Killing Reagan Page 5
Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis cutting wedding cake with William Holden and his wife, Ardis
Nancy Reagan possesses an inner steel that her husband lacks. This quality will soon make her opinions indispensable. She will become his sounding board, tactician, and adviser, prodding and cajoling him to become the man only she believes he can be.
And while Reagan will always be “Ronnie” to his wife, the power in their marriage will slowly shift until Nancy becomes the matriarch known to her husband as Mommy.
Of such odd synergy are great marriages made.
5
LAST FRONTIER CASINO
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
FEBRUARY 27, 1954
8:55 P.M.
The man with a long fifty years to live is in exile.
Ronald Reagan bounds onstage wearing an apron advertising Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. “Vas vils du haben?” he booms in a thick European accent to Ben Cruz, leader of a slapstick group known as the Continentals.
“Vats zoo got under dere?” Cruz says in a bemused voice, pointing at the hem of Reagan’s long apron.
Reagan replies, scratching his groin. “Underwear?”
“Under dere,” replies Cruz, pointing at the hem of Reagan’s long apron. Then, as the audience bursts out in ribald laughter, Reagan and the Continentals break into song, a well-established vaudeville routine.
Reagan’s appearance in Las Vegas is such an oddity that after his first show, the Las Vegas Sun wrote, incredulously, that “Ronald Reagan, of all people, opened last night at The Last Frontier.” But tonight’s audience is learning that Reagan can handle the vaudeville stage and is a master showman. His comedic timing, in particular, is impeccable. The three hundred audience members packed into the Ramona Room roar in laughter at his beer vendor shtick. But Reagan is not finished. Quickly, he switches over to an Irish brogue for a series of scripted one-liners. A wave of deep belly laughs fills the room.
Before the show opened there were widespread fears that the Hollywood actor would bomb in front of a live audience. But Reagan is so spectacular, and the subsequent audiences each night love the show so much, that the Last Frontier wants to book him for another month—if not more.
“Reagan opens with some solid humor and the enthusiastic response loosens him to the point he is grinning all over,” the show business newspaper Variety wrote in a review. “He shines as a Dutch-jargon bartender in a beer selling bit.”
Despite the positive press, Reagan is, in fact, terrified. The Last Frontier is an apt name for the casino, because it might just as well describe the slim territory of celebrity to which Ronald Reagan now clings. He can no longer afford a single miscue. He almost backed out of the Las Vegas gig, knowing all too well that if the show failed, his declining career would be all but over.
Even though the show is a hit, Reagan hopes that this is not his future. Nothing about the remote desert town suits him. He is not a gambler. He reads books in his off time or lounges by the pool with Nancy. Sometimes they take day trips to nearby Lake Mead, to indulge his passion for the outdoors. But Reagan longs to be back in California riding Tar Baby and making movies.
However, that choice is not his to make. He now has a wife and child to support, as well as the two children from his previous marriage. Reagan is paying the mortgage on his Malibu ranch and on the new home he and Nancy recently purchased near the Pacific Palisades. He is thousands of dollars in debt and owes a small fortune in back taxes, yet still he insists on living the life of a major movie star: dining at expensive restaurants such as Chasen’s and doing little to curb his personal spending habits. Reagan tells friends he will not accept any part that is not up to his personal standards, when the truth is that quality scripts are no longer being sent his way. Instead, he is being asked to narrate public service documentaries for the grand fee of just $240.
So Vegas it is.
* * *
Ronald Reagan performs at 8:30 and 11:30 each night, with an extra 1:30 a.m. show on Saturdays. After the beer garden sketch, Reagan and the Continentals rush offstage for a costume change. Meanwhile, tall and handsome Royce and Ramon Blackburn step onstage to perform their song-and-dance act as the Blackburn Twins. The Honey Brothers trio follows with a slapstick acrobatic comedy routine that often finds them close to flying off the stage. Finally, Reagan closes out the performance standing alone, lit by a single spotlight, reciting a monologue about an actor’s life.
