RONALD REAGAN WAS BORN
As the 40th president of the United States, the former movie star was called the “Great Communicator” for his ability to get through to ordinary Americans and give them hope and optimism for their own future and that of their country. Despite his lifelong opposition to “big” government, he was credited with restoring faith in the U.S. government and the presidency after a long era of disillusionment in the wake of Nixon, Vietnam and economic hardship under Carter. But before his years of Hollywoodstardom, and long before Washington, Ronald Reagan was born on this day in 1911, in Tampico, a small town in northwestern Illinois.
Though his family was poor, Reagan later remembered his as an idyllic childhood. After playing football in high school and college (at Eureka University), he graduated during the Great Depression with few job prospects. He soon began working in radio in Iowa, broadcasting for football and other sports. While on a spring training trip with theChicago Cubs in Los Angeles, Reagan got in touch with a former colleague at WHO in Des Moines, who connected him with a Hollywood agent, and in 1937 Warner Brothersoffered Reagan a seven-year contract starting at $200 per week. His first role was far from a stretch: He played a radio reporter in the 1937 B-movie Love Is on the Air, and theHollywood Reporter called him “a natural.” (HistoryChannel) PoliticsofHollywood/ Varona
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