Eldergays, did Old Hollywood largely support Reagan in the 1980 election?

Unfortunately he was supported by Maureen O’Hara, Barbara Stanwyck and Bob Hope, amongst others. Maureen and Bob I could give a fuck about, but Barbara, damn.

Jimmy Stewart was an early and stalwart supporter of Reagan.

Most certainly not. Keep in mind that he was a notoriously conservative governor of California (think: the racist John Birch Society people) long before he won the presidential election in 1980 after many tries. But there were the usual Old Hollywood right-wingers like John Wayne, Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Joan Crawford, etc. who supported him. Fortunately, my parents (who'd be 100+ now) were Northern California liberal voters. You'd never see their shitty old re-run movies on our TV in the 1960's. Bette Davis mockingly called him "Lit'le Ronny Ray-gun". But at the time, Southern California was heavily Republican. Heavily German immigrant populated Orange County was referred to as "behind the Orange Curtain" as it was so uptight and conservative.

Eartha Kitt did!

No-

Bette Davis thought he was an imbecile.

r6, and she was correct.

Bette Davis was always correct.

According to his much younger gf at the time, Peter Lawford started laughing hysterically when he was elected especially at the thought of Nancy 'Blow Job' Davis as First Lady.

Clips of Bette Davis talking about Ronald Reagan. She clearly was not a fan.

Bette kind of softened to him when she got the Kennedy Center honor during his term. Might have been the stroke, but she said Ronnie and Nancy were very kind to her. She shouldn't have had to wait that long to be honored.

R10- BD was very clever and had great instincts. RR was obviously very charming and of course being an actor, no matter how dull an actor, carried a lot of weight then. He really did get away with what he did because of his charm and humor. His cunt of a wife wasn't well liked at all, iirc.

Nancy Davis was very well liked by many a cock in Hollywood.

R13- Back seat Nancy! That was the only way she could get any attention.

R13- ETA- Remember the long, long " lunches" she had every week with Frank Sinatra? Without Ronnie the Chimp?

Kirk Douglas had mean things to say about Reagan selling out SAG members. IIRC, he went to a party shortly after the JFK assassination and Nancy was complaining about Jackie wearing a blood-stained suit.

Vicki Morgan Slain Bloomingdale Mistress Bludgeoned to Death.

Mrs Bloomingdale was Nancy Reagans bff. Makes you wonder if any of her many psychics ever saw that coming.

Stanwyck was a personal friend of Reagan's.

Nancy trapped poor Ronnie by getting preggers with Patti. Ronnie stated he was divorced by Jane Wyman, and he didn't want to be. Poor Nance may have been First Lady, but she was always Second Choice.

Kirk Douglas was 100% + a Democrat and he even travelled around the country giving speeches and campaigning for the Dems, helping to raise $$$ for them. Remember, Kirk DOuglas broke the Black List in Hollywood by hiring Dalton Trumbo to write the screenplay for Spartacus,...and put Trumbo's name in the credits publicly acknowledging him as the screenwriter. This is relevant because it shows us what kind of person Douglas was ...and also the fact that he was very aware, as was most of Hollywood, that Ronald Reagan, while he was President of SAG, was an FBI informer and ruined many careers accusing various actors and others of being communists.

Didn't NR always hate Jane Wyman with the fire if a thousand suns? JW would have been such a classy First Lady. Nancy Reagan was a gaudy, grifting whore.

Nancy Reagan found her footing when Ronnie became Governor. She suddenly had friends like Betsy Bloomingdale.

They should be roasting in hell for ignoring the AIDS crisis and allowing so many young lives to suffer and die an agonizing, terrifying, isolated death. I am aware they did many more damaging things, but refusing research and support for AIDS patients will always be the first thing I think of whenever the name Reagan is mentioned.

[quote]Kirk Douglas was 100% + a Democrat

And a sadistic asshole. Being a Jew, of course he was a liberal.

