Hollywood Noir: Featuring Ronald Reagan

When Ronald Reagan arrived in Hollywood in the latter part of May1937 to begin his film career, it was like being cast in an epic film noir project with a DeMille cast of thousands, without having read the script, or met or known any of the principals in the project. Because of political corruption, labor racketeering, an out of control Police Department, and violent crime, writers referred to Los Angeles as the "unholy city." Much of this dark side of Los Angeles played out in the film industry and on Hollywood Boulevard. This story traces back to the early 1930s when two small time Chicago hoodlums, Willie Bioff and George Browne, formed a partnership that would shake up the film industry, give the old moguls who dominated Hollywood ulcers, and provoke labor disturbances that ultimately would lead to the blacklist years of the 1950s.

Bioff was a street hustler who worked as a Teamster slugger-dues collector, maintained a brothel and sold protection to kosher chicken dealers in Chicago´s Fulton Market area. For this latter activity in 1933 the Chicago police department listed Bioff as a public enemy. Browne was a business agent of Chicago Stagehands Local 2. He had risen to this job by early on showing willingness to use a blackjack on nonconforming stagehands. As a sideline, Browne sold protection to gentile chicken dealers in the Fulton Market area. When these two met, instead of fighting over territorial rights, they formed a partnership to share equally income derived from whatever source. Their first big score was a $20,000 bribe from the Balaban and Katz Theater operators in lieu of a pay raise for members of Stagehands Local 2. When Frank Nitti, nominal head of the Capone gang with Al Capone in jail for income tax fraud, learned of B&B´s operation, he offered to back Browne for president of the stagehands´ union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Nitti assured them that a national network of gangsters and hoodlums would guarantee Browne´s election. B&B readily accepted the offer. At IATSE´s convention in June 1934 Nitti´s hoodlums dictated the election of officers to IATSE´s General Executive Board, with Browne ascending to the presidency. Nitti then laid out a master plan to seize control of all Hollywood employees.

During these years, Reagan was highly visible about town (Des Moines) working for radio station WHO and escorting pretty girls from the Club Belvedere gambling establishment to various events. He got serious about one, a singer whose big number was Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas, but he went off to Hollywood.

In December 1935, Browne, following Nitti´s orders, called a strike of Chicago theaters. Projectionists followed with a threat of a nationwide strike unless film producers gave IATSE jurisdiction over 12,000 film craft workers. The film producers, fearing a strike during the Great Depression, caved into their demands. Suddenly 12,000 film workers had to join IATSE or lose their jobs, so they joined. With this leverage B&B levied a two- percent assessment on IATSE members´ annual earnings, $50 thousand annually from each of the four major motion picture companies and $25 thousand annually from the three minor companies. Nitti dispatched Bioff to Hollywood to run the Hollywood unions while Browne remained in New York as head of IATSE´s International Office. Nitti assigned Chicago nightclub operator, Nick Circella, to watch over Browne and West Coast gangster, Johnny Rosselli, to watch over Bioff. Rosselli went on IATSE´s payroll as compensation for his new duties and coincidentally he was also on the payroll of the film producers´ labor negotiator, Pat Casey.

Reagan arrived in Hollywood June 1937 to start his career. His first film, Love is on the Air, had him playing the role of a crusading radio reporter against crime and corruption, a role inconsistent with his lifestyle in Des Moines where he frequented bootlegging and gambling establishments.