page_title: Ronald Reagan
section_title: Acting career
hierarchical_section_title: Ronald Reagan / Acting career
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Ronald Reagan from the trailer for the film Cowboy from Brooklyn.
context_page_description: Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American actor and politician. He was the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975. Reagan was the 9th and 13th President of the Screen Actors Guild, from 1947 to 1952 and again from 1959 to 1960. Reagan was a movie, television and radio actor before he began his career in politics.
  Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. Reagan had a successful career in Hollywood. He was in fifty-three movies. He married actress Jane Wyman in 1940. The couple divorced in 1949. They had three children. Reagan then married Nancy Davis in 1952. They had two children. Their marriage lasted until Reagan's death in 2004.
  Before winning his presidental election in 1980, Reagan ran for president two times in 1968 and in 1976. At 73 years old when re-elected in 1984, he is the oldest person elected president of the United States. He is known as the "Great Communicator" because he was a good public speaker. Reagan was also known as the "Teflon president" because any criticism or scandals against him never stuck or affected his popularity.
context_section_description: His first screen credit was the starring role in the 1937 movie Love Is on the Air. He then starred in many movies such as Dark Victory with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Before the movie Santa Fe Trail with Errol Flynn in 1940, he played the role of George "The Gipper" Gipp in the movie Knute Rockne, All American. From his role in the movie, he got the lifelong nickname "the Gipper". In 1941, experts voted him the fifth most popular star from the younger generation in Hollywood.
  Reagan's favorite acting role was as a double amputee in 1942's Kings Row. In the movie, he says the line, "Where's the rest of me?" It was later used as the title of his 1965 autobiography. Many movie critics thought Kings Row to be his best movie. Even though the movie was popular, it received bad reviews by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther.
  Although Reagan called Kings Row the movie that "made me a star", he was unable to keep up on his success. This was because he was ordered to active duty with the U.S. Army at San Francisco two months after the movie's release.
  During World War II, Reagan was separated for four years from his movie career. He served in the First Motion Picture Unit. After the war, Reagan co-starred in such movies such as in, The Voice of the Turtle, John Loves Mary, The Hasty Heart, Bedtime for Bonzo, Cattle Queen of Montana, Juke Girl, This Is the Army, The Winning Team, Tennessee's Partner, and Hellcats of the Navy, in which he worked with his wife, Nancy. Reagan's last movie was a 1964 movie The Killers. Throughout his movie career, his mother, Nelle, often answered much of his fan mail.
  Reagan was also a spokesperson. He hosted the General Electric Theater since it was first shown in 1953. He was fired in 1962.
caption: Reagan in the Cowboy from Brooklyn trailer, 1938
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