Reagan: The Life (17 page)

The North Atlantic Treaty completed the edifice of “containment,” as Truman’s anti-Soviet policy was summarized. It angered conservatives who judged
George Washington smarter than Harry Truman and who objected to what they considered power grabbing by the executive. The
Atlantic treaty evidently took war-making authority out of the hands of Congress and gave it to the president, who would determine when an attack triggered the treaty’s required response.
Robert Taft of Ohio, Truman’s Senate bête noire on the labor issue, again wrung his hands and shook his finger at the president. He warned that the Atlantic treaty would produce a permanent American occupation of Europe and an overweening American defense establishment.

Yet Taft took the road less traveled. The treaty compelled conservatives to make a fateful choice: between their devotion to small government and their aversion to
communism. Many supposed that Taft was right in predicting that the Atlantic alliance and the rest of containment would inevitably swell American government. But with varying degrees of difficulty, most decided that the threat to American liberty from foreign communists was greater than that from domestic liberals. They approved the treaty and endorsed Truman’s
Cold War agenda.

A
CTRESS
P
ATRICIA
N
EAL
encountered Reagan at a Hollywood gathering and thought she had never seen a man so glum. “
His wife, Jane Wyman, had just announced their separation,” Neal said. “And it was sad because he did not want a divorce. I remember he went outside. An older woman went with him. He cried.”

Reagan continued working, not knowing what else to do.
Eddie Bracken appeared with him in
The Girl from Jones Beach
, a forgettable film about the search for the perfect female figure. “
Reagan was a lonely guy,” Bracken said. He thought it striking that Reagan ignored the beautiful women all around him. “He was never for the sexpots,” Bracken said. “He was never a guy looking for the bed. He was a guy looking for companionship more than anything else.”

Work took him unexpectedly overseas. The
Marshall Plan would help right Britain’s listing economy, but in the autumn of 1948 the stabilizing effect remained mostly in the future. The British needed every bit of cash they could lay hands on, and so the British government had forbidden the export of profits by foreign companies operating in Britain. For Warner Brothers and other Hollywood studios that owned and operated theaters in Britain, this meant that the profits their British theaters earned could be spent only in Britain. Warner decided to use its “frozen dollars,” as such funds were called, to make a film in England. Reagan,
Patricia Neal, and other cast members sailed for England in November 1948 to shoot
The Hasty Heart.

The project tried the patience and endurance of all involved. The weather was cold, and persisting shortages of fuel compelled the British to spend even less on heating their buildings than usual. The setting of
the film, Burma at the end of the war, aggravated the discomfort, requiring the cast to traipse around in tropical clothing.

Reagan put on a good front for the cameras and the public. He and Pat Neal stayed at London’s Savoy hotel, prompting the mandatory speculation in the movie press about a romance. But the relationship was purely professional. “
We got along well enough to choose each other’s company even when we were not working,” Neal remarked later. “We would have dinner and even go dancing at some of the local dance halls.” Yet the desire wasn’t there, not on his part and apparently not on hers.

