I Love You, Ronnie Read online

  We couldn’t afford to furnish our living room. For special occasions, we’d reward ourselves by working on our house or garden—we’d paint a room, for instance. It was very, very hard for Ronnie. Yet it wasn’t so different from what other young families getting started go through, and I had what I had always wanted: a husband I loved, and a family.

  At home in the 1950s, in the house on Amalfi Drive.

  I had stopped working when Patti was born. Ronnie didn’t ask me to—he would never have asked me to give up my career. It was my idea. I liked acting, but I had seen too many two-career Hollywood marriages fail. Ronnie was my whole life. I couldn’t imagine life without him, and I didn’t want to run the risk of anything happening to us. Also, I had seen my mother build a really happy marriage, putting a fine career as an actress aside.

  Anniversary card.

  When I left MGM, I had eight films behind me. I was proud of what I’d accomplished, and happy to stop there. I wanted to be a wife and mother. When we hit a dry spell financially, however, I felt I needed to go back to work, at least temporarily. I took a part in a film called Donovan’s Brain, a science-fiction picture in which Lew Ayres plays a scientist who tries to keep a brain alive and is taken over by it. I see it often on TV now.

  Ronnie came to visit me on the set of Donovan’s Brain.

  Ronnie made low-budget movies, accepted some TV parts, and even did a short stint as a Las Vegas nightclub host. His letters in this period were filled with wonderful descriptions of the places he was going and the people he was seeing. I found them so beautiful that I read them over and over again, even though they made me miss Ronnie so much.

  This one—a real favorite—makes me weepy every time I read it.

  THE SHERRY-NETHERLAND

  NEW YORK, N.Y.

  Wed. July 15 [1953]

  Dear Nancy Pants

  Yesterday I went directly from the train to rehearsal—only stopping to check in here. Then suddenly it was two p.m. and rehearsal was over.

  Back at the hotel I put in the call to you and then tried for Lew Wasserman—not in town! Sonny Werblin—away on vacation! Nancy Poo Pants Reagan—away out yonder! Eight million people in this pigeon crap encrusted metropolis and suddenly I realized I was alone with my thoughts and they smelled sulphurous.

  Time was not a healer.—When dinner time finally arrived I walked down to “21” where I ate in lonely splendor. It was at this point with self pity “coming up fast on the rail” that you joined me.

  Yes you and I had Roast Beef although 21 is one of those places we’ll have to say “Well done.” Medium to them means “sponge off the blood.”

  Wanting only a half bottle of wine we were somewhat restricted in choice but we politely resisted the “huxtering” of the wine steward (who couldn’t pick sweet milk from vinegar) and settled for a ’47—“Pichon Longueville.” It was tasty, wasn’t it? And I thought the most amusing incident (and the nicest) was when the lady to my left leaned over and apologizing for her boldness introduced the distinguished gentleman with her (whose name of course we didn’t hear) It seems he is the publisher of “Gourmet Magazine” and they were so surprised (as they put it) to see some one choosing a wine so carefully and so intelligently in “21” of all places that they just had to remark about it.

  I of course told them I wasn’t really a gentleman I just happened to marry a lady.

  The people on our right we ignored completely. A slick latin looking joker with a doll “by Jelke out of Jail” and a Brooks Brothers character who was evidently a Fond Fathers junior partner with plenty of loot he never could earn for himself. I was sure the Latin was peddling the “broad” or a TV idea until he raised his voice a little and so help me he was promoting backing for a “smart” old ladies home he wanted to establish. He knew the world was full of young couples burdened with aging Mommas who would leap at a chance to stable them in his “nifty new Home for Chromos,” and the pay off would top “South Pacific.”

  We walked back in the twilight and I guess I hadn’t ought to put us on paper from there on. Let’s just say I didn’t know my lines this morning.

  Tonight I think we’ll eat here at the hotel and you’ve got to promise to let me study—at least for a little while.