R24 Perhaps it's time to check out current politics in Israel, eh Pookie?

The world really turned a corner toward the "bad" under Reagan - deregulation, dismantling unions and collective bargaining, Reagonomics shifting wealth to the wealthy: the great equitable distribution of wealth, opportunity, and resources of the mid-century was unplugged by Reagan and his criminals. Irony: the only President who had been head of a union.

Bette Davis: "Everybody called him 'Little Ronnie Reagan the boy scout' at the studio and we didn't think he was terribly bright. For instance, in DARK VICTORY he is playing a gay man and he never really understood that. I will grant that he did give one good performance in his career--in KING'S ROW. He did love to talk, though. He would go on and on and would eventually bore everyone. Jane Wyman divorced him because he was a bore."

Myrna Loy: "I never worked with Ronald Reagan. I'm not happy that he's president, but I was willing to give him a chance. But he's destroying everything now I've lived my life for."

James Garner: "Ronald Reagan wasn't qualified to be governor, let alone president. I was a vice president of the Screen Actors Guild when he was its president. My duties consisted of attending meetings and voting. The only thing I remember is that Ronnie never had an original thought and that we had to tell him what to say. That's no way to run a union, let alone a state or a country."

Bette Davis praised him on Carson for making Americans patriotic again.

[quote] Nancy trapped poor Ronnie by getting preggers with Patti.

Angela, no one says preggers anymore. Do keep up.

Ironically, Reagan wouldn’t even be conservative enough for today’s Republican Party. Even Trump trashed Reagan.

And Trump did it during his run for president.

R25, Kirk Douglas was an American born Russian Jew who grew up in NYS in the 1920s and 30s. Israel had nothing to do with anything about him or his family or his life experience in the US. Israel wasn't officially even a country.

Yet r31 you are the one who said he’s a liberal because he’s a Jew. What are Israelis, Italians?

They’re Jews the last time I checked, dummy. Slice that oven stuffer roaster off your face, by the way.

He won California in a landslide in both 1980, and 84

[quote]Remember, Kirk DOuglas broke the Black List in Hollywood by hiring Dalton Trumbo to write the screenplay for Spartacus,...and put Trumbo's name in the credits publicly acknowledging him as the screenwriter. This is relevant because it shows us what kind of person Douglas was

This is Kirk Douglas public relations revisionism, designed to make himself look magnanimous and progressive.

[quote] But there were the usual Old Hollywood right-wingers like John Wayne, Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Joan Crawford, etc. who supported him.

I'm not sure Joan was a right-winger, but anyway she died in 1977.

Incidentally:

Before Carter had won the Democratic nomination, he had faced a challenge to become his party's candidate from Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. The Kennedy name attracted a number of Hollywood endorsements, including from Warren Beatty, Angie Dickinson, Goldie Hawn, Martin Sheen, Bette Davis, Jack Lemmon and Shelly Winters.

Third party candidate John Anderson drew support from Paul Newman, Norman Lear, Jason Robards, Ed Asner, Margot Kidder and James Taylor supported John Anderson, while California's Jerry Brown had the support of singers Helen Reddy and Linda Rondstadt.

R34- Kirk Douglas was an egomaniacal bully and very possibly a rapist.

R36,Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976. He was running for re-election in 1980. He was the incumbent and Ted Kennedy challenged the incumbent of his own party setting the stage for a defeat at Reagan's hands. And Anderson, running 3rd party, helped get Reagan in the White House Dems were real dumb in that campaign season.

Joan supported Kennedy IIRC

I have always read that Ted Kennedy never wanted to run for POTUS because he was terrified of being assassinated like his brothers were. TK leaving MJK to slowly drown while he swam back to his hotel is despicable.

R37 Not the only Democrat you could say that about. (Or Republican.)

R39 I think she may have privately supported Nixon but it's unclear.

Joan was close friends with Barbara because in those days you could think differently and still be friends unlike today's Morlocks.

