jane was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress of the Year, only to lose to her longtime rival, Olivia de Havilland, cast as the long-suffering mother in To Each His Own.

  The Yearling was also nominated as Best Picture and Best Director (Brown) of 1946 and Harold F. Kress was nominated for Best Film Editing.

  In addition to its many nominations, the film went on to win a pair of Oscars, one for Best Art Direction and Interior Decoration; another for Best Color Cinematography.

  Based on the acclaim accorded to Jane after the release of two of her recent films, The Lost Weekend and The Yearling, she had self-confidence for the first time in her life. “I found I had a new self. I was no longer afraid, no longer shy. If people didn’t understand the new me, the hell with them. Regrettably, I don’t think Ronnie understood that I was going to the top rung on the Hollywood ladder, in spite of what happened to his career. From that moment on, my turned-up button nose became something that nature had placed in the center of my face. Period.”

  ***

  “What a comedown,” Jane said, when she learned that she’d been cast in a Western named Cheyenne (1947), [It was retitled The Wyoming Kid for TV.] “A god damn Western,” she railed.

  Jane, Bruce Bennett, & Janis Paige in Cheyenne.

  Reagan tried to console her, reminding her that most of the big female stars at Warners had also appeared in Westerns. “Did you forget that you were in Bad Men of Missouri with Dennis Morgan?”

  “I didn’t forget,” she said. “In fact, he’s my co-star in Cheyenne.”

  She tried to conceal her delight at being with Morgan again, since, during her filming of The Yearling,she’d almost lost touch with him.

  On the first day of shooting on the set of Cheyenne, Morgan lunched with her, each of them trying to console the other for the failure of One More Tomorrow. Later, he visited her in her dressing room, perhaps proving that her allure for him was still as strong as ever.

  She found him “as sweet as ever.” She told Joan Blondell, “He reminds me of a naughty little boy who’s caught sticking his hand in the cookie jar. Critics call his acting wooden, but I find he’s versatile and not appreciated by Jack Warner.”

  Other than Michael Curtiz, Jane had never worked with a director as powerful as Raoul Walsh. Before leaving one morning for work, Reagan told her, “Errol [Flynn] and I survived Raoul in Desperate Journey. So can you.”

  Morgan said, “Walsh has directed John Wayne, Errol Flynn, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and Marlene Dietrich. Now us. He’ll make mincemeat of us.”

  Actually, he didn’t. Walsh seemed to realize that Cheyenne would be one of his minor efforts, and he didn’t overly extend himself. One afternoon, he flatly told Jane and Morgan, “Direct yourselves today. I’m going to get drunk. If you don’t want to do that, go fuck each other, which sounds like a hell of a lot more fun than starring in this picture.”

  In Cheyenne, Morgan played a card shark in trouble with the law. A Wells Fargo agent approaches him and offers him a deal. “Find a stagecoach robber known as “The Poet,” and all charges against you will be dropped.

  Morgan sets out on his mission, where he encounters Jane, cast as Ann Kincaid. She is secretly married to “The Poet,” a swaggering folk hero played by Bruce Bennett, a former Tarzan. Arthur Kennedy, her boyfriend in Bad Men of Missouri, p
layed his stagecoach-robbing sidekick, the Sundance Kid. Singer Janis Paige plays a saloon singer, and did so badly.

  Jane later said, “I have only a distant memory of that movie. I know that moviegoers stayed away in droves.”

  Throughout most of the film, Jane and Morgan are at odds on the screen. At one point, they are forced to sleep together in a small cabin. He says, “Put your foot where it belongs.”

  In response, she quips, “Don’t tempt me!”

  In their reviews of the Western, most critics were cruel, although some thought Jane was cool and Morgan jaunty as an amateur sleuth trying to unmask a quixotic stagecoach bandit. The heavies in the film, Bennett and Kennedy, were labeled as “dour,” and Bosley Crowther of The New York Times found Paige “ridiculous as the dance hall girl.”

  Variety claimed that Jane’s role sweetened toward the end when she falls for Morgan.

  In Jane’s summation, “Just when I got the ball rolling on my career, I fumbled the pass.”

