CAUSE: It is believed that 6́ 1˝ Reagan was diagnosed with the degenerative Alzheimer’s disease while he was still in office but that the diagnosis was covered up until November 1994. Indeed his forgetfulness became legendary. At the White House on September 23, 1981 he introduced the boxer Sugar Ray Leonard and his wife as “Sugar Ray and Mrs Ray”. On August 17, 1982 he called President Samuel K. Doe of Liberia “Chairman Moe”. On October 9, 1982 during a sound check for his weekly radio address, he called the Polish government “a bunch of no-good lousy bums”. Two days later addressing a meeting in Texas, he said, “You can’t drink yourself sober, you can’t spend yourself rich, and you can’t pump the prime without priming the pump. You know something? I said that backwards … You can’t prime the pump without pumping the prime …” On December 1, 1982 he proposed a toast to Brazilian president “João Figueiredo and the people of Bolivia”. On January 14, 1983 he called his chief arms negotiator Paul H. Nitze “Ed Nitze”. On January 20, 1984 he constantly referred to environmentalist William Ruckelshaus as “Don” until his chief of staff told him to stop. On April 10, 1984 he called Secretary of Agriculture John Block “John Black”. On May 8, 1985 he failed to recognise Portuguese Prime Minister Maria Soares, whom he had met previously, and walked right past him. On October 1985 he welcomed the President of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew and his wife Mrs Lee to the White House with the words, “It gives me great pleasure to welcome Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Mrs Yew to Singapore.” He mistook one of his own cabinet for an out of town mayor and on November 1985, when the Prince and Princess of Wales dined at the White House, Reagan called them the “Prince of Wales and his lovely lady Princess David”. On October 22, 1986 he signed his tax reform bill “Reagan Ronald” and explained, “I was in a hurry.” Campaigning for Oklahoma Senator Don Nickles, on October 24, 1986, Reagan called him “Don Rickles” and five days later referred to Republican Party Chairman Jennifer Dunn as “Dunn Jennifer”. On March 27, 1987 he greeted Denis Healey, then deputy Labour leader, with the words “Nice to see you, Mr Ambassador” while the real diplomat stood nearby. On October 22, 1987 he called George Schultz his Secretary of State “the Secretary General”. During his time in office Reagan had 15 polyps removed from his colon, cancerous growths excised from his nose, and minor prostate surgery on January 4, 1987. Reagan died at 1.09pm aged 93 at his home in Bel Air, California, from complications caused by pneumonia. His wife and son Ron and daughter Patti were at his bedside. Son Michael arrived shortly afterwards. Reagan was the longest-lived American president, beating John Adams (90) and Herbert Hoover (also 90). Reagan was also the first president to survive the dreaded Zero Factor – every American president who was elected in a year ending in zero since 1840 had died in office: William Henry Harrison (1840, died of pneumonia 32 days after taking office), Abraham Lincoln (1860, assassinated), James A. Garfield (1880, assassinated 199 days after taking office), William McKinley (1900, assassinated), Warren Harding (1920, died of apoplexy, pneumonia, high blood pressure and coronary enlargement), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940, cerebral haemorrhage) and John F. Kennedy (1960, assassinated).
FURTHER READING: Reagan – Lou Cannon (New York: Putnam, 1982); Early Reagan – Anne Edwards (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1987); On The Outside Looking In – Michael Reagan with Joe Hyams (New York: Zebra Books, 1988); Facts About The Presidents – Joseph Nathan Kane (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1989); First Father, First Daughter – Maureen Reagan (New York: Little, Brown, 1989); The Complete Book Of US Presidents – William A. DeGregorio (New York: Gramercy Books, 2002).