R38 Anderson was a Republican congressman who ran in the Republican primary and then ran for POTUS as an Independent. Carter's + Anderson's votes were still less than Reagan's. So even if Anderson hadn't run, it's hard to see how Carter would have won.

^And not all of those Anderson votes would have automatically gone to Carter anyway.

We seem to do this every year where the young people on here forget or don't realize that the GOP Old Hollywood (people who were mostly born BEFORE WW1) belonged to was a very far cry from the uniformly bigoted MAGATs of today or the even the ones Goldwater and later Reagan created. Reagan himself was a Democrat (a strong anti communist one, but still a Democrat) until relatively late in his wife. And Democrats weren't known as the less-bigoted party until the late 40s, they had an entire wing of the most extremely vocal pro segregationists in Congress for a while.

[quote] Reagan himself was a Democrat (a strong anti communist one, but still a Democrat) until relatively late in his wife.

Freudian slip.

R38, Ted Kennedy had many great accomplishments in the Senate but there is no doubt about it--he was a piece of shit.

R48 He was a drunk. He was under the influence of alcohol for years. This is not meant as an excuse, but behavior is affected by addictions. Maybe he was also a piece of shit sober, idk. And if he was, how was JFK not? He certainly was a shit to his wife. And to many women.

Later in his life that is. Speaking of wives, Jane Wyman (Republican her whole life) talked about Reagan's party switch in some interview, said it was a point of conflict during their marriage.

Also most people who volunteered testimony to the initial phase of the HUAC did not outright name names, the naming was later on mostly done by left-wing people who were threatened with jail time or blacklisting because of their communist associations. It was an extremely complex situation you can't just boil down to left or right. Gary Cooper specifically did some borderline comedic routine where he said he knew there WERE communists in Hollywood but he couldn't name any specific ones or any specific communist content in scripts because he got the scripts at night. He was also someone who went to bat for victims of the blacklist later on when he filmed High Noon.

Joan Crawford was also not a Republican. She was a big JFK fan, went to his White House events and had his photo in her sad little apartment. James Cagney was someone who started out borderline communist but became conservative as he aged because of his distaste for the hippie and radical movements of the 60s/70s.

Most people on that list were not hard right wingers by even past standards, and most would easily be considered moderates or apolitical today - Clark Gable was considered to be practically apolitical back then. Barbara Stanwyck was someone who was fiscally extremely right wing but quite anti bigotry, she stuck up for a lot of her black coworkers and employees and did good work for Native American activism. The Republican party of the pre-Goldwater era wasn't some loony bin like it is now.

R50 Pretty sure Reagan didn't switch parties until he met Nancy and her far-right family. Though Wyman was always a Republican. The Reagan-Wyman marriage was over when Wyman had a serious affair with Lew Ayres, her costar in Johnny Belinda. Privately she said about Reagan, ask him the time and he'll tell you how the watch was made. I. e., similar to what Bette Davis said, he was a talkative bore (often about politics - Democratic politics).

Reagan was also a bad union president. He was later questioned by Congress (early '60s) about some of his back-stairs deals and denied any memory of them (something he also did as POTUS). He sold out SAG members to benefit himself, losing them residuals for the broadcast of their old films on TV, and was rewarded for it. POS.

Quoting is disabled on this website but leaves her political affiliation in doubt.

[quote]James Garner: "Ronald Reagan wasn't qualified to be governor, let alone president. I was a vice president of the Screen Actors Guild when he was its president. My duties consisted of attending meetings and voting. The only thing I remember is that Ronnie never had an original thought and that we had to tell him what to say. That's no way to run a union, let alone a state or a country."

I loved that man so much. Garner, of course, not Ronnie.

Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters, Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas, John Huston and Orson Welles were committed lifelong progressives.

Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn were classic Yankee Democrats, and Frank Sinatra (who made a party switch later in life) Rita Hayworth, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Humphrey Bogart and Henry Fonda, etc. were old school types as well. They would probably be considered "center-left" today, in the current tribalistic times.

