Nevada was a place of reflection and recreation for Nancy, Ronald Reagan

By Ed Koch

Sunday, March 6, 2016 | 5:37 p.m.

While driving home to California following his less-than-triumphant two weeks at the Last Frontier in Las Vegas in February 1954, song-and-dance man Ronald Reagan, then at the lowest point in life, shared his sorrows with Nancy Reagan.

“I hope I never have to sink this low again,” said Ron Reagan, whose acting career had been on a nosedive since the release of the 1951 film “Bedtime For Bonzo,” in which Ron’s co-star was a chimp — and after Reagan was forced to play Vegas because he was $18,000 in debt, out of work and badly in need of a paycheck.

Nancy, his wife of less than a year, consoled the future two-term Republican president and vowed to strongly support her husband through whatever lay ahead — and she would continue to do so until his death 50 years later.

Nancy Reagan’s death Sunday at 94 conjured memories of how she helped lift Ronald Reagan’s spirits on that desolate Nevada highway, how she and Ron fought to preserve Lake Tahoe and how Nancy tried unsuccessfully to persuade Ron to pick former Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt — a close friend — as his vice president.

A number of years after Ronald Reagan’s only Las Vegas Strip stage appearance, Nancy Reagan shared with the public in a PBS-TV interview just how tough that experience was on him:

“He rolled with it, but it hurt, of course, when (his) career dried up — of course it hurt. But … he’d get back to the deep belief that everything happens for a reason. And that whatever happened to him there, (there) was a reason for it.”

Ronald Reagan, with Nancy’s undying support, quickly put his uninspiring Vegas gig behind him, went on to revive his acting career, served as governor of California in the 1960s and ’70s and was president of the United States in the 1980s. Nancy remained at his side until his death from complications of Alzheimer’s disease in 2004.

Nevadans on Sunday recalled how deep Nancy’s devotion was to Ronald Reagan.

“Nancy Reagan was a gracious and elegant first lady,” said longtime friend Sig Rogich, president and CEO of Rogich Communications in Las Vegas. “She was absolutely devoted and loyal to her husband.”

Rogich also recalled that the Reagans would join the Laxalts on holidays at Marlette Lake in Northern Nevada, where Ronald Reagan once lovingly carved on a picnic table his and Nancy’s initials as a sign of his eternal devotion to her.

UNLV Associate History Professor Michael Green said Nancy’s devotion to her husband can be traced to how she stood beside him during the days when the only work he could find in the entertainment field was in a Vegas showroom.

“It is hard to imagine someone having more support for her husband than Nancy Reagan had for Ronald Reagan, especially when times were lean for the couple,” Green said.

“Although it obviously hurt her to watch him go through what he was going through in his then-slumping career, she always knew that Ron had hopes for bigger and better things and that she would be with him all the way as he sought to accomplish his goals in life.”

Rogich, who co-produced the 1984 seven-minute documentary on Nancy Reagan that aired nationwide during that year’s Republican convention, said Nancy Reagan’s ties to Nevada were strong and that, had she had her way, the vice president under her husband indeed would have been a Nevadan.

“She was very fond of Paul (Laxalt); he was almost like family to her,” Rogich said. “She very much admired how Paul was loyal to her husband.”

In his book “Nevada’s Paul Laxalt: A Memoir,” the former Nevada governor and venerable U.S. senator recalled Ronald and Nancy’s devotion to each other.

“He and Nancy had a special bond,” Laxalt wrote. “They truly loved and respected one another. … If he (Ronald Reagan) has a real friend in this world, it is Nancy. I've often thought that if it had not been for Nancy's drive and will, Ron never would have been president.”

Paul Laxalt’s friendship with Ronald and Nancy Reagan can be traced to the mid-1960s, when the men became governors of their states at the same time.

Both were strongly motivated to preserve and protect Lake Tahoe, which lies in both their states. To that end, they co-created the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a cause that was near and dear to Nancy’s heart, as she and Ronald were avid boaters.

