Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [120]
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House of television. Nancy had appeared on television for the first time while she was in Chicago the previous fall, most likely in a celebrity show for the Community Fund organized by Edith, who was chairman of the charity’s women’s division. Television was just beginning to take hold of the American living room—there were only 136,000 sets in the whole country in 1947—and the technology was not yet perfected. “I had to wear green makeup and black lipstick,” Nancy recalled, “to look good on those early, primitive black-and-white sets.”59
In 1948, according to Mademoiselle, she “had feature roles on the Kraft Television Theater and the Lucky Strike dramatic series.”60 The fashion magazine noted her progress in its November issue with a small photograph and a paragraph of text, concluding with: “Enthusiastic about television, Nancy looks forward to the day when video will have its own stars,
[and] would like a dramatic show of her own.” At the end of the year, ZaSu Pitts arranged for Nancy to reprise her three-line part in Ramshackle Inn on NBC’s Philco Television Playhouse, another one of the live dramatic anthology series that dominated the small screen’s early years.
“I wasn’t setting show business on fire,” she later wrote, trying to put a realistic but cheerful face on this period of her life. “However, I honestly don’t think I even thought of that. I was doing something I wanted to do and having a good time.”61
Nancy Davis at twenty-seven, it would seem, was not that much closer to a successful acting career than she had been when she left Chicago four years earlier. Nor had she found Mr. Right.
C H A P T E R N I N E
DIVORCE
1947–1948
I have turned down quite a few scripts because I thought they were tinged with Communistic ideas. . . . I could never take any of this pinko mouthing very seriously, because I didn’t feel it was on the level.
Gary Cooper, testifying before HUAC,
October 1947
THE YEAR 1947 BEGAN ON A HIGH NOTE FOR RONNIE AND JANE, WITH HER
Oscar nomination for The Yearling and his being cast in The Voice of the Turtle, a romantic comedy based on John Van Druten’s long-running Broadway play, which Warners saw as one of its top films of the year.1 On January 26, shortly after their seventh anniversary, Jane learned that she was pregnant. If they had a girl, the movie magazines confided, Ronnie wanted to name her Veronica. Jane reportedly had her heart set on a boy, who would be named Ronald Reagan Jr.2
On March 10, Robert Montgomery stepped down as SAG president, citing a conflict of interest, as he had recently begun to co-produce his own movies. In a secret vote by board members, Reagan was chosen to serve out Montgomery’s term, winning over the more liberal Gene Kelly and the more conservative George Murphy, who were then elected first and third vice presidents, respectively. William Holden—nominated by Jane Wyman—was made second vice president.3
Four nights later, Jane and Ronnie attended the Academy Awards with Mary Benny—Jack Benny was emcee—and watched Olivia de Havilland win over Jane to take the Best Actress award for To Each His Own. As they left the Shrine Auditorium, Reagan tried to make light of his wife’s loss, 1 9 5
1 9 6
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House telling reporters that maybe they’d name their expected child Oscar—
“Jane deserves one around the house.”4
On April 10, sitting in their living room with an FBI agent, the couple named at least six SAG members as suspected Communists.5 According to Anne Edwards, who interviewed a close friend of theirs, “Wyman . . . was in an emotional state, torn, not knowing what to do but not agreeing with his decision.”6 According to the agent’s report, “Reagan and his wife advised that for the past several months they had observed during the Guild meetings there were two ‘cliques’ of members, one headed by Anne Revere and the other by Karen Morley, which on all questions of policy confronting the Guild followed the Communist Party line.”7 Both Revere and Morley