What's interesting is that majority of the liberals of Old Hollywood came from middle class or higher backgrounds while a majority of the Republicans came from poorer backgrounds. Obviously a number of exceptions in each category but that seem to be the general trend.

Joan is so beautiful at R42... I can't help it, as my heart is a little molten tonight.

Christina wrote in Mommie Dearest that Joan wasn't political at all. Christina never heard Joan talk about politics.

R55 Yes, a number of exceptions. Robert Montgomery didn't come from a poor background. Neither did Gary Cooper, his father (who was born in England) was a lawyer, rancher and Montana Supreme Court Justice. Robert Taylor's father was a doctor (though probably not well off). Rosalind Russell's father was a lawyer.

Ava Gardner, Lauren Bacall, and Bette Davis didn't come from wealth and weren't even well off.

The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals had strange bedfellows. Ginger and Barbara. The Alliance was created by Ayn Rand I believe. Gary Cooper, Ward Bond. Character actor Charles Coburn was a card carrying member of the White Citizens Council. Hedda Hopper was openly opposed to integration of any kind. She was so Republican that her maxipads had elephants on them. The cunt. Her own son called her out on her racism.

Though she wasn't around by the time Reagan ran Tallulah Bankhead was a Democrat who was a great fan of Harry Truman, and vice-versa.

Myrna Loy - a lot of people don't know how many things she did for the US outside of her film work.

Myrna was a proud liberal.

The great Agnes Moorehead was a staunch republican, and a big supporter of Ronald Reagan when he ran for Governor in 1967 and again in 1971. It was said she was one of the early supporters who encouraged Reagan to think about running for the Presidency in 1976 (while he was governor), among with other celebrities.

R63 Sorry to correct you but since I lived in California at the time I know Jerry Brown was elected governor in 1974. Reagan retired after two terms. I even remember Brown ran against SF mayor Alioto for the nom. This was shortly after the Nixon resignation.

R49, he also killed a woman and got a woman so there's that.

R65 When he was drunk.

That should say "killed a woman and got away with it so there's that."

Reagan was a "company man." He knew he couldn't act as well as a lot of others, so he kissed ass and got the studio suits to love him. When the whole red scare thing was happening in Hollywood, the studio heads were shitting themselves to make sure they didn't upset the House and Senate committees. They were actively purging the more progressive elements and Ronnie was helping. What a POS he was. They fired people for their political beliefs and forced others to take loyalty oaths. THey ruined lives and families, and people committed suicide. It was an ugly time and Ronald Reagan was part of it.

R29 This is the truth: Reagan wouldn't even be a RINO by today's standards.

R29 and R69, I look at what we call Conservatives today and I cringe, because to claim they're Conservatives is like spraying perfume on a pile of horseshit.The people who are inhabiting the Republican PArty today are extremists, not Conservatives. But what a lot of people don't get is that Trump is a symptom, not the problem. We have people who have a better command of the English vocabulary, who have better manners, who may pretend empathy more effective at lt, but they are every bit as dangerous and extreme as Trump. Right now I am in Georgia and our Governor is one of them.

And Reagan was the beginning of this iteration of Republican politics. He didn't invent it. It was around in previous eras, but our downward slide into Fascism was accelerated by him. The Republicans hate government and want to dismantle it. They starve it with irresponsible tax cuts. They claim government is "too big" and they want "less government" but they aren't talking about us. They are talking about corporations and industry. Complete deregulation. As for us, hell they're regulating us to death, banning books, defunding libraries, intruding on our relationship with our doctors, banning medication and treatement, etc. It will get worse. They want to tie us up with so much regulation we'll be too distracted to see them stealing. Look at Florida and Texas, or better yet, look at Russia and the oligarchs.

