Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [175]
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House Jonus to Jones, took the town by storm from the moment they arrived in 1936. “I’m going to be king of Hollywood,” Jules, who had just turned forty, told Hedda Hopper,93 as he began gobbling up independent talent agencies, including the one that represented Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman. He also bought 10 percent of Paramount’s stock and began construction of MCA’s 25,000-square-foot headquarters, a Beverly Hills version of the White House, complete with an oval office for the chairman. Ann Rutherford vividly recalled Stein at the time: “You should have seen him trying to teach these meticulous bricklayers, who were used to laying bricks and scraping off all the mortar so that you had a flush, even surface. Au contraire. Jules wanted weeping mortar, the kind they have down South, so he took off his coat and took a trowel—it was the sight in town. He’d go by every day and make them redo what didn’t have enough weeping.”94
Doris Stein formed firm alliances with Mary Pickford, Marion Davies, and Buff Chandler. The Steins became regulars at San Simeon, and returned the hospitality with seated dinners for fifty to a hundred at their Spanish-style villa, Misty Mountain, set high on Angelo Drive. Both MCA’s offices and the Steins’ house were decorated with the finest English antiques, and Doris set her tables with the largest collection of Flora Dan-ica china in Los Angeles, complemented by orchids grown in her own hothouses. After conquering the local royals, she cast her net eastward, becoming the Hollywood hostess for visiting New York grandees and Europeans titles such as fashion arbiter Diana Vreeland, philanthropist Mary Lasker, and the Duke and Duchess of Bedford.95
In the 1950s, the Reagans were occasionally invited to Misty Mountain. Doris had been favorably disposed to Nancy by Kitty LeRoy, and was slightly acquainted with the Davises from Chicago. Jules had known Ronnie since shortly after they both arrived in Hollywood, and he was one of the tycoons who wished the well-spoken and well-informed actor would go into politics on the Republican side. Like his good friends Justin Dart, Alfred Bloomingdale, Edgar Bergen, and Freeman Gosden, the MCA chairman was a big Eisenhower supporter, though he was careful to maintain good relations with politicians of both parties, believing that was best for business. “Thanks to Jules, MCA had its bases covered,” said Bill Frye.
“Lew Wasserman was a big Democrat, Taft Schreiber was a big Republican, and Jules was for whoever was in power.”96
Of the three, Taft Schreiber would play the most important role in Pacific Palisades: 1952–1958
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Ronald Reagan’s future political career. Schreiber had started out as an office boy during MCA’s early days in Chicago, and as Stein’s oldest and closest friend at the agency was the natural rival of Wasserman. Although Taft and Rita Schreiber were not as socially elevated as the Steins, they still ranked several tiers above the Wassermans in the 1950s, having established themselves among the city’s pioneer modern art collectors. “Taft was very fond of Ronnie,” Frye recalled. “Matter of fact, I went to Ronnie’s forty-fifth-birthday party at the Schreibers’. They had a beautiful house, very modern, way up toward Tower Drive. I was pleased to be included, because it wasn’t a big party. I can’t remember who-all was there, but it wasn’t a celebrity crowd.”97
Reagan was evolving into a different kind of celebrity, not so much a Hollywood movie star as a national public figure: the amiably distinguished host of a television show that was watched by millions of Americans every Sunday night and the most famous corporate spokesman in the land. Even the few movies released after he signed on with G.E. added to this image. He played classic Western heroes in Cattle Queen of Montana in 1954 and Tennessee’s Partner in 1955 and a real-life World War II submarine commander in Hellcats of the Navy in 1957. His co-star in the last was his real-life wife, Nancy,