His Gipper pose

It’s safe to say that Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan’s predecessor in the California governor’s office, never did this. Chosen as an example of the ideal male physique by USC’s fine arts department based on his portrayal of George Gipp in “Knute Rockne All American,” Reagan the actor poses for a sculpture class in May of 1940. Twenty-six years later, he was elected governor of California during a time of student unrest. He pledged while campaigning to clean up UC Berkeley, which he called “a hotbed of communism and homosexuality.” When protests against the Vietnam War spread from campus to campus in 1970, Reagan called on the University of California and state university systems to shut down for four days to restore order.