by Bob Spitz
Things weren’t much rosier for Ronnie at Universal. Louisa garnered decent reviews but only did what studios called so-so business. In Bedtime for Bonzo, a puerile comedy made in late 1950, he played second fiddle to a capricious, scene-stealing chimp who had been rescued from the Jungleland in Thousand Oaks, and was killed in a fire the night the picture premiered. Two subsequent scripts offered to Ronnie—Fine Day and Just Across the Street—were rejected for not meeting his standards.
Both studios were having second thoughts in the weeks following New Year’s in 1952. On January 15, Universal decided to cut its losses and reduce its contractual obligation with Ronnie to three films from the original five. And on January 28, following the last scene shot for The Winning Team—a film about baseball great Grover Cleveland Alexander, Ronald Reagan’s forty-second movie for Warner Bros.—the studio allowed his contract to lapse and he left the lot for the last time. Lew Wasserman managed to attach him to a few freelance assignments at Paramount, but those efforts—The Last Outpost and Hong Kong—failed to win audiences over. He had one more shot at Paramount. Tropic Zone, a convoluted adventure with Rhonda Fleming set on a banana plantation in Central America, was set to begin shooting a week following the honeymoon. On the whole, it didn’t have much going for it. “I knew the script was hopeless,” Ronnie recalled. It gave off a solid B-picture vibe. Otherwise, the outlook for meaningful work was slim for the forty-one-year-old actor.
Money was becoming an issue. Ronnie had just one picture left on his Universal contract, which would net him $41,000, slightly more than half of his former Warner Bros. rate. He and Nancy planned to spend $42,000 on a lovely three-bedroom cottage in Pacific Palisades alone. With a baby on the way, they wanted a reasonably priced home, somewhere outside the Hollywood rat race. Pacific Palisades was an up-and-coming neighborhood west of Santa Monica that mixed rusticity with charm. The dozy streets saw little L.A. traffic; the ocean lay just over a rise. “It was almost like living in the country,” Nancy said. A country populated by actors. Jerry Lewis lived down the street, and Arlene Dahl, Fernando Lamas, Joseph Cotten, and Gregory Peck were scattered nearby in the woodsy environs. The cost of the house wouldn’t wipe them out, but it was difficult keeping pace with so many expenses. A hefty mortgage remained on the Malibu spread, and Nelle Reagan’s upkeep was modest but not insignificant. Ronnie’s thoroughbred enterprise—more expensive hobby than moneymaking venture—demanded a constant investment. There were also his payments to the IRS against the taxes he’d deferred during the war. Debt was consuming Ronald Reagan. For the time being, he couldn’t afford to buy furnishings for their living room. It was time to consider alternatives to making movies.
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For the past couple of years, Ronnie had made the rounds of the after-dinner lecture circuit. He was a sought-after speaker for civic groups and at colleges, where his unfettered opinions on such issues as the spread of communism, excessive taxation, and governmental bloat drew an enthusiastic reception. He’d also published dozens of politically charged editorials in ideological journals of the left and the right. He’d honed his delivery on the radio and on the screen, and his SAG presidency had provided influential muscle, giving him the opportunity to express his views with authority. These were rewarding forums he continued to explore, but they were by no means lucrative enough to sustain his lifestyle.
Television remained a viable possibility, but so far Ronnie had resisted its pull. In 1952, serious film stars still considered TV a place where second-rate talents and has-beens plied their skills. But the landscape was changing—and fast. According to the 1950 census, five million U.S. homes now had a television, creating unprecedented demand for content. Ronnie had long claimed of TV that “everyone of stature in Hollywood was delicately holding their noses about it,” but that wasn’t in fact always the case. Top-tier actors like Dick Powell, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Charles Boyer were appearing regularly on Four Star Playhouse, a dramatic anthology series on the CBS network. Lucille Ball starred in her own weekly show. Ronald Colman, Joan Fontaine, and Gloria Swanson turned up in segments on the small screen. Television was becoming a force to be reckoned with.
By virtue of his presidency in the Screen Actors Guild, Ronnie became more than a bystander in TV’s emergence. Actors were his primary constituency, no matter where they did their work. Midway through 1952, however, the union had no jurisdiction over actors on TV. If SAG intended to serve its members and continue protecting them in all provinces of the entertainment world, he knew some accommodation had to be made concerning the new medium.
Despite his good intentions, TV lay well out of SAG’s reach. The major movie studios, fearing television would siphon off their audience, refused to allow small-screen production on their lots. As a result, TV production was strictly an East Coast phenomenon controlled by broadcasting networks and advertising agencies. Logistics aside, the guild’s main obstacle to concentrating its power had less to do with the actors themselves than with the individual shows they were featured in. A majority of television was broadcast live in 1952, and SAG admitted it had no jurisdiction in that area. The guild claimed control only over filmed TV shows and theatrical movies that were later televised. But other unions were being organized that sought to preempt SAG’s authority in the new medium, and a battle royal ensued.
Heated meetings went on “for seven months twice a day, five days a week,” Reagan recalled. As he saw it, the bedrock of actors’ inalienable rights was at stake. The guild’s jurisdiction had to be preserved in order to protect actors from being exploited by television producers, and a pay scale had to be established to determine residuals in the event of reruns. If the producers reaped huge profits from reruns, he argued, the actors needed to receive a fair share.