  ***

  In 1947, Jane assessed herself as being, “On top of the world.” She said that in spite of her continuing marital conflicts with Reagan. Her marriage was deteriorating rapidly, even though, as she told her confidantes, “Ronnie doesn’t seem to realize that. After years of pursuing every dame at Warners, he seems to be settling down to a comfortable, middle-class family life. He even wants a third child.”

  Of course, he has SAG,” she told both Dick Powell and June Allyson. “At times, I think he’s more married to the Guild than to me.”

  Powell tried to apologize for him. “With all the union troubles, with everything coming down on his head, it’s no wonder.”

  Later that evening, when Powell was outside talking to Reagan, Allyson joined Jane in the kitchen. “Darling, do what I do,” Allyson said. “Have an affair on the side. Right now, I’m making Good News with Peter Lawford. We had an affair, but it’s over now.”

  “He’s very handsome,” Jane said.

  “I’ll introduce you.”

  ***

  Jane was excited by her next picture, Magic Town (1947), mainly because her co-star was James Stewart, with whom she had had a fling back in the 1930s. William Wellman, its director, told her that he was hoping for the kind of critical success that “Jimmy enjoyed after It’s a Wonderful Life. That picture flopped at the box office, but it got great reviews. I know you want to continue your winning steak after The Lost Weekend and The Yearling. If you and Jimmy perform like I think you can, both of you might carry off Oscars for Magic Town.”

  “You certainly have high hopes for us,” she said. “I hope Jimmy and I can live up to your expectations.”

  Once, when she failed to deliver a certain scene, Wellman yelled at her, “You stinking deer killer! Do it again!” Throughout the filming, he kept calling her “Deer Killer,” a reference to her role in The Yearling. It was an ongoing joke with him, one she didn’t appreciate.

  RKO, it turned out, was only the distributor. Magic Town was an independent production created by the Oscar-winning screenwriter, Robert Riskin, who had married Fay Wray. He had been a frequent collaborator of Frank Capra, having worked with him on It Happened One Night (1934) which had brought Oscars to Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable.

  In Magic Town, Stewart was cast as Rip Smith, a failed pollster who hoped to jump-start his career by finding the “public opinion capital of America,” where he could test views that reflected the American mindset at the moment.

  He settled on the small town of Grandview, where everybody was typical. Everyone that is, except Mary Peterman (as played by Jane), a crusading newspaper editor who wants the town to evolve, expand and grow. Stewart prefers it to remain in a time capsule.

  Naturally, they fall in love. Before shooting began, Stewart told Wellman, “I want to generate as much heat with Jane as Katharine Hepburn and I did in The Philadelphia Story (1940).”

  James Stewart and Jane Wyman in Magic Town: Sexy but coyly romantic icons of small-town virtue.

  Generally known as “Wild Bill,” the director had assembled an impressive supporting cast. Jane had a reunion with Regis Toomey. Together, they still held the record for the longest screen kiss. This time, he got only a peck on the cheek.

  Meeting Jane again after a long absence, her co-star, Stewart, warmly embraced and kissed her. Over lunch in the commissary, they had time for an update of their lives. “I’m amazed you haven’t gotten married yet,” she said. “You know what happens to an unmarried actor in Hollywood who turns forty. Hedda and Louella will spread rumors that you’re queer.”

  “How wrong they’d be,” he answered. “I keep a little book. In it, I record my every conquest. To date, I’ve reached 201.”

  “Please tell me just the marquee names,” she said. “If you don’t, I’ll call Paulette Goddard, and she’ll keep me up to date.”

  “I’m not a Kiss-and-Tell guy, but if you insist: “Jane Wyman, first and foremost. Wendy Barry, Diana Barrymore, Olivia de Havilland, Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, Katharine Hepburn. Must I go on?”

  “Don’t stop now,” she said.

  “Okay. Jeanette MacDonald, Ginger Rogers, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Lana Turner, Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, and Marlene Dietrich. When Marlene and I made Destry Rides Again in ’39, I knocked her up. She had an abortion.”

  “How unfortunate,” she said. “I’d have loved to see what a kid by you and Marlene looked like.”

