by Bob Spitz
“a lovable scatterbrain”: Jessica Mitford, review of WTROM, Ramparts, Nov. 1965; Los Angeles Times, Aug. 17, 1980.
“All he talks about”: Robert Cummings, quoted in Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein, Jane Wyman: A Biography (New York: Delacorte, 1985), p. 62.
“was such a talker”: Ibid., p. 71.
“the perfect American officer”: Lawrence J. Quirk, Jane Wyman: The Actress and the Woman (New York: Dembner Books, 1986), p. 63.
“My Soldier, by Jane Wyman”: Modern Screen, January 1943.
“I always felt”: Edward G. Robinson, quoted in Quirk, Jane Wyman, p. 63.
“asking why, why”: Louella Parsons, quoted in Morella and Epstein, Jane Wyman, p. 69.
“that drunk film”: Jack Warner, quoted in Quirk, Jane Wyman, p. 79.
He knew the liquor industry: Cameron Crowe, Conversations with Wilder (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), p. 115 (photo caption).
“The Lost Weekend”: Bosley Crowther, New York Times, Dec. 3, 1945.
“It changed my whole life”: Jane Wyman, quoted in Quirk, Jane Wyman, p. 80.
“Above this they rigged”: WTROM, p. 118.
“No twentieth-century president”: Vaughn, Ronald Reagan in Hollywood, p. 118.
FOURTEEN: “A DANGEROUS MAN”
When he was discharged: RR’s Army Separation Qualification Record, RRPL, ORR: Pre-Presidential Papers 1918–80, Box 52.
“coming back with new thoughts”: Mel Gussow, Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking: A Biography of Darryl F. Zanuck (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), pp. 200–201.
“the sprightly little movies”: Otto Friedrich, City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 179.
“Just relax until we find”: Jack Warner, quoted in Los Angeles Examiner, Dec. 3, 1945.
ranked sixth among male: Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 734.
$3,500 a week: For contract commencing Sept. 12, 1945, “History of RR’s Contracts,” Warner Bros. Archives, USC.
who was twelve hours old: “Michael was only twelve hours old when Ronnie and I got him.” Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein, Jane Wyman: A Biography (New York: Delacorte, 1985), p. 78.
his birth mother, Irene Flaugher: “I was born . . . the result of a romantic liaison between a twenty-eight-year-old Kentucky farm girl . . . and a married Army Air Force cadet.” Michael Reagan, On the Outside Looking In (New York: Zebra Books, 1988), p. 7; information about Irene Flaugher in NR/MT, p. 156.
“to add from the outside”: Morella and Epstein, Jane Wyman, p. 78.
“laze around and take time”: WTROM, p. 139.
“she would come through”: Morris, Dutch, p. 220.
The American Federation of Labor: Friedrich, City of Nets, p. 247.
By 1945, it had enrolled: Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–60 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2003), p. 217.
“What I heard and read”: WTROM, p. 138.
“bring up the names”: Neil Reagan, interview, undated 1968, LCA, p. 8.
“hemophiliac liberal”: WTROM, p. 103.
According to FBI files: Steven J. Ross, Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 442.
“home-grown fascists”: Ronald Reagan, “Fascist Ideas Are Still Alive in U.S.,” AVC Bulletin, Feb. 15, 1946, RRPL.
He joined with internationalists: Ibid., p. 142.
“I was not sharp about Communism”: WTROM, p. 141.
“helping the dispossessed”: Howard Fast, quoted in Morris, Dutch, p. 158.
an astounding 4,600 strikes: Ceplair and Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood, p. 215.
“then that person was ipso facto”: Ibid., p. 219.
“3,300 professional exhibitionists”: “Political Notes: Glamour Pusses,” Time, Sept. 9, 1946.
“everybody who was anybody”: Joan LaCoeur, recording secretary of HICCASP, quoted in Nancy Lynn Schwartz, The Hollywood Writers’ Wars (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), p. 241.
“Many actors were caught up”: Olivia de Havilland, interview with author, Oct. 4, 2015.
“an institution he [thought]”: “Mr. Reagan Airs His Views,” Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1947.
“controlled by the left”: Executive Council Meeting, July 3, 1946, minutes, provided to author by Olivia de Havilland.
“fascist” . . . “capitalist scum”: WTROM, p. 167.