In fact, one of their only fond memories — if not their only one — of Ronald’s Vegas nightclub venture in 1954 was their boating trip on Lake Mead, which was photographed primarily as a publicity stunt to pump up ticket sales for the nightly shows.

Ronald’s nickname for Nancy was “Mommy.” She affectionately called him “Ronnie.” Interestingly enough, “Nancy,” itself was a nickname, as her birth name was Anne Frances Robbins.

Ronald and Nancy met in 1949, a year after Ronald’s divorce from Jane Wyman. Their early years were a struggle.

Ronald Reagan, then-president of the Screen Actors Guild, had made five mediocre films, each for a relatively low $75,000, before the studios stopped offering him work. At the time, he had a new wife and an infant daughter, along with child-support payments of $500 a month for the two children he had had with Wyman.

Also, Ronald at the time had his troubles with the Internal Revenue Service, owing unpaid taxes from the prosperous days of his acting career, and he was in need of any income just to keep up payments on his ranch and Pacific Palisades home.

When Vegas came calling, Ron and Nancy had no choice but to pack their bags and go. In a newspaper ad of the period, his last name was misspelled “Regan” — perhaps an omen for what was to come.

Ronald Reagan shared the bill with the Continentals, an established local quartet. Part of his act was to appear as the fifth member of that group and emcee the show, in which he also would dance with the Adorabelles, the house’s chorus line.

Ronald performed in the Last Frontier’s Ramona Room, then the largest showroom in Las Vegas. Variety magazine described his act as “no particular act” but said he had a “winning personality.”

Nancy Reagan watched every one of her husband’s Las Vegas performances, appropriately from a dark booth in the back of the showroom, as this obviously was a part of his career that also did not bring her a great deal of pride, even though each performance sold out.

Ronald was offered other Las Vegas engagement dates, but he turned them down and he and Nancy high-tailed it back to Hollywood.

After Ronald’s soul-baring conversation with Nancy on their ride home from the desert, his career turned around, seemingly like magic. His next two films were successes and in September 1954 he was signed to host CBS-TV’s “General Electric Theater.”

The Reagans became wealthy from the show, which between 1953 and 1957 climbed from No. 27 in the Nielsen ratings to No. 3.

The eight-year run on the GE program also launched Ronald Reagan on a slate of speaking engagements at service clubs as General Electric’s spokesman. He developed the oratory skills that would spark his political career. Ronald earned the nicknamed “The Great Communicator.”

When Ronald ran for president in 1980, he chose as his running mate George H.W. Bush. Laxalt recalled Nancy’s disappointment over that decision in his memoir:

“In a few minutes, George and Barbara Bush and Ron and Nancy Reagan arrived. Nancy rushed to me and took my hand. ‘I'm so sorry, Paul, I wish it had been you.’ ‘Nancy, it's probably for the best,’ I responded.”

By 1984, when Ronald Reagan was seeking his second term as president, it was decided that nationally televised documentary films would be produced for the campaign for both Nancy and him and that noted Las Vegas political adviser and advertising executive Rogich was the man for the job.

“I was scared to death the day I had to show the video to Nancy because I was afraid she might not like it,” Rogich said. “We sat on her king-sized bed at her Santa Barbara ranch and watched it together. When it was over I nervously turned to her and saw that she was crying.”

“This is something special,” Nancy Reagan told Rogich. “I love it.”

Earlier that day, Rogich had met with Ronald Reagan, who was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and cowboy hat and reviewed his half-hour video documentary to a similar approval.

Although Ronald Reagan never again returned to Las Vegas as a performer, he and Nancy visited Nevada often in the 1960s and ’70s, where they enjoyed fishing and boating at Lake Mead. Also, he stumped for Nevada GOP office-seekers in the 1980s and early 1990s, with Nancy often accompanying him on those trips.

Ed Koch is a former longtime Las Vegas Sun reporter.