TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/80/80capr.3

Text File | 1992-09-25 | 6.7 KB | 121 lines

                                                                                January 5, 1981

MAN OF THE YEAR

Four Reagans Used to Going Their Own Ways


"They build us to be independent, to think on our own."
Maureen Reagan once said. And that is exactly what she and
Ronald Reagan's other three children have always been and done.
Maureen is the daughter of Reagan and former Wife Jane Wyman,
the actress; Michael is their adopted son. Patricia and Ronald
are Reagan's children by Nancy. Some family snapshots:

Maureen, 40, is by far the most political. An active Republican
when her father was merely a Democrat for Nixon, she was a
conservative in the '60s, condemning the anti-war movement as
Communist-inspired. A fine public speaker and ebullient
campaigner for the man she sometimes calls "Dear Old Dad," she
was his highly visible cheerleader at the G.O.P. Convention.
SHe is also, to her father's chagrin, a campaigner for ERA, and
will be, she vows, "until the day I die."  Such unqualified
enthusiasm and candor are typical of Reagan's animated and
opinionated elder daughter. Like her siblings, Maureen attended
boarding schools and dropped out of college (Marymount in
Virginia). She married twice in her 20s:  to a Washington, D.C.
traffic policeman and to a California attorney. SHe struggled
as an actress and singer long enough to give her stage- struck
half sister Patti some advice, "I told her how to fill out
unemployment forms."  Though briefly successful as a TV
talk-show host. Maureen left show business in 1978 to become
an executive vice president of Sell Overseas America, an
organization that promotes U.S. exports. Beginning this month,
she will moonlight as host of a Saturday radio talk show in Los
ANgeles, and, who knows, she muses, in two years maybe run for
Senator. A more definite post-Inaugural plan is to marry Dennis
Revell, 29, who is now cramming for the California bar exam.
This despite vows to "never marry again," but then the
theatrical Maureen, as Reagan staffers know, sometimes
overstates her positions.

Michael, 35, is the settled sibling, the family square, and the
low- key member of the quartet. Married for six years (to
Colleen Sterns, an interior decorator), the father of the only
Reagan grandchild (Cameron, 2), the owner of a house in the
suburbs (Sherman Oaks, Calif.), he was a cheerful, popular and
politically compatible weekend campaigner for his father. He
admits, however:  "It was a while before I found a direction."
A preschool tot when Reagan and Wyman were divorced, Mike was
bounced around three secondary schools. He played quarterback
well enough to be offered a scholarship by Arizona State, but
turned it down after deciding the college squad took football
too seriously:  "They were all 275-lb. Mean Joe Greene types."
Instead, Mike turned to speedboating. He was married, and
divorced, in less than a year, and meandered--working briefly
as a trucker's assistant--before becoming a salesman of yachts
and other pleasure craft in 1971. Last year he started a firm
that markets gasohol equipment for farmers. More recently, Mike
has become a stockholding senior vice president of the Southern
Pacific Title Co., a Santa Ana firm that sells real estate title
insurance, and is now negotiating to do a radio commentary show
on current affairs. During the campaign, Mike sometimes
critiqued the elder Reagan's style: "I'd tell him that he should
come across strong more often."  In turn, Reagan has given Mike
some fatherly advice, warning him not to be exploited by those
currying First Family favors.

Patricia, 28, has strayed furthest from the parental nest. Tall
(5 ft. 8 in.), slender and quiet in manner, she not only dropped
out of Northwestern University but also the lives of her parents
in the early '70s. She lived with Rock Musician Bernie Leadon
of the Eagles, opposed the Viet Nam War and, for a time, ceased
communication with the elder Reagans. "I was very rebellious
and very feisty," she once explained. "The only place I wanted
to go to was Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco."  Patti did not
go to the counterculture capital, but to Hollywood. There,
using the professional name Patti Davis, she has won small roles
in the likes of TV's Love Boat. Though she took no part in her
father's campaign ("I'm antipolitical"), she is now reconciled
with her parents:  she appeared at Reagan's nomination, has
bought a Dior gown for the Inauguration, and even returned to
the family's Pacific Palisades home for a while before finding
her own beachside apartment a few miles away. The election,
admits Patti, "has done wonders for my career."  TV and film
offers are turning up, she has signed with the high-powered
William Morris Agency, and last month she negotiated a one-year
contract with NBC for an undisclosed six-figure sum. Now, she
says, "I'm hoping for more dramatic roles," but not in
real-life politics.

Ronald, 22 is a dedicated and disciplined professional at an
age when his siblings were still searching for direction. He
is also impetuous. Last November Ron surprised his parents with
his sudden wedding to live-in Girlfriend Doria Palmieri, 29, a
literary researcher. Four years earlier he had stunned them by
dropping out of Yale to become a ballet dancer. And last month
he created a stir by informing New York magazine that he would
not shake hands with Jimmy Carter at the Inauguration because
the President "has the morals of a snake."  Said Ron:  "I will
never forgive the way he called my father a racist and a
warmonger," though he later regretted the outburst as an
"unfortunate moment of candor."

Of the four children, Ron was the closest as a youth to his
father and the best student. he remembers being "seduced by
dance movies from the time I was eight," but did not begin to
study until age 19, when he entered Los Angeles' Stanley Holden
Dance Center, which was recommended by longtime Reagan Friend
Gene Kelly. Within two years he was offered a scholarship by
the prestigious Joffrey school in New York City. Seven months
later he became an alternate member of the Joffrey II troupe,
and last fall made his debut as a regular member. "His
improvement is phenomenal," says Company Director Sally Bliss.
"Ron has no tension in his dancing and incredible concentration.
i think he's really going to make it."  Concurs Anna
Kisselgoff, chief dance critic for the New York Times:  "You
don't have to be a Republican to tell that Ron Reagan is a very
talented dancer."  Yet Ron remains modest about his progress and
cautious about his newly acquired notoriety. Says he:  "You
realize very fast that you could become another Margaret
Truman."

By Claudia Wallis. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett with Reagan