“Whenever a motion was proposed”: Olivia de Havilland, interview with author, Oct. 4, 2015.
“Ronnie got up and volunteered”: Ibid.
“That’s funny,” he shot back: Olivia de Havilland, interview with author, Oct. 4, 2015; WTROM, pp. 167–68; AAL, 111–13.
In February 1946, Ronnie: “SAG Timeline,” SAG-AFTRA files.
“It’s a war to the finish”: Roy Brewer, quoted in George H. Dunne, “Christian Advocacy and Labor Strife in Hollywood,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, 1981.
“open at all costs”: SAG Special Meeting, Feb. 18, 1946, minutes, SAG Archives.
“We’ll have to use”: Jack Warner, quoted in Alex Gottlieb, interview with Anne Edwards, undated, original typescript in author’s possession.
“a blow” to Ronnie: WTROM, p. 186.
Neil Reagan badgered him: “I talked to him and talked to him about this organization.” Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, June 25, 1981, p. 31.
“Get out of that thing”: Ibid., p. 30.
“this little rump group”: MI, Nov. 4, 1987, p. 153.
“has no affiliation”: HICCASP executive council meeting, July 30, 1946, minutes, provided to author.
“thought it didn’t go”: Olivia de Havilland, interview with author, Oct. 4, 2015.
“Ronnie hung in for”: RR maintained he resigned from HICCASP immediately after the statement was approved, by telegram, WTROM, p.169. In fact, records show he was still actively involved until Nov. 1946. Council minutes provided to author.
“Very shortly, as he”: WTROM, p. 169.
“shared the orthodox liberal view”: AAL, p. 115.
“attempted takeover of Hollywood”: Ibid., p. 114.
“There may be men hurt”: Herb Sorrell, quoted in Stephen Vaughn, Ronald Reagan in Hollywood: Movies and Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 139.
“Warner Bros. turned high-pressure”: CSU circular inserted into Hollywood Sun, Dec. 8, 1946, original provided to author by SAG.
Ronnie later claimed: “Threatened in ’46 Strike, Ronald Reagan Testifies,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 14, 1954; also: “Reagan Tells Scar Threat,” Los Angeles Examiner, Jan. 14, 1954, p. 10.
In any case, each day: “I couldn’t do that. So instead they made me sit by myself.” Los Angeles Examiner, Sept. 6, 1958.
On September 24, while shooting: Night Unto Night production file, Warner Bros. Archives, USC.
“A squad was ready”: “Threatened in ’46 Strike,” Los Angeles Times.
That could only mean: “I found out later . . . they weren’t kidding. The plot was they were going to throw acid in my face.” Ibid.
“take Reagan home”: Viveca Lindfors, Viveka-Viveca (New York: Everest House, 1981), p.151.
She was naturally “high-strung”: Hedda Hopper, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Modern Screen, Mar. 1948.
“Politics!” she hissed: Robert Cummings, quoted in Martin Kent, Ray Loynd, and David Robb, “Hollywood Remembers Ronald Reagan,” unpublished, manuscript provided to the author, p. 35.
“Ronnie lectured everybody”: Jane Wyman, quoted in Morris, Dutch, p. 237.
On October 18, Reagan: “The contents of his speech convinced the film technicians to reverse their decis
ion.” AE, p. 314.
“pitch to the membership”: MI, Jan. 30, 1987, p. 65.
“the liberal opposition”: Nancy Lynn Schwartz and Sheila Schwartz, The Hollywood Writers’ Wars (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), p 249.
“down the aisle slapping”: Ibid., p. 250.
“If the actors and actresses”: Father George H. Dunne, “Christian Advocacy and Labor Strife in Hollywood,” UCLA Center for Oral History Research, 1981, p. 23.
“I am no longer neutral”: Los Angeles Examiner, Nov. 18, 1946.
He continued to refer: “At the end of World War II, I was a New Dealer to the core.” AAL, p. 105.
“thought government, not private companies”: Ibid.
He believed that “America”: Ibid., p. 115.
“Joseph Stalin,” he said: Ibid., p. 110.
“well-meaning liberals (like me)”: Ibid., p. 114.
“protect the people”: Ibid., p. 115.
“interpreting everything in terms”: “I had the very definite impression, this was a dangerous man.” Father George H. Dunne, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, 1981, p. 28.