Sir Michael Redgrave
Born March 20, 1908
Died March 21, 1985
Actor with a double life. Michael Scudamore Redgrave had an inauspicious start to life. He never knew his father who was a bigamist and promiscuous womaniser who married three times. His mother was an alcoholic. Michael was born in theatrical lodgings above a tobacconist at Horfield Road, St Michael’s Mount, Bristol, the son of actors George Ellsworthy ‘Roy’ Redgrave (b. London, January 11, 1873, d. Sydney, Australia, May 25, 1922) and his second wife, Daisy Bertha Scudamore (b. Portsmouth, 1880, d. October 5, 1958). His first stage appearance came in July 1921 in a walk-on part in Henry IV, Part 2. Redgrave was educated at Clifton College (beginning in 1922) where his love of acting quickly became evident and he appeared in both male and female roles (including Lady Macbeth in June 1925). In 1927 he went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he acted and wrote for the university magazine. He also lost his virginity (to a woman) and had affairs with men. He got a job teaching modern languages at Cranleigh School, Surrey, and also worked semi-professionally in the Guildford Repertory Company. 6́ 3˝ and strikingly handsome, Redgrave resigned from Cranleigh and successfully auditioned for Lilian Baylis at the Old Vic, taking home £3 per week. However, before he accepted, he also tried out for the Liverpool Playhouse and that’s where he spent 1934–1936. At the Royal Naval College Chapel, Dartmouth, on July 18, 1935, he married the actress Rachel Kempson and by her had three enormously successful children. Vanessa, CBE (1967), was born in London on January 30, 1937, during the afternoon matinee of a run of Hamlet where Redgrave was playing Laertes and having an affair with his much older co-star, Edith Evans. In 1941, and again later, he had an affair with Noël Coward. Vanessa went on to marry the film director Cecil Antonio ‘Tony’ Richardson and have a son, Carlo (b. 1969), out of wedlock by actor Franco Nero (b. Italy, November 23, 1941), whose birth was announced in The Times. Vanessa’s younger siblings were Corin (after the character in As You Like It) William (b. Clifton Hill, St John’s Wood, London, July 16, 1939) and Lynn Rachel (b. London Clinic, London, March 8, 1943). Both Vanessa and Corin became leading lights in the Socialist Workers’ Revolutionary Party after discovering their middle-class father was, in fact, a secret bisexual. (Oddly, Redgrave’s entry in The Dictionary Of National Biography 1981–1985 totally omits any mention of this most important facet of his life.) Their mother found solace in an affair with the actor-director Glencairn Alexander Byam Shaw, CBE (b. December 13, 1904, d. Goring-on-Thames, April 29, 1986) who was himself bisexual (he had had an affair with Siegfried Sassoon) and was married to the actress Angela Baddeley. In 1936 Redgrave made his film début in Secret Agent playing an army captain. He appeared in A Stolen Life (1939) as Alan MacKenzie opposite Elisabeth Bergner, The Stars Look Down (1939) as Davey Fenwick, Lady In Distress (1939) as Peter, Climbing High (1939) as Nicky Brooke and Kipps (1941) as Arthur Kipps before he was called up in June 1941. Discharged on medical grounds a year later, he resumed his stage and film careers appearing in, among others: Thunder Rock (1942) as David Charleston, The Way To The Stars (1945) as Flight Lieutenant David Archdale, Fame Is The Spur (1946) as Hamer Radshaw, Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) as Orin Mannon for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Magic Box (1951) as Mr Lege, Anthony Asquith’s The Browning Version (1951) as Andrew Crocker-Harris, The Importance Of Being Earnest (1952) as Jack (née Ernest) Worthing, The Dam Busters (1954) as Dr Barnes Wallis, 1984 (1956) as General O’Connor, The Quiet American (1958) as Thomas Fowler, No My Darling Daughter (1961) as Sir Matthew Carr, Uncle Vanya (1963) as Vanya, The Heroes Of Telemark (1965) as Uncle, Battle Of Britain (1969) as Air Vice Marshal Evill, Goodbye, Mr Chips (1969) as the Headmaster, Nicholas And Alexandra (1971) as Sazonov and Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (1976) as The Ancient Mariner. Redgrave worked occasionally with his talented family. He appeared with his wife in Jeannie (1941) as Stanley Smith, The Captive Heart (1946) and The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954) as Air Commodore Waltby. He appeared with his son on television in David Copperfield (1969), his daughter Vanessa in Behind The Mask (1958) and with Corin and Vanessa in Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) as General Sir Henry Wilson. He was directed by his son-in-law Tony Richardson in The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner (1962) in which he played the governor of the borstal. Towards the end of his life, Redgrave suffered from Parkinson’s disease but still continued acting as best he could. For his performance in Joh
n Mortimer’s autobiographical A Voyage Round My Father at the Haymarket Theatre, Redgrave was fitted with an ear piece linked to a microphone through which his lines were fed to him. This worked well at first until the frequency on which the lines were broadcast was interrupted by a taxi firm relaying details of fares to their drivers.
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