I've mentioned this before, but Showtime has a great 4 or 5 part documentary on Ronald Reagan that ought to be required viewing. He was a terrible nasty person. But he seemed pretty harmless.

[quote]So even if Anderson hadn't run, it's hard to see how Carter would have won.

R44, you don't take into account that candidates win on electoral votes and moderate Anderson took enough votes in a state like New York to let Reagan win it and all 41 EVs. Things like that happen with third party candidates and can happen again. I'm not necessarily saying Carter would have won without Anderson.

I wonder if the men of Old Hollywood were too aged in ‘80 to get a guilty boner when they heard Nancy would be in the White House, and they thought about her agile tongue caressing their swollen glans?

Probably too old to get it up any more. Sad!

The Bushes are good examples of this "friendly fascism" as is Liz Cheney and a lot of others. Bush 41 was known as a really nice guy who wrote great notes and was SO polite. He gave us Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall.. . And he knew then what Clarence Thomas was like. Hell, he watched those hearings... Bush 43 decided the Federalist Society would do a much better job of vetting SCOTUS nominees than the bar associations that had done it in the past. He had Brett Kavanaugh in the office of the Special Counsel escorting his nominees, John Roberts and Alito through the nominating process. These people cannot claim to love the Constitution and be loyal to their country as they embrace policies that threaten democracy and sabotage the functioning of our government.

Cheney and Adam Kinzinger voted with Trump more than 90% of the time.

According to many sources, John Anderson performed best among liberal Republican voters dissatisfied with Reagan. Not Democrats. Reagan won in such a landslide with Carter only winning 6 states, I think, it's hard to beleive Anderson made much of a difference to the outcome at all.

*believe

I like that Kirk Douglas remained a Democrat to the very end. Many Hollywood legends from the Golden Age become more conservative as they age. But Kirk remained a staunch liberal. I admire that.

I like that Dick Van Dyke supported Bernie Sanders.

[quote] I like that Dick Van Dyke supported Bernie Sanders.

Same. He even came out to one of Bernie's rallies and supported him.

Now I dislike Dick Van Dyke, R79.

Was Lucille Ball a Republican? Did she ever voice her politics?

R82 She and Desi supported Eisenhower, but didn't she often say she knew nothing about politics?

She was registered to vote as a Communist, remember that's how all her trouble in the 50's started. Then she said she did it to please her grandad and she wasn't political.

I can't remember ever reading anything about Lucille Ball being political.

R71 it was terrifying. Like the birth of MAGA. Interesting to compare to the current state of the Republican party.

[quote] Most certainly not. Keep in mind that he was a notoriously conservative governor of California (think: the racist John Birch Society people) long before he won the presidential election in 1980 after many tries. But there were the usual Old Hollywood right-wingers like John Wayne, Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Joan Crawford, etc. who supported him.

Joan Crawford and John Wayne were both dead by 1980.

Reagan was in the same mold as George Brent, John Boles, James Craig (although Craig was hot) and a few other leading men in the 30s and 40s. basically a plank of wood to make their leading ladies look good. He was an awful actor, a cipher onscreen.

I second the Reagan doc on Showtime. It's excellent. Really strips away all the bullshit and shows you how awful Reagan and his administration really were.

Reagan was not a great actor but he had screen presence, he was charming and could be funny. He was a bigger star than all the guys you mentioned. I think what happened to him is he was a cute young guy (as in Knute Rockne, as George Gipp, The Gipper) but as soon as he aged and gained a little weight his body got to look like a tree trunk and his face looked sort of pinched. He started to lose his attractiveness. There's a TV epsiode where he plays a doctor treating a criminal (James Dean) and he's good.

The only time I found Reagan good as an actor was when he played the crime boss in the remake of The Killers.

He was never great in anything. And I hated his crooked, lopsided smile.

I'd say that Reagan was on the same acting level as the wooden Robert Taylor, though not as handsome.

