As a politician, the 40th American president was a superb performer, but for his earlier career in Hollywood, the reviews are mixed. by Richard Corliss
Ronald Reagan in Hollywood
Ronald Reagan's film career would ultimately be just one colorful chapter in the biography of the 40th President of the United States. But he did devote two prime decades to the minor if alchemic art of movie acting. And film work offered some returns on his investment. It lent Reagan the status of a marketable commodity. It landed him two actress-wives: the first, Oscar-winner Jane Wyman; the second, Nancy Davis, who would be his and America's First Lady. Film acting schooled Reagan in the hortatory oratory of movie dialogue — speeches crafted to sell an ideal or an emotion, and still sound like the purveyor of plain-spoken common sense — techniques he used so dynamically in politics. And it created the image of a part-real, part-fictional personage: "Ronald Reagan," an amalgam of the man, the actor he became and the roles he was given to play.
Love Is In The Air, 1937
On June 1, 1937, a 26-year-old with no professional acting experience strode into a $200-a-week contract at Warner Bros. Four months and a day later, his first feature was released. Reagan's visible attributes: a golden smile and a long, strong frame. His previous job: announcing baseball games on the radio.
Dark Victory, 1939
"No, no," studio boss Jack Warner famously said when he heard the actor was running for governor of California. "Jimmy Stewart for Governor. Ronald Reagan for Best Friend." Warner saw Reagan in a supporting role because that's how he'd cast the actor in his early years at Warners: as the boy next door to the male lead. Best friend. Genial loser. In the 1939 Dark Victory, above, he played the bon-vivant alcoholic who loses Bette Davis to George Brent and a brain tumor.
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