She Was the First Naysayer

It was an old familiar Hollywood story. The bright, dark-eyed, attractive woman sitting across from me had once been a big star, the darling of the MGM lot, the pet of the studio chief, Dore Schary, and she was the leading lady in a dozen box-office hits like “The Next Voice You Hear.” She had a sweet, sincere quality the screen enhanced. She was going to be the next Irene Dunne. She could play the roles where dignity was paramount and tears were not far in the offing. There were fan magazine covers, promo tours, gallery sittings, premieres in Manhattan, the dream of every American schoolgirl.

Then, she gave it all up to be a housewife. Passed up the klieg lights, the limos, radio and TV appearances, for aprons and diapers and shopping lists and home budgets. She married this rising young executive whose work took him all over the country. He was confident, dynamic, committed. She became a homemaker, a mother, and his source of great strength and encouragement.

His work required frequent transfers. She dutifully packed up their little family and their belongings and stood at his side. Their moves took them to Sacramento for eight years and finally to Washington, where she set up housekeeping at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., a big old barn of a place where the drapes didn’t match, the plumbing was erratic, the fireplaces were falling down, the cutlery was cracked and antiquated, the carpeting moldy, and there were always people in beards marching around outside, holding up signs and chanting slogans. Beverly Hills, it wasn’t.

By this time, hubby had gone all the way up the corporate ladder. He was chief executive officer, all right--of the United States of America.

So, Nancy Davis found herself Nancy Reagan. The girl who was going to become the greatest Davis since Bette found herself playing the biggest role of her career--First Lady, Mrs. Ronald Reagan, wife of the 40th President of the United States. It was a demanding part--a combination of Lady Macbeth and Girl of the Limberlost. It was hardly Andy Hardy Goes to the White House. If she thought Hollywood was a fish bowl, this made it look like a hermitage. There were no directors, cue cards, retakes or dubbing. Just shoot it.

History will have to judge her husband, but Nancy Reagan brought a style and a flair to the Executive Mansion few Presidents’ wives managed. It wasn’t easy being Nancy Reagan, but it wasn’t easy being Nancy Davis. Either way, you had the critics to deal with. All you can do is remember your lines and be sincere. As Spencer Tracy said, “Find your marks and wait for the red light.”

It was on the plane ride to the Inaugural that the veteran newswoman, Helen Thomas, came up to the new First Lady. “You know,” she told her, “you are going to get a podium few people ever get in this life. So, use it. If you have a project, here’s your chance to bring it before the people--before the world.”

Nancy Reagan had a project. It had been inside her since her days as the governor’s wife in Sacramento. “It was the days when the drug scene was just beginning,” she said. “It was a time when parents were in denial, a kind of ‘Not my son! Not my Penelope!’ They were fighting the drug war in the dark. Each family thought they were alone. They were ashamed, embarrassed, guilt-locked. They were no match for the drug dealers. They couldn’t cope with, or even understand, the power of peer pressure.” They were losing the fight in their corners.

It was a bigger threat to the United States of America than Hitler’s armies or Stalin’s Communists ever were. The First Lady knew it. She threw the weight of her office into the drive for a universal front of parents--and educators--against drugs.

“It was not a popular cause with the (White House) staff,” Nancy Reagan recalls. “It was unappealing, unsettling. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t just go on a crusade to save the wildflowers or bring back Afghan knitting or just christen submarines, become a patron of the arts. Something upbeat.”

The Reagans, of course, had enemies in the most vocal segment of the population who were derisive of the First Lady’s foray into the controversial world of drug abuse. What did she know about it? they jeered. The staff held its head and moaned. “What did your husband do?” Mrs. Reagan is asked. “Oh, Ronnie was very supportive,” she says. “He encouraged me at every turn.”

The dimensions of the problem appalled even Nancy Reagan. It made even the Persian Gulf crisis look solvable by comparison. “I visited drug rehab centers,” she says. “I talked to parents, I talked to students. I encouraged parents to group together.” In other words to put their own army in the field.

She was mocked for the simplistic approach, the slogan, “Just Say No!” Nancy Reagan sighs. “That wasn’t something we just sat down and dreamed up,” she explains, “that came about by accident. I was at a clinic in Oakland, and we were addressing the kids on the horrors of drugs when this one young girl asked me, ‘But what do we do when our friends pressure us to do drugs with them?’ and, without thinking, I said, ‘Just say no!’ ”

A reporter present picked up the quote, she recalls, and it became the slogan of her crusade. Nancy Reagan admits she knows slogans and bumper stickers don’t win wars but she adds: “It’s not a bad starting point.”

Since she left the White House, Nancy Reagan’s campaign has, if anything, stepped up. She may be the first First Lady ever to go on a drug raid to see at first hand the face of the evil. “Chief (Darryl) Gates vaguely suggested it, and I enthusiastically agreed,” she says. Even, insisted. “They wanted me to watch from a nearby firehouse, but I said, ‘Nothing doing. I’m going along all the way or not at all.’ ”

She was astonished when one of the (handcuffed) arrestees of a crack house looked at her and broke into a slow grin: “ ‘Well whatta you know! It’s Nancy Reagan!” Not everybody gets busted by a President’s wife.

The Nancy Reagan Foundation, which spearheads the fight against drugs by allocating funds and celebrity support to nationwide groups combatting drug abuse, will stage the second annual Nancy Reagan Pro/Celebrity tennis tournament at Riviera Tennis Club Saturday. Celebrities from John Forsythe to George Peppard to Robert Stack will be on hand. Tennis stars from the venerable Rod Laver to the wunderkind Jennifer Capriati will be on court.

In the movie, “Sunset Boulevard,” the former movie star played by Gloria Swanson says: “I’m still big! It’s the movies that have gotten smaller!” The former Nancy Davis could make that statement. And although she never won an Oscar, if the day ever comes when a whole generation just says no, she’ll have won hers.