Read Online Between You and Me by Mike Wallace - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mike Wallace
Ads: Link
forty-six—we became close pals. Edie was gregarious and high-spirited and, at the time, the bawdiest woman I had ever met. I frequently ran into her in the station’s green room, where we all gravitated for coffee and gossip, and invariably, she would greet me with some choice obscenity and then proceed to relate, with lip-smacking glee, the latest dirty joke she had heard. She was a pip, and since I was a new kid on the block of big-time broadcasting and
[ 52 ]
F I R S T C O U P L E S
still a little intimidated by the challenge, I treasured her warmth and friendship.
Edie was married to an eminent neurosurgeon, Loyal Davis, and she had a daughter from a prior marriage to a car salesman. In fact, six-year-old Nancy had been the flower girl at her mother’s wedding to Loyal. By the time I met her, Nancy Davis was a student at Smith College, and I remember her as a prim and proper young lady who often wore white gloves and Peter Pan collars. Although I didn’t know her well in those days, she struck me as being shy and reserved—
almost the opposite of her exuberant mother—and so I was rather surprised when I later learned that “sweet little Nancy” (as I then thought of her) had gone off to Hollywood to seek her own fame and fortune as an actress. While she managed to land a few roles in minor films, her dream of becoming a star didn’t pan out, at least not in the conventional Hollywood way. But the path she chose did lead to real-life romance. The next thing I heard, she was getting married to the well-known actor Ronald Reagan. I didn’t give much thought to that at the time except to harbor the hope, as I would for any friend, that her marriage would bring her a lifetime of happiness.
Years passed. I moved on to New York, where I continued to bounce from one news job to another, among other chores, until I finally settled down in 1963 as a correspondent for CBS News. In California, meanwhile, Reagan’s acting career lapsed into decline. The more it languished, the more time and attention he devoted to politics. By the early 1960s, he had become an eloquent spokesman for the conservative wing of the Republican Party. For a long time, Reagan’s political speeches were largely dismissed as another ego trip by a Hollywood star who believed his celebrity gave him the authority to pontificate on Soviet aggression and other burning issues of the day.
Then came his 1966 campaign for the governor’s chair in California.
[ 53 ]
B E T W E E N Y O U A N D M E
It was Reagan’s first run for public office of any kind, and he con-founded the experts by defeating the two-term Democratic incumbent, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown. Just like that, a rank political amateur had become governor of our largest state and, by definition, a political force on the national stage.
Still, I didn’t imagine Reagan had much chance of capturing the White House, or even had the ambition to run. For one thing, his brand of conservatism had been thoroughly discredited in Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964. For another, there was the question of credentials, or lack of them. Reagan’s professional identity may not have been viewed as a liability in California, where actors are as plentiful as geezers in Florida or oil barons in Texas, but I found it hard to envision voters across the country entrusting the nuclear trigger and complex questions of foreign policy to a man who was known primarily as “the King of the B Movies.”
Needless to say, I kept those reservations to myself when I ran into Edie Davis and her daughter at the 1968 Republican convention in Miami Beach. They were there to voice support for Reagan’s eleventh-hour effort to wrest the nomination from Nixon. Our brief reunion took place on the convention floor, and with the CBS cameras rolling, I asked Edie if she offered Nancy and her husband advice on how to raise their children.
“Oh, heavens no,” she replied. “I want them to
[ 52 ]
F I R S T C O U P L E S
still a little intimidated by the challenge, I treasured her warmth and friendship.
Edie was married to an eminent neurosurgeon, Loyal Davis, and she had a daughter from a prior marriage to a car salesman. In fact, six-year-old Nancy had been the flower girl at her mother’s wedding to Loyal. By the time I met her, Nancy Davis was a student at Smith College, and I remember her as a prim and proper young lady who often wore white gloves and Peter Pan collars. Although I didn’t know her well in those days, she struck me as being shy and reserved—
almost the opposite of her exuberant mother—and so I was rather surprised when I later learned that “sweet little Nancy” (as I then thought of her) had gone off to Hollywood to seek her own fame and fortune as an actress. While she managed to land a few roles in minor films, her dream of becoming a star didn’t pan out, at least not in the conventional Hollywood way. But the path she chose did lead to real-life romance. The next thing I heard, she was getting married to the well-known actor Ronald Reagan. I didn’t give much thought to that at the time except to harbor the hope, as I would for any friend, that her marriage would bring her a lifetime of happiness.
Years passed. I moved on to New York, where I continued to bounce from one news job to another, among other chores, until I finally settled down in 1963 as a correspondent for CBS News. In California, meanwhile, Reagan’s acting career lapsed into decline. The more it languished, the more time and attention he devoted to politics. By the early 1960s, he had become an eloquent spokesman for the conservative wing of the Republican Party. For a long time, Reagan’s political speeches were largely dismissed as another ego trip by a Hollywood star who believed his celebrity gave him the authority to pontificate on Soviet aggression and other burning issues of the day.
Then came his 1966 campaign for the governor’s chair in California.
[ 53 ]
B E T W E E N Y O U A N D M E
It was Reagan’s first run for public office of any kind, and he con-founded the experts by defeating the two-term Democratic incumbent, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown. Just like that, a rank political amateur had become governor of our largest state and, by definition, a political force on the national stage.
Still, I didn’t imagine Reagan had much chance of capturing the White House, or even had the ambition to run. For one thing, his brand of conservatism had been thoroughly discredited in Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964. For another, there was the question of credentials, or lack of them. Reagan’s professional identity may not have been viewed as a liability in California, where actors are as plentiful as geezers in Florida or oil barons in Texas, but I found it hard to envision voters across the country entrusting the nuclear trigger and complex questions of foreign policy to a man who was known primarily as “the King of the B Movies.”
Needless to say, I kept those reservations to myself when I ran into Edie Davis and her daughter at the 1968 Republican convention in Miami Beach. They were there to voice support for Reagan’s eleventh-hour effort to wrest the nomination from Nixon. Our brief reunion took place on the convention floor, and with the CBS cameras rolling, I asked Edie if she offered Nancy and her husband advice on how to raise their children.
“Oh, heavens no,” she replied. “I want them to
Similar Books