It’s a grind, but the money is extremely good. Reagan is not the only fading celebrity reduced to playing Las Vegas. At the Sands, a casino just down the Strip from the Last Frontier, former movie star Tallulah Bankhead appears onstage almost naked, also reciting dramatic monologues.
* * *
Throughout the show, Nancy Reagan sits alone at a small table nursing an ice water. Nancy, who has never smoked cigarettes, is enveloped by thick clouds of tobacco smoke, making it almost impossible for Reagan to see her from the stage. Yet he knows she is there. Despite the oppressive atmosphere, Nancy attends every show, perched in the same spot every night, surrounded by strangers.
Ronald Reagan’s career slide has been hard on the ambitious Nancy. As she watches her husband do underwear jokes, she is determined to live a life of fame and fortune. Nancy Reagan was raised in privilege, but she now finds herself in debt. This is intolerable to her. Nancy’s entry into Hollywood was facilitated by her mother’s friendships with A-list actors Spencer Tracy and Walter Huston, and there was every expectation that her marriage to Reagan would continue to expand those high-level connections.
But now, nursing her ice water, she well understands that she and Ronnie are no longer welcome at the A-list parties. Despite the raucous crowd packing the cavernous Ramona Room on this Saturday night, there is abundant evidence that Reagan is finished in Hollywood. Nancy is three hundred miles away from Los Angeles, sitting alone in a gambling establishment designed to look like an Old West outpost. Outside, a cold winter wind blows across the wide-open desert. She and her husband are so far off the Hollywood grid that they might as well be in Siberia.
Yet Nancy Reagan clings to the hope that Las Vegas will soon lead to something better. America is fascinated by a new medium known as television, which beams entertainment directly inside the homes of people everywhere. As a result of its popularity, more than five thousand movie theaters have closed due to declining ticket sales. Ronald Reagan has done a dozen guest appearances on various television shows, but he is reluctant to pursue TV full-time. “The people who owned movie theaters thought that nobody would buy a ticket to see someone they could see at home in their living room for nothing,” he will one day write.
Nancy is not as cautious. The Reagans need money. Television is the future. MCA, the talent agency representing Reagan, is pushing him in that direction—and so is his wife. A few months before heading to Las Vegas, Reagan reluctantly agreed to audition to host a show for the CBS television network titled General Electric Theater. It will air every Sunday night for a half hour at 9:00 p.m. The pay is $125,000 per year—more than enough to get the Reagans out of debt and keep the couple current on their mortgage payments. There is no assurance Reagan will get the job, as veteran actors Eddie Albert, Walter Pidgeon, and Kirk Douglas have also been approached for the position.
But should Ronald Reagan be offered the GE job, Nancy will make sure he takes it.
The time is now almost ten o’clock on this Saturday night. In a moment, Nancy will duck backstage to be with her husband for a quick bite of dinner between shows. She is determined to return home as soon as possible—and never come back. She cannot imagine a life of sitting alone each night for three hours of vaudeville, losing contact with Hollywood with each passing day, while minor film celebrities such as Lucille Ball are achieving vast fame and fortune on television.
Nancy Reagan stirs her ice water, hearing the cue that signals the end of the performance.
“You see things and say, ‘Why?’” Reagan emotes from the stage, quoting
the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. A single spotlight illuminates him, alone in his tuxedo, speaking to the audience as if each and every member was a personal friend.
“But I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’”
The Ramona Room is silent, but only for an instant. Then the audience leaps to their feet in a standing ovation. The showman grins from ear to ear, basking in what has become a nightly occurrence. If Reagan has learned one thing in Las Vegas, it is that he truly loves a live audience, and they love him back.
One week later, on March 5, 1954, Ronald Reagan turns down an offer to extend his run at the Last Frontier.
Television calls.