  I suppose some people would find it unusual that you and I can so easily span three thousand miles but in truth it comes very naturally. Man can’t live without a heart and you are my heart, by far the nicest thing about me and so very necessary. There would be no life without you nor would I want any.

  I Love You

  “The Eastern Half of Us.”

  Though life was sometimes difficult in our early years together, Ronnie never let on that he was worried or upset. I knew he sometimes was—I just knew—but he never said anything outright. It just wasn’t his way. Instead, he always tried to use humor to get through things.

  In this letter, though we didn’t know it yet, there was light at the end of the tunnel: the TV guest spot Ronnie mentions for General Electric.

  RONALD REAGAN

  HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA

  Dear “Career Girl”

  I missed you!

  There is nothing new to report on my own problems.

  I missed you!

  One offer at Las Vegas is for Feb., one for May. We are waiting to see the outcome of the “F.B.I.” picture before accepting one or the other.

  I missed you!

  I may get a TV guest spot for General Electric soon.

  I missed you!

  Will see you as soon as this clam bake is over.

  I love you—

  Pauvre Petite Papa

  P.S. It rained!

  The Las Vegas nightclub job came to Ronnie in February 1954, through his agent, Taft Schreiber, at MCA. Ronnie was asked to spend a few weeks emceeing an act with a group of performers called the Continentals.

  Las Vegas wasn’t really our kind of place, but we needed the money. We showed up, I recall, with a suitcase full of books. When the hotel owner went up to our room and saw them, he said, “I’ve never known anybody to come to Las Vegas with books before.” He probably thought we wouldn’t last.

  But the Continentals turned out to be a very nice group of men—they were all married, and all of them had children. Ronnie got along wonderfully with them. In fact, while rehearsing, they got along so well that the group asked Ronnie to play a bigger role in their act. He did—and the show was a great success. People lined up in the street to get in.

  After Ronnie’s tour in Las Vegas was up, the hotel asked him to come back for Christmas, but he said no. No matter how well things had gone, we didn’t want to be in Las Vegas for Christmas. Then, the Continentals presented me with a cup, because I’d never missed a performance—I went to each of the two shows every night for a couple of weeks. I never got bored.After all, as I knew from my theater days, every audience is different, and that makes for a different performance each time.

  A note from Yearling Row, our ranch in the 1950s.

  Normally, after a show, Ronnie and I would go back up to our room and read until it was time for the next one. But on the last night we decided to go instead to the casino. As we walked in, the nice hotel manager made a beeline for us, and cut us off.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  We said we just thought we’d do some gambling.

  “No, no,” he said. “Don’t. I’ve seen too many people lose everything here. Go back!”

  “We’re only going to gamble twenty dollars,” Ronnie told him.

  “Well, okay,” the manager said. “But no more!”

  He was really looking out for us. It felt like a nice way to leave Las Vegas, capping off happily what could have been a very difficult time.

  A Mother’s Day greeting.

  After the Las Vegas trip, Taft Schreiber called with more good news: General Electric had come through with an offer for Ronnie to host a new television drama, General Electric Theater. Ronnie would introduce each ep
isode, star in four programs a year, and act as “corporate ambassador” for G.E., going around the country visiting plants and offices. The idea was that he could talk about G.E. products and answer questions about the company to G.E. employees and local businessmen.

  It seemed like a great opportunity. TV wasn’t considered so terrible anymore by the mid-1950s, and General Electric Theater promised to be a prestigious show. The G.E. job also would turn out to be a turning point in Ronnie’s life—but we didn’t, of course, know that then. We also didn’t realize how much traveling Ronnie would have to do.

  —

  Ronnie’s first tour for G.E. was scheduled for August 1954. But first, in July, he went to Glacier National Park, to make the RKO western Cattle Queen of Montana with Barbara Stanwyck, director Allan Dwan, and producer Benedict Bogeaus.

