Aging but Still Appealing Reagan Wows Guests at Dedication

It must be human nature, the reluctance to admit that heroes fade, that age catches up with even icons. Hard to imagine Robin Hood in a rocker, the Lone Ranger getting weak and forgetful.

Ronald Reagan was, to many of those who elected him president--twice--the guy who had somehow found the fountain of youth. The birth certificate said he was a senior citizen and then some when he was in the White House, but for years he didn’t much look or act the role.

So perhaps for some, the 82-year-old Reagan that showed up recently at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar was not quite what they expected.

Time had indeed moved on. How far was a subject of discussion for some of the 75 people who showed up to see him dedicate a portrait of his mother, Nelle, who worked as a volunteer at the hospital in the 1940s and 1950s. The hospital annually gives out an award, in her name, to its outstanding community volunteer.

Most of the people there were hospital benefactors, family and friends of the Reagans mixed in with a couple of newspaper reporters and a slew of photographers and television camera people.

Even five years after he left office, the Reagans are considered a photo opportunity by most news institutions, and although they shun reporters at times, they rarely pass up a good photo session.

Before the ceremony began, hospital brass, invited guests and Secret Service agents incognito milled around the hospital lobby waiting for the Reagans to arrive while Steely Dan songs played in the background.

When asked about the tunes, Richard Stocks, a board director and police officer whose build fits his surname, said in a rush, “The Reagans like rock ‘n’ roll music.”

Really? That sounds like a new part of the Reagan image, but it’s an image that had a great appeal for Americans. The Reagans look the part, talk tough and their image shines so brightly that many of those in the audience saw only the Great Communicator, a symbol of the flag and apple pie.

So instead of seeing what time had done to the man, people celebrated the fact that he and Nancy made the trip at all, and were satisfied to go on about how good the couple looked.

One man leaned over to a woman seated next to him and said “They may have lost a step or two, but other than that, they look just the same.”

“We’ve all lost a step,” she replied, deflecting any hint of criticism.

“His eyes still have that enthusiasm,” the man replied, perhaps wishfully. But the Reagan others saw shuffled onstage slowly and needed prompting about when to sit and when to stand and where to stand during the short presentation. Nancy was vigilant as ever, head tilted slightly upward, legs crossed, arms folded neatly in her lap.

Don Brunet, a self-described die-hard Reagan fan from Los Angeles’ Silver Lake district, saw it too.

“I enjoyed seeing Reagan and I was disturbed because he was showing his age and they kind of had to guide him around,” said Brunet, 75.

“He didn’t flash his famous smile until he got up on the podium where he seemed to be at ease,” Brunet lamented. “Still, I admire the man for what he tried to do.” But after some brief confusion over finding his stage mark, when he strolled up to the podium and began speaking, Reagan wasn’t 82 anymore. He was the same cool, comfortable communicator whose powers of persuasion held the nation enraptured for eight years.

With the trained folksiness that played well in both western movies and the Oval Office, the former president adroitly blended his own attitudes about self-help and motivation with his mother’s volunteer efforts at the hospital.

“Nelle always felt if something went wrong, you didn’t wring your hands, you rolled up your sleeves,” Reagan said.

He said that although his family struggled financially they never knew they were poor because no one from the government ever came around and told them they were.

Impolite questions from curious reporters about Reagan’s health or his mental quickness were unacceptable at this function. The guests were Reagan supporters to the core.

Frances O’Farrell, an accomplished artist who operated a studio on Ventura Boulevard for many years, used her artistic license to “soften” Nelle’s portrait from the black dress she wore in the photograph O’Farrell used. It is not an uncommon practice for artists to spruce up a subject’s appearance.

She created the blue dress, added a pearl necklace and matching earrings because while the black dress was stylish in Nelle’s time, “it wasn’t portrait material.”

O’Farrell, who also has been commissioned to paint such noteworthy 20th-Century women as Betty Ford and Queen Elizabeth, when the queen visited the Reagans at their ranch outside Santa Barbara, said she thought that indeed the Reagans had changed--for the better.

“I found them more pleasing, more likable,” she said. “I felt a tenderness and compassion for what they’ve been through and the service they’ve given to the country.”

For all the stern ideals he preached as a campaigner, Reagan seemed mellower too, and he was visibly touched by the tribute shown to his mother.

On the way back to his seat after unveiling the portrait, he kissed his fingers, reached over and touched his mother’s portrait on the cheek.