Clint Eastwood told me the secret of his success on the set of “Space Cowboys” in 1999. It was my first studio movie, and he was gracious enough to let me hang around and watch him produce the script I’d co-written for him. For a newbie Hollywood writer, it was a life-changing experience, and every chance I got, I would ask the master filmmaker a question like this.
“Easy,” he shrugged, in typical Eastwoodian fashion. “Find the best people, give them a mission, then get out of their way so they can do the job.”
His advice was hauntingly familiar. Ronald Reagan famously lived by similar words:
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“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”
Twenty-five years later, I watched Dennis Quaid on the big screen, bringing the 40th president to life again in “REAGAN,” the film I was privileged to write. And I think back on both these iconic men; one I worked with, one I never met. How their words and their work have inspired, influenced and impacted my own words and work, and my life itself.
I was a tough sell with Reagan. I’m the son of Kennedy Democrats. As a teenager, I worked in Jimmy Carter’s 1976 and 1980 campaigns, and like many in our (less than) United States back then, I dismissed the Republican Guy as the “amiable dunce”, has-been “B-movie actor” he was widely reported to be. I’d never really listened to him, or bothered to fact-check these claims.
They were dead wrong. He was actually a critically acclaimed A-List movie star in his prime, a very good governor of California, possessing a high intellect, brilliantly camouflaged with a humble, self-deprecating wit. And a better writer than me, I would come to find out studying his speeches, essays and books for 14 years.
I didn’t know, or care about any of that then. He was on the “other side.”
Then on March 30, 1981, six weeks into his presidency, he was shot. And none of the above mattered anymore. The world stood still, as our new president lay at death’s door with a bullet lodged a centimeter from his heart. That’s what mattered.
As they rolled him into surgery, he whispered to the doctors, “I sure hope you’re Republicans.”
“Today, Mister President,” replied the lead surgeon, “We’re all Republicans.”
In the middle of that night, Reagan opened his eyes to see his political nemesis, Democrat Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, watching over. No sides now. Just two friends. Who prayed and read the 23rd Psalm together.
Six weeks later, when the congressional sergeant at arms shouted, “Mister Speaker, the President of the United States!”, both sides — both sides! — of the aisle leapt to their feet. They cheered, laughed and cried for ten minutes as he stood with them again.
A thousand miles away in my college dorm room, I cheered, laughed and cried too, right along with the rest of America. If only for a brief shining moment, the cynicism, partisanship and bitterness that had defined our generation was gone. We were a family again.
And Ronald Reagan had me at hello.
We had a running joke on the set of “REAGAN” when things went wrong — which is pretty much daily in the making of movies. “Hey guys! We’ve got a country to save!” Always brought a laugh.
Funny. It doesn’t feel like a joke anymore.
Now, of course, a movie can’t save a country, and ours doesn’t pretend to. But it’s fair to say there is an ever-growing feeling on all sides out there, that a little healing wouldn’t be a bad thing for this family of ours.
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From the very first day on this movie, it has been the deepest desire of all of us who made it, that the story of this very real, flesh-and-blood human being’s life, full of the mistakes and failures common to us all, might at least start to fade the lines that divide us, and call us back to something like that night in 1981. And maybe play a small part in some long-overdue healing.
I never got to ask Mr. Reagan the secret of his success. But I think after these 14 years of living, breathing, thinking and writing on my main character, I know what his answer would be. It wasn’t charisma, policies, smarts or even luck. Though he had all of these.
I believe the reason we remember and revere this man and his time, is love.
Ronald Reagan loved people, even those who disagreed with him. He loved his family, he surely loved Nancy. He loved God. And he loved his country.
That’s what we all felt that night. Love.
And hopefully, watching this movie, this American family can feel that again.
