In 1966, Movie Mogul Jack Warner returned from a European trip to hear that an actor who used to work for him was running for Governor of California. "No, no," Warner famously said. "Jimmy Stewart for Governor. Ronald Reagan for Best Friend." Second lead. Second best. Best friend. Genial loser. That was Reagan throughout his 15-year tenure at Warner Bros. and in most of his films. In the 1939 Dark Victory he played the bon-vivant boozer who loses Bette Davis to George Brent and a brain tumor. As the young George Armstrong Custer in the 1940 Santa Fe Trail, he lost Olivia de Havilland to Errol Flynn's Jeb Stuart. In early 1942 Reagan was announced for a lead role, with his frequent co-star Ann Sheridan, in a film of the play Everyone Comes to Rick's. After a round of Hollywood-casting roulette, Warner made the film without Reagan or Sheridan. They called it Casablanca.
Even in his two best-known roles he played young men who lost life or limb. The 1940 Knute Rockne All American features Reagan as football hero George Gipp, who led Notre Dame to gridiron greatness. Gipp died young, of pneumonia, but not before whispering a deathbed plea to "win just one for the Gipper." This all-time movie catchphrase gave Reagan a nickname that stuck to him for life. And his role in the 1942 Kings Row, as a brash young man who has had his legs amputated, gave Reagan the line that became the title of his 1965 autobiography: Where's the Rest of Me.
In Hollywood movies, destiny decides every romantic plot twist. In real life, success is more a matter of luck and timing. Reagan had the luck to be signed to a film contract on his first try, at Warner in 1937, and to be cast as the lead in his debut effort, though his acting had been confined to school drama societies and his professional experience to announcing baseball games on the radio. But timing let him down. His breakthrough performance in Kings Row should have led to meatier roles, tailored to his personality; and it did win him a raise to $5,000 a week, negotiated by his agent, Lew Wasserman, later the head of the powerful media combine MCA. But this was 1942, America was at war, and Reagan's next costume was an officer's uniform in the U.S. Army Cavalry.
After the war, though he had graduated to leading roles, Reagan was an also-ran star. By the late '50s he had eased out of films and into TV hosting and a corporate pitchman's role for his new boss, General Electric. Testifying in 1962 before a grand-jury hearing on possible antitrust violations by MCA, he was asked his line of work and replied, with a joking modesty, "Actor, I think."
Like dozens of other middle-range film folk, Reagan made a good living but not an indelible impression. He didn't star in any great films, didn't pull jobs with many top directors, wasn't in movies so bad then they are guilty pleasures now. Reagan was never even a cult figure. His Hollywood career would be just one colorful chapter in the biography of the 40th President of the United States.