  Stewart may have been off in his math. Before he entered the Air Corps during World War II, a Hollywood columnist estimated the number of his conquests to be “263 different glamour girls of Hollywood.”

  He still had the stammering delivery and gangly physique she remembered, and although he’d matured, he remained boyishly attractive. She told Lucille Ball, “Jimmy has a somewhat eagle-beaked appearance, but he’s handsome in an offbeat way.”

  “I may soon get married, but I’ve loved my bachelor days,” he said. “Let me tell you, they were wonderful…just wonderful. Boy, did I have some hot times. It would be hard to give it up and settle down.”

  Over dessert, he asked her, “Do I have to apologize for that night when Hank [Henry Fonda] and I took advantage of your innocence? You were so young, so pretty.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, big boy,” she said. “I wasn’t all that innocent. I was fucking Errol Flynn, Robert Taylor, and Clark Gable, for openers: You’re not the only one who can drop marquee names. And let me add the great James Stewart and Henry Fonda to that impressive roster. Speaking of that, do you go in for repeats?”

  “We’d better not,” he said. “Let’s just confine it to flirting with each other and kissing on camera. You see, I’m close friends with your Ronnie. I’d feel guilty about it.”

  “It’s your loss,” she said with a sigh.

  When it was released, Magic Town didn’t find its audience, although later generations usually tended to appreciate it.

  As for her performance in it, Photoplay gave Jane a plug, writing, “It’s unusual enough to rate a cheer. It’s unrealistic enough to rate a brush-off. Wyman is a good actress; her quiet handling of the role of the small town newspaperwoman is apt enough to sometimes put the mannered Stewart at a disadvantage.”

  Faced with a lackluster reception, RKO publicity agents went to work and devised a series of provocative new ads. Within a context and using a pose having nothing to do with the movie, Stewart was depicted holding Jane in a sexy embrace with her shapely legs on ample display. The headline blared “THEIR LOVE JEOPARDIZED THE HAPPINESS OF THOUSANDS.”

  Reagan went to see the film, later critiquing it to Jane with the comment, “Where was Frank Capra when you and Jimmy needed him?”

  Jane also got her share of negative reviews, one critic writing, “I was never sure who Jane Wyman was impersonating. Surely it wasn’t Irene Dunne. No, Jean Arthur. No, I’ve got it. Claudette Colbert.”

  ***

  Peter Lawford is seen on a night club outing to Slapsie Maxie
s, with Jane Wyman as his date.

  Reagan heard of this, but didn’t seem to be threatened. “Everybody knows this limey bastard is a pansy. You’ll be safe with him. He’s so effete. Not just the way he talks, but the way he walks and acts...”

  Jane accepted June Allyson’s invitation and visited her on the set of Good News (1947), a movie she was co-starring in with Peter Lawford. Six years younger than Jane, the good-looking British star was a known bisexual in Hollywood.

  At the time, he was no longer dating Allyson, but was juggling affairs with another MGM starlet, Nancy Davis, as well as with Van Johnson and Tom Drake. He was also managing an affair with Robert Walker, and had broken up with Lana Turner. Before that, he’d had a fling with Rita Hayworth.

  When Allyson and Jane got together, they discussed one favorite topic—and that was men. Jane revealed “a cute story” about when she’d first called Reagan for a date. “I invited him to drop by my place for cocktails. He asked me, ‘What for?’”

  After meeting her, Lawford asked Jane out one Friday night. He met her at the studio and drove her up to Malibu, asking, “You made some excuse to your husband?”

  “I don’t remember if I did or not, but he’s used to my going out.”

  “You and June must spend a lot of time making excuses to your husbands,” he said.

  Lawford, cruising.

  Jane chose not to view that as an insult and threw herself into the fun of the evening. He admitted, during their drive up the coast, that he had been surprised when Allyson had responded to his advances during their work co-starring together in Two Sisters from Boston (1946).

  “I guess I believed all that fan magazine pulp that depicted Dick Powell and her as the perfect couple. I was crazy about her. She was like a little china doll, so sweet, so nice, so intelligent. She even invited me to her home for parties. She insisted I bring a date to throw Dick off her trail.”

  “He’s only a good detective in the movies, not in real life.”