Ronald Reagan was born above a bakery in a small Midwestern town in 1911. The son of an alcoholic shoe salesman, Reagan had an inauspicious start for the man who would go on to defeat communism. Despite hardships, he dreamed of becoming a movie star, an ambition fueled by the few times he could afford to see a movie.
A Screen Test
Reagan’s big break came in 1937. He was in California covering the Cubs’ spring training and took a day off to pursue his dream. That Monday morning, he headed to the Warner Brothers’ studio for a screen test, but he had terrible stage fright. It didn’t help that the stylist doing his makeup made fun of his haircut.Ever since his mother cut his hair as a toddler, Reagan had sported a “Dutch boy” hairstyle: a bob with straight bangs that fell above the neckline. This hairstyle earned Reagan the nickname “Dutch,” which the historian Edmund Morris used for the title of the 40th president’s celebrated biography.
Though it adds an endearing quality to Reagan’s persona now, the studio makeup artist was not impressed. “Where the hell did you get that haircut?” she asked when he walked in.
Standing in front of the cameras and lights, his face lathered in heavy makeup, Reagan could barely see in front of him. Nevertheless, he gave the brief scene his all. It was over as quickly as it began. The studio would be in touch. On the train ride back to Des Moines, he grew depressed, thinking his dream a lost cause.
Early Film Career
Perhaps it wasn’t an accident that the golden age of Hollywood coincided with the Great Depression. While the country endured one of its bleakest times, and the average person struggled to put food on the table, the film industry boomed. In hard times, people need to fantasize, and millions of Americans filled movie houses each week to see the latest picture.
Reagan’s contract with Warner Brothers had him rubbing shoulders with such Hollywood legends as Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, and Errol Flynn. As an unknown newcomer, though, Reagan couldn’t expect to get top billing in the most coveted roles. Instead, he made a string of largely forgettable B-movies.
His first film, “Love Is on the Air,” was an hour long. It cost $119,000 and took Regan three weeks to shoot. Fittingly, Reagan played a radio commentator, Andy McCaine, who gets in trouble when he starts exposing government corruption on his radio show. Though the movie isn’t particularly memorable, it’s enjoyable popcorn fare, with an entertaining plot and snappy dialogue.
In one scene that hints at what would become the famous Reagan wit, McCaine’s boss attempts to fire him:
Andy McCaine (Reagan): You can’t fire me.
J.D. Harrington: Oh, I can’t, eh? Get out!
Andy McCaine: There’s a little slip of paper, I believe they call it a contract. You know, where two minds meet and one of them gets the worst of it.
While Reagan is most famous for the quips he made in presidential speeches, his knack for delivering droll lines like this prepared him well for his later political career. A review in the Hollywood Reporter praised the film’s “new leading man,” calling Reagan “a natural, giving one of the best picture performances Hollywood has offered in years.”
Portraying Moral Values
In his first 18 months of at Warner Brothers, he made 12 more B-films, earning a reputation as “the Errol Flynn of B-pictures.” He wasn’t like today’s method actors, renowned for their chameleonlike abilities to play any character. As his mother Nelle observed, “He’s no Robert Taylor. He’s just himself.”The studio head, Jack Warner, believed that movies should teach moral lessons. Reagan expressed the strong values, patriotism, and religious convictions that Warner was looking for in a studio star. In some ways, he was similar to the screen personas of James Stewart and John Wayne: a frank, virtuous man who capable of overcoming all setbacks and wicked antagonists—though he was not as self-effacing as Stewart or as macho as Wayne. This character type is notably absent today.
Over the next quarter century, Reagan made over 50 films. The oval office, still ahead of him, would cement him as one of the nation’s greatest statesmen. It was an unlikely trajectory for the son of a shoe salesman.
