Sometimes looking at just what famous faces came to meet a President can suggest the man in the White House as being one who knows what’s up with the people outside the gates of what Harry Truman called, ‘the great white prison. At the least, a glimpse of what celebrities (once known as “the celebrated”) came to the White House as the guest of a President and First Lady can serve as a snapshot of Pop Culture of a particular era, a veritable time capsule of those authors the public were reading, the journalists and dramatists they were listening to on the radio, or the stars and celebrities they were watching on television. By this standard, few Presidents better succeeded than did Ronald Reagan in those Acquisitive Eighties.
Judging by the wide range of Television Sitcom and Dramatic Series actors and actresses that he and First Lady Nancy Reagan, (themselves former feature film and TV stars), invited to glittery state dinners and other events during their White House years from 1981 to 1989, they seemed to have a finger on the nation’s pulse – or at least its T.V. dial.
And though she had long been off the boob-tube by the time Reagan was President, a certain lady who lived in a bottle surely deserves an after-thought of honorable mention…..
Related articles
- Ronald Reagan & Bette Davis: Oppositional Co-Stars (carlanthonyonline.com)
- Michael Douglas, Ronald Reagan: Actor Cast As Late President In ‘Reykjavik’ (news.moviefone.com)
- Nancy Reagan, Now 91, Still First Lady Of GOP (wibw.com)
- Fox News predicts surprise ‘hologram of Ronald Reagan’ at RNC (rawstory.com)
- Nancy Reagan, now 91, still first lady of GOP (cbsnews.com)
- Wisdom And War – Ronald Reagan (catholicconservatives.wordpress.com)
- Mario Piperni on the New Gipper (seniorsforademocraticsociety.wordpress.com)
Categories: First Ladies, History, Hollywood, Pop Culture, Presidents, Ronald Reagan, Television, The Reagans
Tags: Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan, Television
Ethel Barrymore was a guest at the White House in 1924 .Calvin Coolidge had not long been president following the death of President Warren Harding. (You will recall that Winston Churchill proposed marriage to Miss Barrymore but she declined.)
Anyway, she asked Coolidge what kind of president he was planning to be?
He replied: “The people of America want a solemn ass for president and I do not plan to disappoint them.”
Later, the Coolidge family saw Ethel’s brother John Barrymore in Shakespeare’s tragedy – “Hamlet”. Barrymore asked if the president had seen other productions of the play? Coolidge had; he’d seen A. E. Southern in the role.
Barrymore asked: “Which did you like best?”
Revealing great diplomacy “Silent Cal” said: “His clothes were prettier.”
Thanks Jim – If you ever come across a picture of Ethel Barrymore and President Coolidge let me know. I can do a story based on that.
LOL! That is a wonderful story. It’s good to know our Presidents can indulge in sarcasm, and do it well.
Coolidge was famous for that……what a character he could be. Thank you Susanne – I especially like it when regular commentators comment on comments of other fellow commentators…..
Very nice story Carl! Love your blog page face lift, much easier to read with softer background!
Keep up the great work!
Thank you – I agree. I just how to re-organize the category tabs. It so often is a matter of either not researching and writing but fiddling around with the tech, or ignoring tech and turning out the stories…there’s a lot of room for improvement here.