LOS ANGELES—Long before he was president of the United States or even governor of California, Ronald Reagan had an army of star-struck movie fans who wrote him letters — and who to their surprise often got a personal reply.
For one writer in particular the replies added up to well more than 100 as Zelda Multz evolved from teenage president of the Ronald Reagan International Fan Club to a lifelong literary friend of the man who, 40 years after she first wrote to him, became the nation’s 40th president.
His letters to her range from brief thank-yous for birthday cards Multz sent him to expressions of frustration at being relegated to roles in movies he knew weren’t very good to expressions of heartbreak at the dissolution of his first marriage and to anguish over the failing health of his elderly mother.
“I wish she didn’t need to suffer so much all the time, but you don’t hear her complain, always smiling and saying, ‘I’m fine.’ That’s my Mom Nelle,” Reagan says in one handwritten letter.
As the years pass, the letters come to include the future president’s thoughts on politics, his concern for the health of Multz’s own elderly mother and his joking responses about his mortality, noting in one missive that he prefers to think of his 81st birthday as the 42nd anniversary of his 39th.
They are variously signed “Ron,” ‘'Ronnie“ and ”Dutch,” the latter a nickname reserved for close friends.