FIFTEEN: TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Dana Andrews, too: “If I couldn’t get Dana, then I wanted Bob Cummings.” Irving Rapper, quoted in Martin Kent, Ray Loynd, and David Robb, “Hollywood Remembers Ronald Reagan” (unpublished manuscript), p. 41, provided to the author.
“fussed around trying”: WTROM, p. 192.
Warner had just seen: “In February [1947], Jack Warner saw the first finished print of Night Unto Night and decided to shelve it.” AE, p. 320.
“marriage mourners are wondering”: Screen Album, 1947, quoted in Doug McClelland, Hollywood on Ronald Reagan, (Winchester, MA: Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 62.
George Murphy and Gene Kelly: “Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors,” Mar. 10, 1947, SAG Archives.
was conspicuously absent: Notes of Valerie Yaros, SAG historian, Aug. 12, 2002, and Aug. 19, 2002, transcript in SAG Archives, Box 50, Folder 12.
“not the two-fisted fighter”: Hedda Hopper, “Mr. Reagan Airs His Views,” Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1947.
“He’s as green as grass!”: Hedda Hopper, quoted in Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein, Jane Wyman: A Biography (New York: Delacorte, 1985), p. 104.
“I was never more wrong”: Hopper, “Mr. Reagan Airs His Views.”
“Let’s face it”: Jerry Asher, quoted in Lawrence J. Quirk, Jane Wyman: The Actress and the Woman (New York: Dembner Books, 1986), p. 109.
“glamorous little cookie”: “It is 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.” Dorothy Kilgallen, review of The Yearling, New York Journal American, Dec. 18, 1946.
“I was sure someone”: WTROM, p. 194.
Production began on June 4: That Hagen Girl production book, Warner Bros. Archives, USC.
Ronnie insisted on doing: AE, p. 325.
Humphrey Bogart in a supporting: “We played an interminable scene, exchanging and wearing innumerable trenchcoats.” WTROM, p. 95.
“given a good chance”: Hedda Hopper, “Stork Visits Jane Wyman,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1947.
“He tossed and fretted”: Louella Parsons, quoted in Morella and Epstein, Jane Wyman, p. 110.
“When they were together”: Hedda Hopper, quoted in Quirk, Jane Wyman, p. 111.
“tried to coax Jane out”: Hedda Hopper, quoted in Morella and Epstein, Jane Wyman, p. 111; “He tried to rekindle memories of the first days of their courtship by taking her to intimate supper clubs.” Ibid., p. 110.
“Work is the only answer”: Jerry Wald, quoted in Ibid.
“It was hi”: Quirk, Jane Wyman, p. 111.
“They just seemed to pass”: June Allyson with Frances Spatz Leighton, June Allyson (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982), p. 74.
“the greatest hotbed”: John Rankin, quoted in Otto Friedrich, City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 299.
“I’m not in favor”: Hopper, “Mr. Reagan Airs His Views.”
“In our special field”: Variety, Feb. 7, 1944.
“inasmuch as there would”: SAG board meeting, Sept. 12, 1947, minutes, SAG Archives.
refused “for principle”: “I stand ready to go to jail for the Guild whenever her welfare so requires, but then let it be for principle, not for perjury.” Anne Revere, resignation letter, Sept. 15, 1947, SAG Archives.
“You know, anybody that’s got”: Los Angeles Times, Aug. 17, 1980.
“Commie sons-of-bitches”: Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 366.
“at least six SAG members”: “On April 10, 1947, Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman were ‘at home’ with an agent.” Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 288; Morris cites “FBI report, ‘Screen Actors Guild,’ ca. April 10, 1947,” p. 751.
“hundreds of very prominent”: Hollywood Reporter, May 19, 1947.
“had openly worked for causes”: Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–60 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2003), p. 256.
“the conservative eminences”: Friedrich, City of Nets, p. 298.
“When she would come in”: MI, June 27, 1989, p. 267.
After a day spent bumping: “Reagan drove up with Wyman and remained for a day before returning.” AE, p. 327.
“We felt so isolated”: Morella and Epstein, Jane Wyman, p. 117.
“hey-hey blonde ingénue”: Quirk, Wyman, p. 111.
He was a quiet: “I pray every day.” Pat H. Boeske, “Ayres Backs His Project Religiously,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 6, 1991.
