STUDIO CITY, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 4, 1952
5:00 P.M.
“I do,” says Ronald Reagan, looking into the large brown eyes of a pregnant Nancy Davis. He is dressed in a black wedding suit with narrow matching tie. Davis, who clutches a fragrant bouquet of orange blossoms and white tulips, does not wear a wedding gown. Instead, she has chosen to wear a gray woolen suit bought off the rack at the I. Magnin department store in Beverly Hills. A single strand of pearls is draped around her neck.
The Rev. John Wells, a Disciples of Christ minister, stands before the small, bare table that represents the altar here at the Little Brown Church. He asks Davis if she, too, agrees to be wed “till death do you part.”
“I do,” she replies. Nancy Davis has campaigned hard for this moment since setting her sights on Ronald Reagan three years ago. She is undaunted by his flings with other women, accepting his indiscretions while enjoying a few brief affairs of her own.1 Davis knows that there are two keys to Reagan’s heart: politics and horses. So she has spent hours whitewashing fences at the actor’s Malibu ranch and attending the Monday night SAG board meetings to watch him lead the proceedings. “I loved to listen to him talk,” Davis will write of their courtship, “and I let him know it.”
Standing in the chapel to Reagan’s right is his best man, the hard-drinking actor William Holden. The thirty-three-year-old Academy Award nominee for Sunset Boulevard has taken a break from filming the World War II drama Stalag 17 to be at the ceremony. His wife, Ardis, is serving as Davis’s matron of honor. The Holdens have been fighting today and are not on speaking terms. That is not an unusual situation in their eleven-year marriage. The main issue between them is infidelity. Holden underwent a vasectomy after the birth of their second son and is fond of bedding his costars without fear of getting them pregnant, thus leaving his wife in a constant state of jealousy and torment.2
Even as Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis recite their vows, awash in apparent marital bliss, the Holdens sit on opposite sides of the tiny church.
Other than these four, and the gray-haired Reverend Wells, who presides wearing a flowing black robe, there is no one else in attendance for the Reagan-Davis wedding, which makes the Holdens’ feud glaringly obvious. The Reagan children, Maureen and Michael, are away at school.
Even though a formal wedding announcement was made on February 21, and gossip writer Louella Parsons spread the word to twenty million people worldwide through her syndicated newspaper column, the ceremony is stunningly casual. There was no limousine to ferry the couple to the church. Instead, Reagan picked Nancy up at her apartment in the Cadillac convertible purchased for him by Jane Wyman.
In addition, there is no formal reception. The group will adjourn to the Holdens’ ranch-style home3 in nearby Toluca Lake for a quick bite of cake and a splash of champagne before Reagan and Davis drive two hours to Riverside’s Mission Inn for their wedding night.
Reagan’s initial wedding proposal fell far short of romance. Davis had longed “that Ronnie would take me out in a canoe as the sun was setting and would strum a ukulele as I lay back, trailing my fingers in the water, the way they used to do in the old movies I saw as a little girl.”
Instead, Reagan simply pronounced, “Let’s get married,” over dinner at a Hollywood nightclub shortly after Davis told him she was pregnant. To which she replied, after gazing into his eyes and placing her small hands atop his: “Let’s.”
Nancy Davis was so eager to marry Ronald Reagan that she willingly accommodated his every wish. If that meant a small ceremony, lacking fanfare or even a hint of the media flashbulbs that might provide a modicum of grandeur—then so be it. Nancy was released from her Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio contract just two weeks prior. “I don’t want to do anything else except be married. I just want to be Ronnie’s wife,” she says later.
To Reagan, this anonymous wedding is perfect. His life seems to become more complicated by the day, and he hardly needs a horde of press to remind him that his career is in peril. In addition to dealing with Davis’s pregnancy, Reagan was released from his contract with Warner Bros. just five weeks ago. He claims that he wants a small ceremony because the memory of his lavish first wedding to Jane Wyman is still painful. But the truth is that “to even contemplate facing reporters and flashbulbs made me break out in a cold sweat,” as Reagan will one day write.
The wedding is so discreet that Reagan has not even invited his mother, Nelle. His father, Jack, died more than a decade ago, but Nelle Reagan now lives nearby, in Southern California. But even though Reagan has a close relationship with his mother, who is a member of the Disciples of Christ denomination, she is not in attendance.
Nancy, on the other hand, has no living relations in Hollywood. Her godmother was Alla Nazimova, the late owner of the legendary Garden of Allah Hotel. Coincidentally, that same den of iniquity was the place where Reagan promised himself that he would stop sleeping around. Thanks to that moment, and to his relationship with Nancy, he is now seen less and less in the nightclubs of Hollywood, preferring to spend weekends at the Malibu ranch.
“It’s not that I hunger for somebody to love me,” Reagan has confided to Nancy, finally putting the memory of his divorce in the rearview mirror, “as much as I miss having somebody to love.”
* * *
“I pronounce you man and wife,” says Reverend Wells, adjusting his thin wire-frame glasses. Davis is so swept away by the moment that she will not remember saying “I do” or even Ronald Reagan’s kiss as their marriage is sealed. Instead, she will recall only the booming voice of Bill Holden as he comes to her side. “Can I kiss the bride?” he asks.
“Not yet,” Davis protests. “It’s too soon.”
But as the svelte Ardis looks on, Holden wraps his arms around Nancy’s waist and kisses her passionately on the lips.
* * *
Ardis Ankerson has arranged for a photographer to be present at her house as a beaming Nancy Reagan slices wedding cake with her new husband. The three tiers of white frosting, with the small plastic statue of bride and groom perched on top, rests on the Holdens’ dining room table. Reagan blinks as the shutter clicks, while Nancy leans in toward the camera with eyes wide open. It is a moment both iconic and timeless, re-created at countless weddings before and since. If not for Ardis possessing the forethought to hire a photographer, there would have been no pictures of this moment.
The resulting images are unassuming. Yet one day they will be considered remarkable, for this evening begins a marriage that will change the world.
It is midnight as the newly married Reagans arrive at the Mission Inn, an elaborate structure built to look like an old Spanish mission, with great stucco walls, exposed beams, and a garden courtyard.4 A bouquet of red roses waits in their room, compliments of the house.
In Ronald Reagan, Nancy sees a greatness that thus far has eluded him. She will dedicate her life to bringing it forth. Soon, her supplication will vanish and dominance will emerge. Reagan will reluctantly cease his womanizing, although continuing his affair with Christine Larson well past the day his baby daughter, Patti, is born on October 21, 1952.5 And while there will be the occasional discreet liaison in the future, Reagan’s days as a playboy are in the past. In time, these affairs will come to haunt him. Not a man normally given to regrets, Reagan will rue his behavior as his love for Nancy grows deeper. “If you want to be a happy man,” he will counsel a friend years from now, “just don’t ever cheat on your wife.”
Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis cutting wedding cake with William Holden and his wife, Ardis
Nancy Reagan possesses an inner steel that her husband lacks. This quality will soon make her opinions indispensable. She will become his sounding board, tactician, and adviser, prodding and cajoling him to become the man only she believes he can be.
And while Reagan will always be “Ronnie” to his wife, the power in their marriage will slowly shift until Nancy becomes the matriarch known to her husband as Mommy.
Of such odd synergy are great marriages made.