Before he went into politics, what was the general view of Reagan’s acting?
I understand the general sentiment was that he was an OK “B” movie actor, decent enough to be counted on for a movie that the studio wasn’t spending a whole lot of money on, but not a star too many people would pay cash to see. Later, he became a cultural fixture by selling appliances on television.
His fame actually started to increase when he became the host of GE Theatre.
On screen, I’d imagine.
(rimshot)
A key might be in the famous quote attributed to Jack Warner when he heard Reagan was running for governor:
"“No. That can’t be right. Ronald Reagan for best friend. Jimmy Stewart for governor.”
The quote may be acrophycal, but it does show something: Reagan was not a major star, but he was good enough to make a living and play the lead in some films.
As I recall, Reagan received an Oscar nomination for “King’s Row”.
In general, he was either a lead actor in “B” movies, or a supporting actor in “A” movies. Payton’s Servant is right in pointing out that he became especially notable on the GE Theater. He was popular with his fellow actors, and served for a long time as Screen Actors Guild president.
Ronald Reagan was never nominated for an Academy Award. The closest he got to a major award for acting was receiving the Golden Globe’s Hollywood Citizenship Award in 1957.
That’s what I thought. Interesting.
Jimmy Stewart would have been a good politician. And so would Gregory Peck.
Reagan was certainly never a huge star, nor was he ever considered a great actor. He was a solid, respected professional with limited range.
When this question has come up before, I’ve suggested that, in terms of talent and stature, Reagan was comparable to someone like Jeff Daniels or Bill Pullman.
Reagan made his mark in Hollywood acting in “B” movies. He welcomed direction and read a script well. Two attributes that served him well as president.
His last role was rather interesting, in “The Killers” from 1964. Maybe not good, but fun to watch.
I think if he never left acting, he would have ended up in quite a few 1970’s disaster movies (maybe saying “damnit this is the president!” a few times), then done Airplane in 1980 instead of running for president, and probably would finished his career on “Dynasty” in the 1980’s.
I know that James Stewart was rather conservative (who cares?) but do you know Gregory Peck’s political persuasion?
They have been two of my absolute favorites.
As a matter of fact, the producers of “Dynasty” are believed to have offered him a $1,000,000-an-episode contract to appear as yet another of Alexis’ ex-husbands near the end of the show’s run.
Peck has been a pretty outspoken liberal Democrat.
TRIVIA TIME: He’s in the remake of the Killers that Criterion just put out. It’s his last role, and he plays a bad guy! He’s pretty convincing, I think. He smacks Angie Dickenson around pretty well.
I meant Reagan, not Peck. Sorry!
Let’s put it this way- he got second billing to a monkey.
True, but the monkey was a helluva an actor.
Liberal Democrat. He was friendly with the Carters, the Kennedys, Johnson, etc. I think he also did an ad speaking out against the nomination of Bork for Supreme Court.
Plus, like Stewart, he’s an honorable, decent, intelligent human being.
Running through the channels the other night, I ran across an episode of Burns & Allen on TV Land, and for some reason, started to watch. The plot, such as it was, involved gangsters trying to kidnap George Burns and repeatedly grabbing the wrong person. After each failed attempt, the boss gangster would slap the klutzy gangster for the failure.
One of the the victims was Ronald Reagan, playing himself!
Kind of funny to see…