Who Was Ronald Reagan 罗纳德·威尔逊·里根 Chapter 3 Hollywood

Ronald Reagan arrived in Hollywood with a great idea for a movie: It was the story of the famous college football coach Knute Rockne and his star running back, George Gipp. After scoring eighty-three touchdowns for Notre Dame¹, Gipp died in his senior year—only a few weeks after playing his last game.

In 1940 the Warner Brothers studio decided² to make a movie about Coach Rockne. But Ronald Reagan almost didn’t get to be in it.

The director thought he didn’t look like a football player. Reagan had to bring in pictures from his yearbook to prove that he really had played the game.

In the end, Reagan was cast as young George Gipp. In one of the last scenes, the dying football star is with his coach. He says to use his example to inspire future Notre Dame players. In the movie, he exclaims, “Someday, when things are tough, maybe you can ask the boys to go in there and win one for the Gipper.” It became one of the most famous lines in film history.

Now that he was in the movies, Reagan was able to bring his parents to California and buy them a house. He still found it hard to forgive his dad for getting drunk. But he invited him to come along to Notre Dame for the premiere of Knute Rockne—All-American. Jack³ Reagan was thrilled. A few months later, he died of heart failure. Reagan felt lucky that they had made up their differences.

By now, Reagan was starting his own family. On the set of the movie Brother Rat, he met a beautiful actress named Jane Wyman. They were married in January 1940.

The fan magazines went crazy over Jane and Ronnie. Stories described them as the ideal movie-star couple. They were glamorous⁴ in an all-American way. In 1941 the Reagans had a daughter, Maureen. Four years later, they adopted a son, Michael.

In two years, Reagan made more than a dozen movies. The studio didn’t like him to be seen wearing glasses. Movie stars weren’t supposed to be nearsighted! So he memorized his parts at home before the shooting started. Luckily, this was easy for him.

Mostly, he played good guys. And he got a lot of attention for being handsome. Art students at the University of Southern California voted Ronnie Reagan their “twentieth century Adonis.” That meant that he looked like a Greek god. He thanked them by posing⁵ for their art classes.

World War II was raging in Europe, and war movies were very popular. Reagan often played the part of a soldier. In four pictures, he was cast as a Secret Service agent chasing counterfeiters and Nazi⁶ spies.

Boys and girls who wrote to the studio were enrolled⁷ in a Junior Secret Service Club. They got membership⁸ cards signed by the Secret Service “chief,” Ronald Reagan. Articles in the club newsletter were written in a secret code that only members could read.

All during his movie career, Reagan enjoyed roles like this. He got to take boxing lessons from an ex-champ named Mushy Callahan. But one day on the set, someone shot off a gun loaded with blanks too close to Reagan’s head. He was hard of hearing in his right ear for the rest of his life.

Little by little, he was starting to get more important roles. After playing George Gipp, he was cast in a serious drama called Kings Row. In Reagan’s big scene, his character wakes up after an operation to find that a scheming doctor has amputated both his legs for no reason. “Where’s the rest of me?” he shrieks⁹. That line, too, became famous.

In December 1941 the United States entered World War II. Ronald Reagan was already in the army reserves. His unit made films for the United States Army Air Corps¹⁰.

Reagan narrated¹¹ films that told the public about the air corps’ latest campaigns. He watched films taken during battles, a lot of them too horrible for the public to see. These images made a deep impression, especially the scenes shot inside Nazi concentration camps. He kept a copy of this reel¹² to show to his children when they were older.

Then the war ended, and Ronald Reagan went back to the movie studio. He made twenty-one more movies. But being an actor wasn’t as much fun for him as it used to be.

Politically, it was a difficult time in the United States, especially in Hollywood. In the past, some Americans had belonged to the Communist Party. Now World War II was over and the Soviet¹³ Union, a Communist country, was America’s number one enemy. In Congress, a committee was investigating Communist activities in Hollywood.

Ronald Reagan was elected president of the actors’ union, called the Screen Actors Guild¹⁴. It was a tough job. Some of his movie star friends warned him that Communists in the United States—people loyal to the Soviet Union—were using the unions to gain power in Hollywood. Reagan was against Communism, but he also wanted to protect peoples’ rights. He was against blacklisting, which denied jobs to actors with Communist Party connections.

Reagan told the congressmen that he didn’t think they needed to pass any new laws, such as making it illegal to belong to the Communist Party. It would be better to let “democracy do its work.”

“If all of the American people know all of the facts, they will never make a mistake,” he said. It was something he believed all his life.

1 dame   

n.女士

参考例句：

• The dame tell of her experience as a wife and mother.这位年长妇女讲了她作妻子和母亲的经验。
• If you stick around,you'll have to marry that dame.如果再逗留多一会，你就要跟那个夫人结婚。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

4 glamorous   

adj.富有魅力的；美丽动人的；令人向往的

参考例句：

• The south coast is less glamorous but full of clean and attractive hotels.南海岸魅力稍逊，但却有很多干净漂亮的宾馆。
• It is hard work and not a glamorous job as portrayed by the media.这是份苦差，并非像媒体描绘的那般令人向往。

5 posing   

n. 摆架式 名词pose的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The model was posing carefully. 这位模特儿在认真地摆着姿势。
• She is always posing. 她总是装腔作势。

6 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

7 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 membership   

n.成员资格，会员全体，从属关系

参考例句：

• I must renew my membership of the sailing club.我必须延续我的航海俱乐部会员的资格。
• He made up his mind to apply for membership in the Party.他决心申请入党。

9 shrieks   

n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• shrieks of fiendish laughter 恶魔般的尖笑声
• For years, from newspapers, broadcasts, the stages and at meetings, we had heard nothing but grandiloquent rhetoric delivered with shouts and shrieks that deafened the ears. 多少年来， 报纸上， 广播里， 舞台上， 会场上的声嘶力竭，装腔做态的高调搞得我们震耳欲聋。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

10 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

11 narrated   

v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Some of the story was narrated in the film. 该电影叙述了这个故事的部分情节。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Defoe skilfully narrated the adventures of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. 笛福生动地叙述了鲁滨逊·克鲁索在荒岛上的冒险故事。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

12 reel   

n.卷筒，线轴；vi.蹒跚地走，旋转，骚乱，退缩，摇晃；vt.卷，卷...于轴上；旋转

参考例句：

• He cast the line and then reel it back.他把线抛出，然后把线绕回。
• The child could reel off many poems of the Tang Dynasty at the age of five.这孩子五岁时就能把许多唐诗倒背如流。

13 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

14 guild   

n.行会，同业公会，协会

参考例句：

• He used to be a member of the Writers' Guild of America.他曾是美国作家协会的一员。
• You had better incorporate the firm into your guild.你最好把这个公司并入你的行业协会。