Reagan deflected his forlornness in various ways. He wrote a long, joking letter to
Jack Warner describing the plight of the cast and crew in their distant island outpost. “
To the finder: Please see this letter reaches J. L. Warner, Burbank, California,” the letter began. It continued: “Dear J.L.: I am putting this letter in a bottle and throwing it on the tide with the hope that somehow it may reach you. Perhaps my report of life here in this dismal wilderness will be of help to future expeditions. You will recall with what light hearts we set out such a long time ago—optimistic about an ability to find and thaw the ‘frozen dollar.’ If we could have known then what lay (‘lay’—there’s a word I no longer experience or understand) before us how different would have been our mood. Our first glimpse of this forbidding land was almost as frightening as a look at
The Horn Blows at Midnight
. There seems to be a heavy fog but it had the odor of cow dung and coal soot—fearing an explosion of this gaseous stuff, I ordered ‘no smoking.’ Better I should have ordered ‘no breathing.’ The natives were friendly in a sort of ‘below freezing’ way but were won over by gifts—mostly cash. We were quite generous in this inasmuch as it was
your
cash. They speak a strange jargon similar in many ways to our language but
different
enough to cause confusion. For example—to be ‘knocked up’ here refers in no way to those delights for which ‘Leander swam the Hellespont.’ It merely means to be awakened from a sound sleep by a native device somewhat like our telephone. Another instance of this language difference is the word ‘bloody.’ You could see a native cut stem to stern but to describe the spectacle as ‘bloody’ would get you thrown out of a saloon in London. Mentioning a pain in my ‘fanny’ (which is easy to get here) I was distressed to learn that even this standard American term has an opposite meaning. If I had what they call a ‘fanny’ I could be Queen of England … There is a cleared space near the center of the native capital called Piccadilly Circus. I have gone there many times and have yet to see
an elephant or an acrobat. In fairness I must admit how even there are some characters (mostly female) who seem to be selling tickets to something. They keep pulling my sleeve and saying ‘two bob, Governor.’ One of the most interesting customs of the higher-class natives is something of a sport. They all wear red coats to chase some dogs which in turn are chasing a fox. I should add the natives are mounted on horses. This affair is mistakenly called ‘a fox hunt.’ I say mistakenly because the red object has nothing to do with the fox; they actually are doing this to muscle up the horses which are then served for dinner. I have been very lucky so far in that I have been able to avoid the horse and eat only the saddle and harness. In connection with this let me write a word about English cooking. What they do to food we did to the American Indian … Cheerio! (that is the native word for good by. It is spoken without moving the upper lip while looking down the nose).”

Reagan did what he could to make England seem more like home. He ordered a cargo of steaks from New York’s 21 Club. But several fewer than he paid for reached his table. The hotel staff said the others had spoiled en route; Reagan suspected they had been pilfered by meat-hungry locals.

Filming practices in England differed from those in America. The English took full weekends off. On one such weekend Reagan and Neal were driven about the countryside by an Englishman who was courting one of Neal’s friends. Conversation turned to what each would like to be more than anything else in the world. Reagan answered, with a wry laugh, “
The president of the United States.”

M
AYBE HE MEANT
it. More likely it was another joke, something to lift the gloom of the English winter, the gloom on his soul.

He returned to America amid the debate over the
North Atlantic Treaty, and he reached Hollywood just weeks after the arrival in the film capital of a young woman from Illinois who, as he had done the previous decade, traveled west to try her luck in the movies. Nancy Davis had been born Anne Frances Robbins in New York in 1921. Her parents were
Edith Luckett and
Kenneth Robbins, whose marriage foundered before their daughter was old enough to remember. She followed her mother, an actress, from theater to theater, until Edith decided the trouping life wasn’t good for a little girl and handed Nancy, as she was always called, to an aunt who lived in Maryland. After six years of separation mother
and daughter were reunited when Edith married
Loyal Davis, a Chicago physician. Edith abandoned the stage but took parts in radio dramas produced in Chicago.

She kept in touch with former colleagues, and when the likes of
Spencer Tracy,
Mary Martin, and
Lillian Gish passed through Chicago, they often stayed at the family’s Lake Shore Drive apartment. “
Spence was the most charming man I have ever known,” Nancy recalled later. “He suffered from insomnia, and when I came home late from a date or a night out with friends, he would be up, eager to have a long talk.” With multiple role models in the business, Nancy eventually considered an acting career for herself. She mentioned the idea to Tracy, who offered simple advice: “Know your lines and don’t bump into the furniture.”
Katharine Hepburn, another visitor, offered a warning. She said Nancy had met only stars, people who had succeeded in the business beyond ordinary expectations. She needed to be aware that most hopefuls did much less well, requiring regular work as waitresses and secretaries to round out their meager pay from acting.

Nancy nonetheless went ahead, moving from Chicago to New York to try her luck on the stage. She had acted in college, at Smith, and in summer stock, but the reality of the professional theater was daunting. Casting call after casting call left her unchosen. Eventually, she landed a small part in
Lute Song
, at the insistence of Mary Martin, the female lead. The play ran for four months, which turned out to constitute her whole Broadway career.