  At the Stork Club. I’m wearing the TUESDAY’S CHILD pin Ronnie gave me when Patti was born, on a Tuesday.

  Patti was not yet two years old. When she was born, on a Tuesday, Ronnie had given me a TUESDAY’S CHILD pin, accompanied by a note that read: “So you won’t have to be too far from our ‘Tuesday’s child,’ ever. And because I intend to be as close to both of you as Eggs are to Easter.” It was very hard for him to be away from us both that summer. And we were miserable being separated from him, too.

  And so he wrote, to cheer us all up. Often, he wrote about nature, which he loved, and I think he actually perceived it differently—more intensely, perhaps—than many people do. I remember, for example, how at the Santa Barbara ranch we’d ride uphill and he’d admire the way the trees looked in silhouette against the sky.

  —

  From my own experience in pictures I knew that sometimes on a movie set a team works well together, and sometimes it doesn’t. As Ronnie described it, Cattle Queen was not a happy situation.

  July 13 [1954]

  A.M.

  My Darling

  The first day of shooting and like all first days I can’t tell you good bad or indifferent. Everything is hectic and upset what with the truck caravan arriving from L.A. in the dark last night. Most of the morning was spent getting the trucks unloaded and the equipment straightened out. Ben B. is on hand so things can really get buggered up. I think Alan D. is trying to get some of the story holes plugged and this morning changed one scene “à la” a suggestion from “guess who.” However, our opposition is B.B. himself so I only whisper in an off-ear and let them fight it out. So far “Lady S.” is no help—taking the attitude of “who cares in these kinds of pictures.”

  However there is one golden glow warming my soul in this first sunset—I’m twenty-four hours closer to you. Last night was another one of those nights—just too beautiful to stand. So tonight I’ll probably be looking at the Moon which means I’ll be looking at you—literally and figuratively because it lays far to the South of this mountain top and that’s where you are. That takes care of the “literal” part—the “figurative” part requires no direction, I just see you in all the beauty there is because in you I’ve found all the beauty in my life.

  My mother welcoming Patti, Ronnie, and me to Chicago for a visit.

  Please be careful and don’t get too good at covering your own shoulder at night—I’d miss doing it. Be careful in every other way too—nothing would have meaning without you.

  Now if two “Muffins” I know will exchange a kiss for me—my good night will have been said.

  I love you

  Ronnie

  The constraints of working on a low-budget picture wore on Ronnie as time went on. He wanted to be at home. He missed us and all the little things we shared in our happy life together—things like the “Bermuda Bell,” as he writes in this next letter.

  The Bermuda Bell was something we had on the floor of our car that you could ring with your foot. It was one of our family rituals that in the evenings, Patti and I would sit at the little table in her room, and when Ronnie came home, he’d come up our circular drive and ring the bell, and we’d wave to him together from the window.

  The frustrations of being far from home and unhappy in his work were clearly weighing heavily upon Ronnie when he wrote the next letter. It was rare for him to sound so negative.

  An Easter telegram from Ronnie to Patti and me.

  Sat. Jul. 17 [1954]

  Dearest Nancy Poo

  This has been the longest week in world history. Already I walk out the door and don’t even bother to look at the scenery. The only scenery I want to see is a nursery window framing two faces when I jingle the “Bermuda Bell.”

  I don’t know how the picture is going. We started in confusion and have managed to develop that characteristic to an unusual degree. B.B. is still defending his script, I’m still feeding suggestions to A.D. and those two then huddle and argue. Right now I’m waiting to go to work and the scheduled scene is one of those that needs changing the most. I’m quite interested to see what happens. In the meantime, what the h-l do I learn? B.S. just continues to go her merry way in the exclusive company of two hairdressers and her maid. I wonder what picture she’s making.

