In the attached PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE article, the thirty-one year old movie actor Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 – 2004), fortieth president of the United States (1981–1989), gives a tidy account as to who he was in 1942, and what was dear to him:
"My favorite menu is steaks smothered with onions and strawberry short cake. I play bridge adequately and collect guns, always carry a penny as a good luck charm...I'm interested in politics and governmental problems. My favorite books are Turnabout , by Thorne Smith, Babbitt , The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the works of Pearl Buck, H.G. Wells, Damon Runyon and Erich Remarque."
Oddly, he said nothing at all about his preference for compromising Soviet expansion. Young Reagan was pressured into writing this piece by the flacks who ran the publicity machine at Warner Brothers, where he was under contract. In 1942 2nd Lieutenant Reagan was to be transferred from his posting in San Francisco to "Fort Roach" in Culver City, California.
A good read and a revealing article by a complicated man.
Click here to read about a Cold War prophet who was much admired by President Reagan...
Read a 1951 profile of another Hollywood performer and future First Lady: the young Nancy Reagan.
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