the university has no record of his application, registration, or attendance. He was reportedly employed as a salesman by the Berkshire Life Insurance Company in 1914, when he met Edith Luckett, who was then performing at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield.7
Although Edith claimed to be two years younger than Kenneth, she was almost certainly six years older. Her birth date is as hazy as so much else about her background. She claimed to have been born on July 16, 1896, but 1888 is the more credible year. Edith took great relish in portraying herself as a Southern belle from one of the First Families of Virginia. Her parents, Charles Edward Luckett and Sarah Frances Whitlock, were married in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1868. Four years later Charles, a railroad clerk with the Adams Express Company (the predecessor of Railway Express), was transferred from Richmond to Washington, D.C.,8
where the couple’s nine children were most likely born. Edith, however, 3 6
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House maintained into her old age that her mother had returned to Petersburg for the birth of each child so that “they wouldn’t be born damn Yankees.”9
The Lucketts lived in a series of row houses near the railroad tracks in Washington; some say Sarah ran a boardinghouse.10
According to Nancy Reagan, “Times were tough for the Lucketts with their large family. Few of the children attended school for very long. They had to go to work.”11 Edith’s older brother, Joseph, managed the Columbia Theater in Washington, where she first appeared on the stage. In 1900, when she was twelve, a local newspaper wrote, “Little Edith Luckett has beauty, wit and talent. She is the unusual child. Her prattle is as merry as the chirp of a cricket on the hearth, her eyes blue, and her hair brown and wavy. She has been brought to public notice by her remarkable cleverness as a dancer, her grace of movement and form, and her sweet, pretty face.”12
By sixteen, Edith had left high school and was working steadily with various stock companies, including those of the famous Irish tenor Chauncey Olcott and the legendary Broadway producer, composer, and actor George M. Cohan.13 Nicknamed Lucky Luckett, she was a whirlwind of charm and energy, a pretty blonde with the riveting widespread eyes she would pass on to her daughter. She smoked, she swore, she told dirty jokes, and she was wildly popular. Yet she clung to her genteel Southern drawl. As Nancy Reagan would say again and again, in print and in private, “They broke the mold after they made my mother. If I could be half the woman she was, I’d be happy.”14
In December 1910, The New York Times ran a picture of Edith in the stage production of Shifting at Nazimova’s 39th Street Theater, one of Lee Shubert’s houses, named in honor of his biggest money-making star, Alla Nazimova.15 The great Nazimova was a charismatic Russian-Jewish lesbian who became a major attraction—and the incarnation of Ibsen’s New Woman—when she toured America from 1907 to 1910 in A Doll’s House, The Master Builder , and Hedda Gabler. Born in Yalta in 1879, she had been trained by the great Russian director Konstantin Stanislavsky in Moscow, where she was said to have worked as a prostitute to finance her studies. She came to New York in 1905 with her then lover, Paul Orleneff, and his St. Petersburg Players,16 but, according to Diana McLellan in The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood, she was soon seduced by none other than Emma Goldman, the fiery feminist crusader known as the Queen of the Anarchists.17
Edith had met Nazimova at a party given at the Irving Place townhouse of the literary agent Bessie Marbury, whose clients included H. G. Wells, Early Nancy: 1921–1932
3 7
George Bernard Shaw, and Somerset Maugham, and her lover, the society decorator Elsie de Wolfe, who were the reigning hostesses of Manhattan’s thriving haute bohemia.18 During this period, Edith had principal roles in the
Although Edith claimed to be two years younger than Kenneth, she was almost certainly six years older. Her birth date is as hazy as so much else about her background. She claimed to have been born on July 16, 1896, but 1888 is the more credible year. Edith took great relish in portraying herself as a Southern belle from one of the First Families of Virginia. Her parents, Charles Edward Luckett and Sarah Frances Whitlock, were married in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1868. Four years later Charles, a railroad clerk with the Adams Express Company (the predecessor of Railway Express), was transferred from Richmond to Washington, D.C.,8
where the couple’s nine children were most likely born. Edith, however, 3 6
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House maintained into her old age that her mother had returned to Petersburg for the birth of each child so that “they wouldn’t be born damn Yankees.”9
The Lucketts lived in a series of row houses near the railroad tracks in Washington; some say Sarah ran a boardinghouse.10
According to Nancy Reagan, “Times were tough for the Lucketts with their large family. Few of the children attended school for very long. They had to go to work.”11 Edith’s older brother, Joseph, managed the Columbia Theater in Washington, where she first appeared on the stage. In 1900, when she was twelve, a local newspaper wrote, “Little Edith Luckett has beauty, wit and talent. She is the unusual child. Her prattle is as merry as the chirp of a cricket on the hearth, her eyes blue, and her hair brown and wavy. She has been brought to public notice by her remarkable cleverness as a dancer, her grace of movement and form, and her sweet, pretty face.”12
By sixteen, Edith had left high school and was working steadily with various stock companies, including those of the famous Irish tenor Chauncey Olcott and the legendary Broadway producer, composer, and actor George M. Cohan.13 Nicknamed Lucky Luckett, she was a whirlwind of charm and energy, a pretty blonde with the riveting widespread eyes she would pass on to her daughter. She smoked, she swore, she told dirty jokes, and she was wildly popular. Yet she clung to her genteel Southern drawl. As Nancy Reagan would say again and again, in print and in private, “They broke the mold after they made my mother. If I could be half the woman she was, I’d be happy.”14
In December 1910, The New York Times ran a picture of Edith in the stage production of Shifting at Nazimova’s 39th Street Theater, one of Lee Shubert’s houses, named in honor of his biggest money-making star, Alla Nazimova.15 The great Nazimova was a charismatic Russian-Jewish lesbian who became a major attraction—and the incarnation of Ibsen’s New Woman—when she toured America from 1907 to 1910 in A Doll’s House, The Master Builder , and Hedda Gabler. Born in Yalta in 1879, she had been trained by the great Russian director Konstantin Stanislavsky in Moscow, where she was said to have worked as a prostitute to finance her studies. She came to New York in 1905 with her then lover, Paul Orleneff, and his St. Petersburg Players,16 but, according to Diana McLellan in The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood, she was soon seduced by none other than Emma Goldman, the fiery feminist crusader known as the Queen of the Anarchists.17
Edith had met Nazimova at a party given at the Irving Place townhouse of the literary agent Bessie Marbury, whose clients included H. G. Wells, Early Nancy: 1921–1932
3 7
George Bernard Shaw, and Somerset Maugham, and her lover, the society decorator Elsie de Wolfe, who were the reigning hostesses of Manhattan’s thriving haute bohemia.18 During this period, Edith had principal roles in the
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