Ronnie and his SAG colleagues came under attack from every quarter—from the American Association of Radio Artists (AFRA), which for years had represented radio artists, many of whom had gravitated to TV; renegade unions looking to cash in; disgruntled actors caught in the middle; aggrieved broadcasters reluctant to cede control; even government agencies trying to influence the negotiations. Ronnie saw communist conspirators lurking in the shadows. “The same group that had pestered us in the CSU mess was back in uniform,” he concluded, “ready to lead an assault from the rear on the guild board.” Negotiations that seemed resolved one day broke down the next in a huff of accusations and name-calling. The wear-and-tear took its toll. Ronnie commuted between L.A. and New York by train, rather than flying, which he dreaded—four endless days on the Super Chief, anchored to his seat as a result of the crutches he continued to depend on. And his career continued to suffer because of ongoing distractions of his SAG duties and wrathful studio bosses, who regarded him as their foe.
Two years later, when the smoke had cleared, he seemed to think that the personal costs had been worth it. The guild had emerged stronger from the hostilities by solidifying its grip on all performers in the motion-picture field, whether their films appeared in theaters or on television. Moreover, an agreement governing residuals for actors had been won—not the windfall he wanted, but a foot in the door. A jubilant Reagan wrote, “It was a victory even more complete than we had hoped.”
But the victory spun off a new headache for Ronald Reagan. MCA, his own agent, announced its intention to get into the television production business.
This wasn’t just a headache—it was a full-blown migraine. It went against everything the Screen Actors Guild stood for.
SAG’s bylaws strictly prohibited agents from engaging in theatrical film production without a waiver from the guild. The rule, instituted in 1939, protected actors against an agency’s representing them in negotiations with the agency’s own production company—in other words, being an actor’s agent and his employer, clearly a conflict of interest. The rule was drawn up not least with MCA in mind. The agency had become such an all-powerful force, perhaps the most
powerful force in Hollywood, and its nickname, “the Octopus,” because it had “tentacles reaching out to all phases and grasping everything in show business,” continued to inflame. Studio bosses such as Jack Warner complained loudly—if futilely—that movie companies were at MCA’s mercy when it came to putting pictures into production. If the agency represented the star of a film, it often insisted that an MCA writer or director or one of its lesser-known clients be hired as well; otherwise the star might decide at the last minute to walk—or “get sick” a day or two before shooting began, or demand that the studio contract be renegotiated.
Keeping agencies out of the production business served to maintain the balance of power. An agency could apply for a waiver to the rule—a waiver SAG granted infrequently and only on a one-time basis and only after scrupulous deliberation. But MCA was requesting a blanket waiver; the agency wanted the guild to officially bless it as a full-blown producer of television fare—MCA would be a talent agency and a television production company known as Revue Productions—without giving other agencies the same sweeping right.
The request by MCA was extraordinary. Jack Dales, SAG’s phlegmatic executive secretary and longtime Reagan sidekick, remembered the board’s reaction at the time the issue was first raised. “Well, of course, that was a shocking thought,” he said. “MCA had come on strong, saying, ‘We’ll guarantee to make lots of filmed television if you can work it out with us,’” the implication being that they’d bring television production back to Hollywood. This was tantalizing. Moviemaking was steadily on the decline—felt nowhere more profoundly than in the Reagan household—and dangling new production was like catnip to the board. There were plenty of actors in the guild’s membership in desperate need of a good-paying job, and here was MCA saying it had jobs to dispense. Ronald Reagan thought the proposal made good sense.
If the agency could overcome a few sticky issues, there might be a way to swing such a deal, but the guild proposed a few guidelines: in the event of an MCA production “they could not charge their own clients any commission; [and] if they ever put their client in a picture made by them, he had to get the highest salary he’d ever gotten in any picture in his life.” On the surface, the deal appeased many in the SAG hierarchy, but beneath it, in the murky depths, it laid out a veritable minefield for Ronald Reagan.
The waiver request put him, an MCA client, in the awkward position of standing up for the interests of his members in dealing with MCA. In retrospect, it might have been wiser had he recused himself from the negotiations in order to avoid any appearance of favoritism. MCA’s attorney in the negotiations, Laurence Beilenson, a former SAG lead counsel, had represented Ronnie in legal matters, including his divorce from Jane Wyman. Now he sat across the table, quarterbacking for the other side. Beilenson insisted there was no impropriety, but many observers disagreed. His promise that by joining MCA he would “not take part in any negotiations with the guild” seemed to evaporate on impact. It didn’t help matters that no records of private meetings held in July 1952 between the SAG board and MCA/Revue Productions were kept.