Yet she made new contacts.
Clark Gable was between wives and past his prime, but he was handsome, charming, and, after an introduction by Spencer Tracy, apparently interested in Nancy. They spent much of a week together in New York, inspiring speculation in the movie magazines about the new young thing in the leading man’s life. But when he went back to California, she stayed behind.

Not for long, though. Edith decided Nancy might have better luck in movies than on the stage, and she called Tracy to see what he could do. He arranged a screen test at MGM with the studio’s best director, cameraman, and technicians. The test yielded the desired result, and MGM offered her a contract. She packed her few belongings and, in the spring of 1949, headed for Hollywood.

She had more in mind than a movie career. Or perhaps she was simply hedging her bets. She had always imagined getting married, to someone as successful as her stepfather. Her sole serious love affair had ended tragi
cally when her sweetheart was killed by a train. Now, at nearly twenty-eight, she had to consider how much time she had left. New York hadn’t turned up anyone marriageable, but Hollywood might.

By at least one account she took pains to identify the most eligible men in the movie industry. An acquaintance at MGM recalled her sharing a list she had made, with unattached males listed by professional category: producers, directors, agents, lawyers, actors. At the top of Nancy’s list in the actor category was Ronald Reagan, perhaps Hollywood’s most conspicuously eligible bachelor following his divorce from Jane Wyman.

Dore Schary, who knew Reagan through the Screen Actors Guild, had just become head of production at MGM. He learned of the studio’s new hire and that she wanted to meet Reagan. He and his wife hosted a small dinner that brought them together. “
There was a lot of political talk and some arguments,” recalled Schary’s daughter, who took part in the dinner. “Reagan made his views very clear. He was terribly articulate. Nancy listened to him attentively. She was sitting opposite him at the dinner table and she kept smiling at him in agreement.”

Reagan wasn’t smitten. He pleaded an early departure to New York the next day and left the dinner before the other guests. His SAG work kept him busy during the following weeks. Conceivably, he forgot about the dinner, for he subsequently claimed that the first time he met Nancy Davis was several months later, in the autumn of 1949. Nancy contacted him indirectly to express her worry that she was being mistaken for another Nancy Davis, who was associated with certain leftist causes. Reagan looked into the matter and assured the intermediary that all was well; the studios would keep the two Nancy Davises straight. But Nancy wanted to hear the message from the SAG president himself. Reagan reluctantly agreed.

They met for dinner. He told her he had an early shooting session the next morning and couldn’t stay out late. She did too, she said. (“I didn’t, but a girl has her pride,” she admitted later.) He greeted her on a pair of canes, which he needed to help him walk following a leg fracture in a celebrity softball game. They dined at a restaurant on Sunset Strip, beginning their conversation with the identity problem that had ostensibly brought them together. As Nancy seemed to lack confidence that he had solved it, he offered a simple remedy: a name change.

“
I can’t do that,” she said matter-of-factly. “Nancy Davis is my
name
.”

Plenty of actors and actresses worked under stage names, he countered.

She wouldn’t think of it.

The discussion moved on. He gradually warmed to her and said he might have time, after all, to take in the first show of a musical act that was opening down the street. Would her schedule permit it?

“Just for the first show,” she said.

They stayed for both shows.

“I don’t know if it was exactly love at first sight,” she remembered, “but it was pretty close.”

Closer for her than for him. They began dating but not as regularly as she wanted. “
I wish I could report that we saw each other exclusively, and that we couldn’t wait to get married,” she recounted. “But Ronnie was in no hurry to make a commitment. He had been burned in his first marriage, and the pain went deep. Although we saw each other regularly, he also dated other women.” He described the circumstances of his divorce and in the process revealed much about himself. “He was totally unprepared for it,” she recalled. “He also had nobody to confide in when it happened.” She came to understand that he didn’t make friends easily or well. “It’s hard to make close friends or to put down roots when you’re always moving, and I think this—plus the fact that everybody knew his father was an alcoholic—explains why Ronnie became a loner.” The better she got to know him, the more she realized how difficult it was for him to let people near. “Although he loves people, he often seems remote, and he doesn’t let anybody get too close. There’s a wall around him. He lets me come closer than anyone else, but there are times when even I feel that barrier.”