geeky
Reagan's big screen career began after his graduation from Eureka College in 1932. Reagan drove to Iowa, where he got jobs as a radio announcer at several different stations. He moved to WHO radio in Des Moines and worked as an announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games. He created play-by-play accounts of baseball games using only basic descriptions of the plays that the station received by wire as the games were in progress. It was while he was traveling with the Cubs on their western swing through California in 1937, that Reagan took a screen test which led to a seven-year contract with Warner Brothers studios. He spent the first few years of his Hollywood career in the "B film" unit, which made movies very quickly, with more concern about the speed of delivery of the film than about the quality. Reagan joked that the producers "didn't want them good; they wanted them Thursday".
Reagan earned his first screen credit with a starring role in the 1937 movie Love Is on the Air. By the end of 1939 he had already appeared in 19 films. Among his best known films were Dark Victory which starred Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart and Santa Fe Trail with Errol Flynn. In 1940, he played the role of George "The Gipper" Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American. The film gave him his lifelong nickname "the Gipper." Reagan became a popular actor and in 1941 he was voted the fifth most popular star among Hollywood's younger generation of actors.
Reagan said that his favorite role was in 1942's Kings Row, in which he played a double amputee. His character recites the line "Where's the rest of me?" Reagan later used this line as the title of his 1965 autobiography. Many film critics considered Kings Row to be his best movie and Reagan himself called Kings Row the film that "made me a star".
At the height of his success, the Second World War was taking place and in 1942 Reagan was ordered to active duty with the U.S. Army at San Francisco. He never regained "star" status in motion pictures. On April 18, 1942, Reagan was ordered to active duty for the first time. Due to his poor eyesight, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas. Reagan spent his wartime service stateside with the 1st Motion Picture Unit. On January 14, 1943, he was promoted to first lieutenant and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is the Army at Burbank, California. He was promoted to captain on July 22, 1943.
In January 1944, Reagan was ordered to temporary duty in New York City to participate in the opening of the Sixth War Loan Drive, which campaigned for the purchase of war bonds. He was reassigned to the First Motion Picture Unit on November 14, 1944, where he remained until the end of World War II. By the end of the war, his units had produced some 400 training films.
In December 1945, Reagan co-starred in such films as The Voice of the Turtle, John Loves Mary, The Hasty Heart, Bedtime for Bonzo, Cattle Queen of Montana, Tennessee's Partner, Hellcats of the Navy (in which he appears with his future wife Nancy Reagan), and the 1964 remake The Killers (his final film).
Reagan was elected to the Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in 1941, serving as an alternate member. After World War II, he resumed service and became third vice-president in 1946. In 1947 Reagan was elected in a special election for the position of president. He was chosen by the membership to serve seven additional one-year terms, from 1947 to 1952 and in 1959. Reagan led the SAG through eventful years that were marked by labor-management disputes, the Taft–Hartley Act, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings and the Hollywood blacklist era. Reagan provided the FBI with the names of actors within the motion picture industry whom they believed to be communist sympathizers. He also testified on the subject before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He told the committee, "I never as a citizen want to see our country become urged, by either fear or resentment of this group, that we ever compromise with any of our democratic principles through that fear or resentment."
Regan had been an early critic of television, but he was offered fewer film roles in the late 1950s and decided that television presented him with the best opportunities as an actor. He was hired as the host of the popular show General Electric Theater. His contract required him to tour General Electric (GE) plants 16 weeks out of the year, which often demanded that he give 14 speeches per day. The show ran for 10 seasons from 1953 to 1962, which increased Reagan's profile in American households. In his final work as a professional actor, Reagan was a host and performer from 1964 to 1965 on the television series Death Valley Days.
Reagan and future wife Nancy Davis appeared together on television several times, including an episode of General Electric Theater in 1958 called "A Turkey for the President."
In 1938, Reagan co-starred in the film Brother Rat with actress Jane Wyman. The two announced their engagement at the Chicago Theatre and were married on January 26, 1940 at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Glendale, California. Together they had two biological children, Maureen and Christine (who died shortly after her birth in 1947) and they adopted a third, Michael. Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, and the divorce was finalized in 1949. Ironically Wyman, who was a registered Republican, stated that their break-up was due to a difference in politics. Reagan was still a Democrat at the time. Reagan and Wyman continued to be friends until his death, with Wyman voting for Reagan. Upon his death, she said, ÈAmerica has lost a great president and a great, kind, and gentle man."
Reagan met actress Nancy Davis in 1949 after she contacted him in his capacity as president of the Screen Actors Guild. He helped her with issues regarding her name appearing on a Communist blacklist in Hollywood. She had been mistaken for another Nancy Davis. They were were married on March 4, 1952, at the Little Brown Church in the Valley (North Hollywood, now Studio City) San Fernando Valley. Actor William Holden served as best man at the ceremony. They had two children: Patti and Ronald "Ron" Jr.