No records—and no opposing voices. The next thing anyone knew, on July 14, 1952, the SAG board announced that “an agreement was reached which permits MCA to enter and remain in the field of film television” so long as certain checks and balances were met. It was the blanket waiver the agency had sought, launching Revue Productions as a wholly owned entity. And it was exclusive, meaning other agencies like William Morris and General Artists were excluded from doing the same kind of business. According to a secret Justice Department memo, “The deal vaulted MCA to the head of the television agency with advantages that its competitors could never hope to equal.” They couldn’t possibly promise their clients that kind of TV exposure. MCA also extracted a special letter agreement stating that if the guild adopted “agency regulations in the future . . . which prohibited agents from engaging in television production, it would grant MCA a waiver,” shielding it from such regulations.
To no one’s surprise, Revue immediately began churning out TV shows—Chevron Theatre, The Jack Benny Program, Biff Baker U.S.A., The Adventures of Kit Carson, City Detective, and The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse, and that was just for openers. And speculation began to heat up along the Hollywood grapevine that Ronald Reagan had received special dispensation for his part in the deal’s approval, in the form of either a payment or a promise—perhaps a show of his own—from MCA or Lew Wasserman. He always denied there were payoffs of any kind. Still, eyebrows were raised at the end of July when Universal, which MCA controlled, reactivated his contract, with an offer to appear in Law and Order, a low-budget western. Those eyebrows shot further skyward at the news that his old rate of $75,000 was guaranteed. It wasn’t so much that it was out of line; it was more that it was unheard-of, certainly for an actor with negligible box-office appeal. Was this a reward for his help in securing the Revue waiver? Later, Ronnie admitted to a federal grand jury investigating MCA, “I felt a little self-conscious about it” due to the possibility of a conflict of interest, but ultimately he saw only pragmatism in his actions. “I was all for anyone that could give employment,” he maintained, dodging the issue with wide eyes.
In fairness, with MCA’s production interests thus made viable, Ronald Reagan had been able to oversee for the Screen Actors Guild a revitalization that left it poised to capitalize on the breakaway television era. It yielded an infusion of new members, new opportunities for actors, new revenue streams, new strength. Jack Dales, who served on SAG’s executive board for thirty years, would look back on this period marked by spasms of turmoil and growth and call it “Ronnie’s finest hour.” Dales attributed the success to Ronald Reagan’s stamina, his ability to compartmentalize, “because we were balancing so many balls in the air, all at the same time.” He could also tell that Ronnie’s work leading the union was consuming him, that he was tapped out, ready to move on. There was a lot of hand-wringing over the nature of his identity. “What am I doing here?” he asked Dales after they’d settled the MCA business. “I’m not a professional labor leader. I’m an actor. I have other fields to conquer.”
He’d held the top post of the Screen Actors Guild for six years, longer than any other person ever had. He’d seen it through the final chapter of Hollywood’s heyday, through violent strikes, through expansion, through the end of the studio era, the anticommunist purge, and into the television age. His contributions would protect the guild’s future.
Finally, on August 27, 1952, an article in Variety announced the inevitable: Ronald Reagan was stepping down as president of SAG at the end of his present term. No reason was given for his eventful decision, but those who knew him understood that he’d come to a crossroads.
His stature as a Hollywood movie star was sputtering to an end. He was forty-one and accustomed to a spotlight that was fading. It was time to decide what other fields were left to conquer—what to do with the rest of his life.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MOVING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
Vegas wasn’t the answer. Ronald Reagan suffered through the two-week stand of his uninspiring nightclub act at the Last Frontier, but the interval had given him time to think.
The last year and a half had felt like a watershed in every sense of the word—a body drained of its natural resource, and a juncture, a turning point. His dance card was suddenly empty. “His movie career was at a standstill,” Nancy recalled. Picture offers still came in, but nothing considered respectable, nothing worth sacrificing his dignity for.
If Vegas wasn’t enough of a jolt, new fatherhood made him take stock.
Patti Reagan was born on October 21, 1952, eight weeks prematurely—difficult right out of the gate, a mode that would stalk them through her adolescence and beyond. She was “headstrong,” a demanding baby, which cut i
nto the couple’s close-knit relationship and sowed resentment, whether conscious or not. This feeling trickled down to other key parties. “I felt rejected,” Michael Reagan, who was eight at the time, admitted. “Dad and Nancy became a family unto themselves after Patti was born.” Michael and Maureen felt shunted aside, like interlopers in the Reagan family picture.
Other concessions were made. Ronnie had sworn not to do commercials, but as 1953 wore on and the employment scenario became more precarious, he appeared in advertisements for Chesterfield cigarettes (a lifelong nonsmoker, he noted that “they painted in the cigarette in the ad”) and Arrow shirts (which he never wore). There was even some talk about voice-over work.
A watershed with shifting currents. During 1953, a year in which Ronnie resolved to reject every feeble movie offer that came his way, he made exactly one picture, Prisoner of War, for a sum about half of his usual fee. Otherwise, he picked up pocket money making guest appearances on random TV shows. He turned up frequently on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and The Milton Berle Show, half-hour comedies that required little more of him than delivering a few straight-man lines, and in anthology dramas, like Lux Video Theatre and The Revlon Mirror Theater, all orchestrated by MCA. Following a featured role in an episode of Medallion Theatre, another of Revue Studios’ ubiquitous TV productions, Taft Schreiber, now Lew Wasserman’s chief lieutenant, had Ronnie screen-tested for a high-priority job.