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at his own studio, and the FMPU leased the nine-acre Hal Roach complex in Culver City, which had five soundstages and state-of-the-art special effects facilities. Warner was replaced as commanding officer by Major Paul Mantz, a stunt pilot who won his appointment because he was the only man at Fort Roach—also dubbed Fort Wacky—who could actually fly a plane. For all the jokes, however, by early 1943 the “Culver City Commandos” numbered more than one thousand enlisted men and officers who were turning out eight films a month, featuring such stars as Alan Ladd, Arthur Kennedy, and Lee J. Cobb.31 That July, Reagan received his promotion to captain, and in December he was made post adjutant, the second-highest position at Fort Roach.32 He was known as a stickler for following rules and respecting rank. When Lieutenant William Holden was transferred to Fort Roach in early 1945, Captain Reagan kept him standing at attention for twenty-five minutes while he recited the regulations.

Holden called him a son of a bitch behind his back, but the two actors soon became best friends.33

Warner Bros. did its best to keep Reagan in the limelight while he was in uniform. Ronnie and Jane were on Modern Screen’s January 1943 cover, and they were frequently photographed on his weekend leaves at events Ronnie and Jane: 1941–1946

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such as the premiere of Yankee Doodle Dandy and the California State Military Guard Ball at the Hollywood Palladium. In February 1943, Jack Warner arranged for Reagan to take the lead in This Is the Army, a musical based on Irving Berlin’s Broadway show of the previous year. The premiere at the Hollywood Theater in July was a major publicity event—Ronnie wore his dress uniform, Wyman a hot-pink cocktail dress with a silver-fox cape and gobs of amethyst jewelry. The movie was a huge hit, taking in $10 million at the box office, with Warners donating its profits to Army War Relief.34 As a result of its success and that of Kings Row, Reagan was rated Hollywood’s top box-office draw for 1942–43.35 He was on the cover of Modern Screen solo in October 1944, looking as handsome and comfortable in uniform as he had in ten of the thirty movies he had made at Warners before he entered the military.36

Jane’s career, however, remained in the doldrums, with Warners continuing to cast her in run-of-the-mill comedies, musicals, and war movies. In early 1944 she went on a twelve-week tour to promote war bond sales and The Doughgirls, “a honey of a funny—about love and money!,” as the ad campaign put it, in which she co-starred with Ann Sheridan and Alexis Smith.37 Like a good soldier’s wife, Jane also put in many hours at the Hollywood Canteen, and was rewarded with a part in Warners’ 1944 musical of the same title, along with the studio’s reigning triumvirate of strong-willed leading ladies: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Barbara Stanwyck. At the end of that year she was finally given a dramatic role in a major picture when Warners loaned her out to Paramount for The Lost Weekend, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Ray Milland as an alcoholic writer. Jane was cast as Milland’s almost masochistically devoted girlfriend. It would prove to be her breakthrough role to stardom.

In August 1944, as Allied forces pushed the Japanese back across the Pacific, the FMPU embarked on a top secret project designed to assist in the bombing and invasion of Japan itself. The film unit’s set designers and special effects wizards built a miniature replica of Tokyo and other targets on the floor of one of the soundstages and mounted cameras on cranes above it so that simulated bombing runs could be filmed and sent to the front to brief bombing crews before they took off for Japan. In turn, footage from the actual raids was sent back to Fort Roach, where the model was adjusted to reflect bombing damage. Security surrounding the project was so tight that, Reagan later wrote, “it was enough to make all of us fearful of talking 1 5 6

Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House in our sleep, or taking an extra drink. We knew the bomb targets