The Bonzo years.

• Author: Gillespie, Nick
• Position: Briefly Noted - Reagan: The Hollywood Years - Brief article - Book review

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The 40th president of the United States (along with his simian co-star) finally gets his due as a matinee idol in Marc Eliot's Reagan: The Hollywood Years (Harmony Books). Often used as a punch line, Reagan's screen career was much more than a Bonzo movie; indeed, he was one of the highest-paid actors in the studio system.

Eliot documents in compelling detail how Reagan's transformation from an FDR Democrat to a Goldwater Republican was tightly linked to his experiences within the film industry, always a hotbed of leftists and limousine liberals (such as James Cagney, who funded the...