Ball was accused of being a communist at one point because she allegedly registered with the party back in the 1930s but was able to evade any sort of HUAC bullshit because it was found to be a misunderstanding. She was an old school Democrat, probably would be considered center left or center right by today's standards.

De only ting about Loosie dat's red is er hair!

Lucy wanted Desi to return to Cuba and fight with Castro and the guerillas in the mountains, but he rejected the plan as just another of her harebrained schemes.

Anderson was like Ralph Nader was to Gore. I was there. I remember. I think Anderson got 11%. It was the hostage crisis that killed Carter and now we know how the Republicans manipulated that situation actually asking Iran to delay the release of the hostages until Reagan was sworn in.

Kings Row was ok but I think his only really good performance as opposite Eleanor Parker and Eve Arden in The Voice Of The Turtle (or One For The Book). He plays a soldier who needs dogs during his weekend of R&R and stays in heartbroken single gal’s Eleanor’s apartment. He’s hang up free and charming and low key sexy.

Anderson got 6.6%

R93 "Allegedly" see R83

Robert Taylor was a much better actor than Ronald Reagan. He was very good in things like Ivanhoe, which Reagan would have been ridiculous trying to do.

Robert Taylor was the better actor. I couldn’t see Reagan in Johnny Eager.

Robert Taylor was also a Conservative who named names before the House Unamerican Activities Committee.

I always thought of certain actors as "Types." They had no range to speak of and seemed rather wooden in the old movies. Both Reagan and Taylor fit that description. I remember watching Ivanhoe as a kid and felt that Robert Taylor ruined it for me. aside from cowboys he was no good in period dramas.

Robert Taylor was big closet case.

[quote]Robert Taylor was the better actor. I couldn’t see Reagan in Johnny Eager.

I couldn't see Robert Taylor in Johnny Eager he was so fucking bad an actor.

I was reading a biography of Judy Garland and would you believe Tyrone Power and Judy had an affair...including while he was married to Linda Christian...and Tyrone was also a closet case. Damn, Judy could sure pick 'em.

My favorite Judy alleged affair was ORSON WELLES circa 1945. Christ, the size discrepancy alone!

I also have fairly reliable second hand about Welles and Joseph Cotten having some kind of long term relationship throughout their lives, so this was yet another (if part-time) cock loving gentleman caller for Judy.

All three were liberals, to stay on theme here.

Lady Reagan had best credentials for Vairst Letty!

Is it a bad omen when this is the thread is active?

… why?

Never heard gay rumors about Welles and/or Cotten, separately or together.

R106 Welles was tall but in 1945 not fat.

Welles was always doughy. I've heard bisexual rumors about him forever, even when he was alive, R111.

[quote] I couldn't see Robert Taylor in Johnny Eager he was so fucking bad an actor.

Oh, c'mon. The guy wasn't Laurence Olivier, but he had great screen presence, especially with another hot star like Lana Turner. Little Ronnie Reagan couldn't dare bring this amount of sexiness to the screen. He was too basic-looking.

R114, Taylor wasn’t even Van Johnson or Peter Lawford. He SUCKED.

Are you a Brit by chance?

Nope, R115, I'm American. Why you ask?

And Robert Taylor was every bit as sexy as Van Johnson and Peter Lawford. The man was gorgeous.

[quote]The man was gorgeous.

And the worst actor "star" who ever lived. Stanwyck was a bad acting teacher.

Those who didn't were:

Henry Fonda: He was alarmed by the conservative right, taking over the country. He heard a Reagan speech and wanted to throw up.

Bette Davis: When Reagan was SAG President, he backed the film corporations, by quashing royalties to film actors. This included video tapes after they reached the market. She despised him, but softened up when Reagan invited her to the White House. She remained a Democrat to the end, though.

The others who likely opposed Reagan were:

Lauren Bacall: Lifelong Democrat.

Shelley Winters: Solid Democrat, civil rights, pro-union, always supported the underdogs.