“platonic—yes, but”: Jim Reid, quoted in Quirk, Wyman, p. 112.
“was spending five nights”: WTROM, p. 196.
“All Out Fight on Commies”: Hollywood Reporter, Apr. 21, 1947.
“injecting Communist stuff”: Warner’s testimony is cited blindly in AE, p. 340, from an unnamed FOIA file.
“unfriendly witnesses,” as: “The Hollywood Reporter was apparently the first to call them the ‘unfriendly witnesses.’” Friedrich, City of Nets, p. 304.
“Scratch a do-gooder”: Adolphe Menjou, quoted by Leonard Maltin, introduction to State of the Union on Turner Classic Movies.
“sauntered jauntily up”: Time, Nov. 3, 1949.
“send them back to Russia”: Robert Taylor, testimony, Hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Eightieth Congress, Oct. 22, 1947.
a “small group within”: RR, testimony, Hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Oct. 25, 1947.
“strange creatures crawling”: WTROM, p. 179.
He met with committee counsel: Garry Wills, Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), p. 255.
“fight against the inroads”: “I happen to be very proud of the industry in which I work.” RR, testimony, Hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Oct. 25, 1947.
“deplor[ed] the action”: The Waldorf Statement, issued by the Association of Motion Picture Producers, quoted in Ceplair and Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood, p. 455.
“The purging of suspected”: Wills, Reagan’s America, p. 255.
“that he is not a member”: SAG board meeting, Nov. 10, 1947, minutes, SAG Archives.
“so offended public opinion”: Walter Goodman, The Committee (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964), p. 300.
When Ronnie returned: “I arrived home from the Washington hearing to be told I was leaving.” WTROM, p. 201.
And they’d agreed to star: Louella Parsons, “Reagan, Wyman Set to Star in ‘John Loves Mary,’” Los An
geles Herald-Examiner, Dec. 5, 1947.
“Hey, ‘diarrhea of the mouth’”: Don Siegel, A Siegel Film: An Autobiography by Don Siegel (New York: Faber and Faber, 1993); Anthony Lane, “The Method President,” The New Yorker, Oct. 18, 2004.
“Ronnie talked all the time”: Leonora Hornblow, quoted in Bob Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy (New York: Warner Bros., 2004), p. 179.
“Don’t ask Ronnie what time”: Allyson, June Allyson, p. 96.
“They weren’t laughing at all”: Janet Franklin, “Winner Take All!?” Modern Screen, June 1949.
“I got along without you”: “Onlookers who overheard it shrugged it off. ‘A spat.’” Hedda Hopper, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Modern Screen, Mar. 1948.
After the last scene wrapped: “‘With Ronnie and the kids?’ someone asked. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Just me.’” Modern Screen, February 1948.
“There’s no use in lying”: New York Herald-Express, Dec. 17, 1947.
“We’re through,” she confessed: Gladys Hall, “Those Fightin’ Reagans,” Photoplay, Feb. 1948.
He was back in Eureka: “Reagan at Eureka Festival Tomorrow,” DET, Sept. 25, 1947.
“like a ton of bricks”: Quirk, Wyman, p. 113.
“Right now, Jane needs”: Los Angeles Examiner, Dec. 15, 1947.
Hedda Hopper piled on: Hopper, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”
Pat Neal, who was brought: Patricia Neal, As I Am (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), p. 90;
“I’m in a situation”: Ruth Waterbury, “This Is a Love Story,” Photoplay, Mar. 1949.
In early February: Louella O. Parsons, “Jane Wyman to Sue Reagan for Divorce,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Feb. 9, 1948.
“[He] started talking and talking”: Dana Andrews, quoted in Kent et al., “Hollywood Remembers Ronald Reagan,” p. 63.
“too much time in film”: Louella O. Parsons, “Jane Wyman Divorces Reagan, Blames ‘Politics,’” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, July 29, 1948; Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1948.
“Such a thing was”: WTROM, p. 201.
SIXTEEN: THE BLUE PERIOD
“Be happy, old sport”: Errol Flynn quoted in Doris Lilly, “All for the Love of Ronnie,” Quest, Oct. 1988.
“one of Hollywood’s most eligible”: Unsigned article, Modern Screen, Apr. 1949.