* * *
“I’m Ronald Reagan speaking for General Electric,” the actor says into the television microphone. The broadcast is live, taking place on December 12, 1954. “Tonight from Hollywood it is my pleasure to appear in a story entitled ‘The Dark, Dark Hours,’” Reagan intones. “Young James Dean, one of the bright new actors in Hollywood, appears with me. And Constance Ford plays my wife on the General Electric Theater.”
The GE theme music comes up as the camera pulls back. Reagan’s introduction completed, the scene changes as the camera lens again zeroes in. Now viewers can see that Reagan is in costume. He’s wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. In his role as the kindly Doctor Joe, Ronald Reagan answers the door in the middle of the night to find a thuggish James Dean, playing a character named Bud, imploring Doctor Joe to help a friend who has mysteriously suffered a gunshot wound.
Reagan’s skepticism about television is clearly gone. His job as host of GE Theater gives him the opportunity to be seen in millions of homes each week, talking about the evening’s program and sometimes acting in the dramatic presentation. He is lucky to be in the forefront of top motion picture actors who are now crossing over to television. James Dean—or Jimmy, as Reagan refers to him—is making his second appearance on GE Theater, just weeks after starring with former child actress Natalie Wood in an adaptation of Sherwood Anderson’s short story “I’m a Fool.” Neither Dean nor Wood knows they will soon play opposite each other in the landmark motion picture Rebel Without a Cause.
On this night, Reagan plays the hero to Dean’s villain, the sort of dashing role that has eluded him for years in motion pictures. By the end of the brief teleplay, Reagan’s character has not only wrestled a .32-caliber pistol away from the suicidal Bud but has shown a flash of anger and a knowledge of weaponry that hints at a much darker past. Reagan more than holds his own with Dean, a young actor being hailed as one of the best in Hollywood. The scene concludes with a scowling Reagan shoving a sobbing James Dean, then hugging his family.
Reagan’s mastery as a thespian is complete. The viewer is lost in the rage exhibited by his character. The screen goes black. The credits roll.
Then, suddenly, the action shifts to a now-smiling and chipper Ronald Reagan sitting in his dressing room as he once again speaks into the camera. He is still wearing the pajamas and bathrobe, but gone is the brooding and angst so evident just a few seconds ago. Magically, he has returned to a confident, likable persona. “Well,” he tells the audience, still winded from his physical interchange with Dean, “I hope you’ve enjoyed James Dean, Constance Ford, and the rest of us.”
In fact, America enjoys GE Theater very much—and Ronald Reagan in particular. The show is a smash hit. Reagan’s career is back on solid footing, as is his bank account.
But there is more to being the emcee of GE Theater than just introducing the night’s show and an occasional spot of acting. General Electric is a giant corporation, with plants located in thirty-one states. As part of his contract, Reagan is required to travel to these factories as a goodwill ambassador. It is the thinking of GE’s corporate leadership in New York that having the host of their signature television show intermingle with the workers will be good for morale. Afraid of flying, Reagan travels the country by train and then takes time to speak with and listen to each employee he meets.
“At first, all I did was walk the assembly lines at GE plants, or if it didn’t interrupt production, I’d speak to them in small groups from a platform set up on the floor of the factories,” he will later write.
Reagan is surprised to discover that this clause in his contract is just as fulfilling as his time before the camera. For with every factory he visits, he learns more about the economy and local governments, often accepting invitations to speak to civic groups. The political passion that has lain dormant since his stepping down as president of the Screen Actors Guild three years ago is now being rekindled. Reagan has come to believe that less governmental interference is the best path for America. The long train rides give him plenty of time to ruminate on this and to write careful speeches on stacks of three-by-five cards. He wraps a rubber band around each stack and saves them. Someday his words will be melded into a spectacular thesis that will become known as “The Speech.”
It is “The Speech” that will not only change the course of Ronald Reagan’s life but also make him a marked man.
