Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [0]
& NANCY
OTHER BOOKS BY BOB COLACELLO
Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up
Studios by the Sea: Artists of Long Island’s East End (with Jonathan Becker)
RONNIE
& NANCY
THEIR PATH TO THE WHITE HOUSE
1 9 1 1 TO 1 9 8 0
BOB COLACELLO
Copyright © 2004 by Bob Colacello
All rights reserved.
Grateful acknowledgment is expressed to quote from the following: A Surgeon’s Odyssey by Loyal Davis, copyright © 1973 by Loyal Davis, used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Behind the Scenes by Michael K. Deaver, copyright © 1988 by Michael K. Deaver, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc., William Morrow. Dutch: A Memoir by Edmund Morris, copyright © 1999 by Edmund Morris, used by permission of Random House, Inc. Early Reagan by Anne Edwards, copyright © 1987 by Anne Edwards, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc., William Morrow. First Father, First Daughter by Maureen Reagan, copyright © 1989 by MER, Inc., by permission of Little, Brown and Company, Inc. Governor Reagan by Lou Cannon, copyright © 2003 by Lou Cannon, reprinted by permission of PublicAffairs, a member of Perseus books, L.L.C. Jane Wyman: The Actress and the Woman, copyright © 1986 by Lawrence J. Quirk, reprinted by permission of the author. Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley, copyright
© 1991 by Kitty Kelley, reprinted with permission of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. Nofziger by Lyn Nofziger, copyright © 1992, published by Regnery Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved; reprinted by special permission of Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington, D.C. Where’s the Rest of Me? and An American Life by Ronald Reagan, copyright © 1965 and copyright © 1990 by Ronald Reagan; with permission of Nancy Reagan. Nancy, My Turn, and I Love You, Ronnie by Nancy Reagan, copyright © 1980, copyright © 1989, and copyright
© 2000 by Nancy Reagan; with permission of Nancy Reagan. Courtesy of Department of Special Collections, Oral History Program, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA: Oral histories of Neil Reagan and Stanley Plog. Courtesy of Center for Oral and Public History, California State University, Fullerton: Henry Salvatori, OH 1674, Holmes Tuttle, OH 1675, Justin Dart, OH 1676, Ed Mills, OH 1677.
Warner Books
Time Warner Book Group
1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Visit our Web site at www.twbookmark.com.
First eBook Edition: October 2004
ISBN: 0-7595-1268-X
To my father, John, who passed away
five days before Ronald Reagan;
and my mother, Libby,
his beloved wife of nearly fifty-eight years.
And to the late Jerry Zipkin,
who opened so many doors for me.
Contents
PROLOGUE
Le Cirque: 1981
1
ONE
Early Ronnie: 1911–1932
15
TWO
Early Nancy: 1921–1932
33
THREE
Iowa: 1933–1937
58
FOUR
East Lake Shore Drive: 1933–1939
72
FIVE
Warner Bros.: 1937–1941
93
SIX
Nancy at Smith: 1939–1944
121
SEVEN
Ronnie and Jane: 1941–1946
149
EIGHT
Nancy in New York: 1944–1949
180
NINE
Divorce: 1947–1948
195
TEN
Ronnie and Nancy in Hollywood: 1949–1952
225
ELEVEN
Pacific Palisades: 1952–1958
260
TWELVE
The Group: 1958–1962
285
THIRTEEN
The Kitchen Cabinet: 1963–1966
313
FOURTEEN
Sacramento: 1967–1968
351
FIFTEEN
Sacramento II: 1969–1974
391
SIXTEEN
Reagan vs. Ford: 1975–1976
429
SEVENTEEN
Reagan vs. Carter: 1977–1980
461
Acknowledgments
507
Notes
511
Bibliography
571
Index
581
v i i
RONNIE
& NANCY
P RO L O G U E
LE CIRQUE
1981
You say there can be no argument about matters of taste?
All life is an argument about matters of taste.
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Thus Spake Zarathustra
Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial— out of profundity.
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Nietzsche Contra Wagner
ON SATURDAY NIGHT, MARCH 14, 1981, PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN, who had been inaugurated less than two months earlier, and his