  Having started in this somewhat downbeat vein—shall I continue? Well, the natives around here have a sort of “mid-1930’s” approach to movie making. Everything has a price and we constitute fair game with a long open season. Let’s start with the horses—at least that is what they are called. These scrawny goats were flushed out of the brush the day we arrived and if they ever had any training, they have short memories. The local cowhands claim they have produced their best—what they mean is, the best they’ll let us use.Yesterday I did a scene mounted on my faded Palomino (which is the size of one of our Yearlings); the two locals playing extras with me were mounted on their own horses—both registered thoroughbreds.

  When we do a scene the assistants yell “quiet” in a pleading tone entirely foreign to their usual manner. This is because the “locals” are restless and may quit and go home now that the novelty has worn off.

  This, incidentally, is my first crack at picture making since the big switch to TV film work in Hollywood and it bears out everything we’ve ever said. First of all—getting a crew was a case of rounding up who you could find. The industry, as we have so often said, literally forced our technicians to seek work in TV and now we reap the harvest. Ben said there was a scramble to get enough guys for this crew—with no thought whatsoever of picking and choosing. Let’s just put it this way—they and these horses have a lot in common.

  Well now that is enough—any more of this inspirational literature and you’ll envy me my stay in this pastoral paradise.

  Your letter and Patti’s enclosure arrived yesterday (Fri.) so you have some idea of the mail service. I’m lonesome and miss you both until it hurts. I still can’t give you an exact date on homecoming. If I asked one of these boys for that information I wouldn’t be able to coax them down out of the hills for hours—they wear a worn and harried look at this point. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed and hope it is soon.

  I love you so very much and miss you every minute. Be very careful of you.

  Ronnie

  Ronnie as host of General Electric Theater.

  Ronnie hosted General Electric Theater from the fall of 1954 until the spring of 1962. During that time, our life together was lived in the happy moments stolen away from the long stretches when Ronnie was out on the road. He was away so much; I once figured out that if I added up all his time traveling, it came to almost two years—two years out of the eight he spent working for G.E.

  I remember the shock the first time Ronnie went away on tour, because he was away for so long! Two months! At the beginning, I took Patti and went to see my family in Chicago. The time apart seemed to drag on and on. Ronnie and I were both so unhappy that after that tour, we never allowed ourselves to be separated for that long again. Ronnie told G.E. he simply could not go away for such an extended period, and he was able to arrange a new travel schedule so that he never had to leave home for more t
han two weeks at a time.

  Even during the presidency, the longest we were ever apart was a week. That was when I went to London in July 1981 for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. It was a hard separation, coming less than four months after Ronnie was shot. When the doctors told me they thought it was too early for him to travel, I’d originally said I wouldn’t go to the wedding, either. But Ronnie insisted. He felt that after the shooting, I needed a change of scene. He was undoubtedly right—and the royal wedding was a treat. But I remember finding it very strange to be there on my own. In fact, I am never really happy, or entirely comfortable, unless Ronnie is nearby.

  Ronnie has always been the same way, and so in the G.E. years, when he found himself in strange hotel rooms across America, he wrote to me of his loneliness.

  ATLANTA BILTMORE

  THE SOUTH’S SUPREME HOTEL

  Sunday [March 20, 1955]

  My Darling

  Here it is—our day and if we were home we’d have a fire and “funnies” and we’d hate anyone who called or dropped in.

  As it is I’m sitting here on the 6th floor beside a phoney fireplace looking out at a grey wet sky and listening to a radio play music not intended for one person alone.

  Nevertheless I wouldn’t trade the way I feel for the loneliness of those days when one place was like another and it didn’t matter how long I stayed away. With all the “missing you” there is still such a wonderful warmth in the lonliness like looking forward to a bright warm room. No matter how dark & cold it is at the moment—you know the room is there and waiting.

  Of course when I say “you” anymore I’m talking a package deal—you and the two & a half year old you. Time goes so slowly and I’m such a coward when you are out of sight—so afraid something will go wrong if I’m not there to take care of you, so be very careful.