Katharine Hepburn: Democrat, liberal, advocate birth control, social causes. Her parents were very progressive.

[quote] did Old Hollywood largely support Reagan in the 1980 election?

Old Hollywood, and America.

Jimmy was 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 big a failure as president.

r1907: Cotten was a BIG homophobe.

Watch Robert Taylor's eyes in this scene. Good actor.

R121 I'd rather watch Elizabeth.

*

[quote]Jimmy was 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 big a failure as president.

Fuck off, Reaganite scumbag.

R123 Taylor was excellent in Party Girl. Good film where he played a jaded lawyer for a Chicago mobster in the 20s. He walked with a limp in the film and Nicholas Ray said he worked like a method actor for him, visiting an osteopath to study the type of injury it was and how it would feel.

Robert Taylor had serious tinymeat.

The Robert Taylor fan has been very busy on this thread. How about starting a thread about him?

Taylor made dozens of films, he was passably “good” in about three. Not a good actor at all.

R127 There's more than one person posting positive things about Taylor on the thread. It's not "the Robert Taylor fan." I'm one of them, and I'm not a big fan but since his acting was talked about I wanted to point out I think he could act. You disagree, that's the conventional wisdom and I'm sure your wisdom is very conventional.

PS The original point was Reagan was like another Robert Taylor, and mostly people posted to refute that. There's not a lot of similarity, even talent-wise.

I DARE YOU - create a Robert Taylor thread. I must warn R128, if you post all the responses, you'll be tagged and banned.

R130 Huh? I have no desire to post a Robert Taylor thread. If you're so into this subject, why don't you post an nati-Robert Taylor thread?

You can use the ignore function to see for yourself I wasn't the only person posting positive Taylor comments.

I don't see why this triggers you so much, but you probably need help. And please don't threaten me with banning or for any other reason.

*anti-

^ Chicken

Robert was supposed to be British in WATERLOO BRIDGE. Except he sounded like the US midwestern bumpkin he was. Tyrone Power portrayed an Englishman in THIS ABOVE ALL with Joan Fontaine, but once again the accent was not there. I hate it when American actors do that.

This is going to set the Audrey Stans sobbing.

And again around the time Ronnie violated French air space and international law to illegally bomb Tripoli.

Gene Tierney stopped appearing in public and hated big events, for obvious reasons. Nevertheless she made the exception and actively campaigned for Reagan for President.

William Holden was best man at Reagan's wedding to Nancy.

William Holden was the Best Man at Ronald Reagan's wedding to Nancy.

Claudette Colbert was such good friends with the Reagans they stayed with her at her estate in Barbados while he was President.

I wonder how Ron and Nancy felt about Claudette's lesbian lover.

William Holden was subordinate to Reagan in the Army

Holden didn't visit the Ronnie White House to my knowledge but he died early in Ronnie's reign.

Holden was a big drunk.

Many “open” gays of Old Hollywood were Republicans like Claudette, or Rock Hudson and Randy Scott. Again, it didn’t mean even close to what it means today, many Republicans of the past would be categorized as moderates or even center-left Democrats in today’s MAGAtard society.

Also Joseph Cotten was not homophobic because he was a bitch to Don Bachardy, who did borderline slander by touting Cotten as some major homophobe for disliking him. He thought Don was too immature and effete, nothing worse than how DLers of certain age talk about gays today. Again, I think Cotten was most likely a closeted gay man, or at least bisexual.

Many of Christopher Isherwood’s openly gay friends disproved of Don/their relationship as well, does that make them homophobes too?

Yea because their incomes were about to sky rocket. They'd finally get paid more and get to keep the more of it. This is when opulent celeb culture officially emerged. Also explains why all sorts of musical artists (Cher) kept going or launched comebacks during this time.

Another example is Johnny Carson who really wasn't making the big bucks until the 80s because of Reagan's restructuring.

Both Nancy and Jane at Jane's daughter's funeral.