* * *
On November 18, 1956, a somber Ronald Reagan opens the latest installment of GE Theater wearing a coat and tie. James Dean is dead, killed in a car accident one year ago. Due to popular public demand, GE Theater is rebroadcasting the production of “I’m a Fool,” starring Dean and his Rebel Without a Cause costar Natalie Wood. Reagan speaks fondly of Dean but never flashes a smile or a hint of the trademark warmth that has become synonymous with the host of GE Theater. Jimmy Dean, he tells his television audience, was a young actor with unlimited potential.
Reagan’s monologue on Dean signals that his years as a lightweight Hollywood actor are coming to an end. He has begun an inexorable journey into ideological warfare and public service that no one, not even Ronald Reagan, could ever have seen coming.
Thus, Reagan’s words about James Dean’s unlimited potential can also be used to describe him.
6
ARDMORE, OKLAHOMA
MAY 29, 1955
6:00 A.M.
As a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two is about to give birth to her third child, she and her husband are hoping that it will be a boy. They are affluent people, with a strong belief in the American dream.
If their child is indeed a boy, it will be named after his father, who, in addition to being president of Ardmore’s Optimist Club, is a deeply religious and highly prosperous oilman. There will, one day, be whispers that he is connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, whispers that will be scrutinized very closely.
But all this is in the future, as the hoped-for baby boy enters the world.
Two miles across the Oklahoma town, a brand-new and modern Memorial Hospital is opening to the public. The newborn baby boy could very well have earned the honor of being the first child delivered in this state-of-the-art facility. That would be a mark of distinction, if only in Ardmore. But Jo Ann, as the mother is named, has opted to deliver at a hospital known as the Hardy Sanitarium, which will make the birth unique in another way. The opening of the new hospital will mean that Hardy, a two-story brick building that has been a vital part of Ardmore’s fabric for forty-four years, will now close for good on this very day. Rather than being the first baby born in the new hospital, Jo Ann’s baby will be the last born at Hardy.
So it is that John Warnock Hinckley Jr. is born in an obsolete mental hospital.
At first glance, the baby appears to be completely normal.
7
LOS ANGELES MEMORIAL COLISEUM
JULY 15, 1960
8:00 P.M.
The man with three years to live is nervous. Sen. John F. Kennedy steps to the podium and gazes out at eighty thousand Democrats, who are on their feet cheering loudly. The forty-three-year-old patrician from Massachusetts is perspiring lightly. His eyes scan the vast outdoor Los Angeles Coliseum, with its vaulting peristyle arches and Olympic cauldron signifying the Olympic Games held there in 1932. This is a spot reserved for conque
ring heroes, the same lofty perch where Gen. George S. Patton was welcomed on leave from World War II in 1945.
Just two days ago, the wealthy politician with movie star good looks received the necessary votes to secure the Democratic nomination for president. Now, as the national convention comes to a close with his acceptance speech, bedlam fills the Coliseum. Native Americans in full tribal regalia perform ritual dances on the football field, and low-flying TV news helicopters threaten to drown out Kennedy’s words.
With many high-ranking Democrats looking on in person, and famous Kennedy celebrity backers such as Henry Fonda and Frank Sinatra joining the festivities, John F. Kennedy begins his speech: “With a deep sense of duty and high resolve, I accept your nomination.” Kennedy’s words are clipped, and he speaks too fast. He has slept very little in the past week, filling his days and nights with political meetings, parties, and rendezvous with would-be girlfriends.1 “I accept it with a full and grateful heart—without reservation—and with only one obligation—the obligation to devote every effort of body, mind and spirit to lead our Party back to victory and our Nation back to greatness.”
Kennedy now launches into what will become known as the “New Frontier” speech, telling Americans, “Today our concern must be with that future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.” As he outlines his vision for the future, Kennedy launches a series of personal attacks on his likely Republican opponent, current vice president of the United States Richard Milhous Nixon.