Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [267]
On December 15, 1974, the Sacramento Union ran a farewell interview with Nancy Reagan. In eight years the First Lady had not given a single interview to the much more important Sacramento Bee—as many a former friend and ex-employee knew, when Mrs. Reagan was crossed, she stayed crossed. Mae Belle Pendergast, the society reporter who had gushed over Nancy’s inaugural wardrobe in 1967, was asking the questions. “What is ahead for the Reagans?” she wondered. “We’ll take that day by day,” said Nancy.157
In one of his end-of-term interviews, Ronnie told the Saturday Evening Post, “I’ve heard Nancy’s father say he could not possibly accomplish what 4 2 8
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House he did—even with his skill as a surgeon—without her mother. I could never do what I’m doing without Nancy. When you want to go home as much as I do, you work at it.”158
Shortly after Ronnie and Nancy left Sacramento, Jesse Unruh summed up the Reagan governorship: “I think he has been better than most Democrats would concede and not nearly as good as most Republicans and conservatives might like to think. As a politician I think he has been nearly masterful.” He added, “I do not like Ronald Reagan. I find him cold, with-drawn, shallow, sanctimonious and with very little personal warmth in spite of his appeal to people from the platform and the television tube.”159
Ronnie and Nancy
at their Malibu Canyon
ranch, 1954.
(Murray Garrett/Getty
Images)
The Reagans at the 1958 baptism of their son, Ronald Prescott, with their daughter, Patti, and the boy’s godparents, Robert and Ursula Taylor.
(Reagan Family Photo Collection)
Nancy in 1956 at their Pacific
Palisades home, which
General Electric called
the House of the Future.
(A.P. Wide World Photos)
Nancy with her longtime favorite designer,
James Galanos, in Los Angeles, 1967.
(Bob Willoughby/MPTV)
The Reagans arriving at the funeral
of their close friend Dick Powell
in Beverly Hills, 1963.
(A.P. Wide World Photos)
The Reagans
celebrating his
victory in the
1966 Republican
primary for
governor of
California,
with actor
Cesar Romero.
(A.P. Wide World
Photos)
Nancy gazing at her husband
after his swearing-in as
governor in Sacramento,
January 2, 1967.
(Reagan Family Photo Collection)
Governor and Mrs. Reagan
backstage at the opening of the
San Francisco Opera with tenor
Franco Bonisolli, 1969.
(A.P. Wide World Photos)
The Reagans with their children, Ron and Patti, moving into the old Governor’s Mansion, January 1967.
(A.P. Wide World Photos)
Alfred and Betsy Bloomingdale greeting guests at a 1967 dinner they gave for Governor and Mrs. Reagan.
(Bob Willoughby/MPTV)
Ronnie and Nancy
with former president
Dwight Eisenhower and
Lee Annenberg at
Sunnylands, the Annenbergs’
Palm Springs estate, 1967.
(Reagan Family Photo
Collection)
Nancy with her New York
confidant Jerry Zipkin
in the 1970s.
(Reagan Family Photo
Collection)
Ladies of the Group in 1980: from left, Marion Jorgensen, Betty Wilson, Erlenne Sprague, Bunny Wrather, Harriet Deutsch, and Betty Adams.
(Reagan Family Photo Collection)
Oilman Henry Salvatori, one of the
original members of the Kitchen Cabinet,
with his wife, Grace, in Los Angeles, 1979.
(George Rose/Los Angeles Times)
Drugstore tycoon Justin Dart,
another prominent Reagan backer,
with an assortment of his company’s
products, 1966.
(Steve Fontanini/Los Angeles Times)
Car dealer Holmes Tuttle,
the leader of the Kitchen Cabinet,
at home in Hancock Park, 1973.
(Fitzgerald Whitney/Los Angeles Times)
Reagan’s 1976 and 1980
campaign manager,
John Sears III, center,
with his lieutenants,
Charles Black and
James Lake.
(The New York Times)
Reagan with his long-
time press secretary,
Lyn Nofziger, 1967.
(©Bettmann/Corbis)
Stuart Spencer, who ran Reagan’s
gubernatorial campaigns but worked
for Gerald Ford in 1976.
(The New York Times)
Michael Deaver, the aide
closest to the Reagans personally,