Ronald Wilson Reagan’s early career

Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in an apartment in Tampico, Illinois. His father is John "Jack" Reagan, a Catholic of Irish descent, and his mother is Nelle Wilson, who is of Scottish, Irish and British descent. His paternal great-grandfather, Michael Reagan, immigrated to the United States from Ireland in the 1860s. Before he immigrated, the family name was originally Regan. His maternal great-grandfather, John Wilson, immigrated to the United States from Scotland in the 1840s.

After moving several times, the Reagan family settled in Dixon, Illinois in 1920. In 1921, when Reagan was 10 years old, Reagan was baptized in the Christian church where his mother believed (although Reagan's older brother, Neil, followed his father and became a Catholic). In 1924, Reagan began attending Northside High School in Dickson, and Reagan later claimed that Dickson was his hometown. In 1927, when Reagan was 16 years old, Reagan found a job as a lifeguard at Lowell Park on the Rock River near Dickson. He worked as a lifeguard there for 7 years and is said to have saved 77 people. Drowning person. Reagan later joked that none of the drowning men ever thanked him. Reagan would be very proud of this achievement and would show visitors to the White House a photo of the Rock River that hung in the Oval Office.

Reagan entered Eureka College in Illinois in 1928, majoring in economics and sociology, and graduated in 1932. As a freshman at the college he joined a strike against cuts in college spending. In 1929, Reagan joined the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He later recalled that the experience of joining the fraternity was the most unforgettable memory in his college career. He spent little time on his studies and received only average grades, but he was the leader of many clubs and sports teams on campus and was known as "the big guy on campus."

Regan had a talent for speaking and acting, and these talents led to him being selected as the freshman speaker at the student strike. In 1932, Reagan worked as a sports announcer at WOC Radio and WHO Radio in Iowa, responsible for announcing the Chicago Bowl baseball game. He only relied on the text messages from the radio receivers from the stadium, and used his voice in the broadcast room. Use your imagination to report on how the game is going. There was a game in the ninth inning when the ticker suddenly broke down, but Reagan still smoothly made up the situation of the game until the ticker was repaired. In 1937, while in California as a spring training announcer before the Chicago Bowl, Reagan auditioned for a seven-year contract at the Warner Brothers studio. Reagan's clear voice, carefree style, and athletic physique made him quite popular with audiences; most of his roles were leading men in B-movies. His first film role was in 1937's Love Is on the Air. By the end of 1939, he had acted in 19 films. In his role as Knute Rockne, All American, he played football player George Gipp, who earned the nickname Gipper that stayed with him throughout his life because of his famous line "Go win a goal for Gipper!" Reagan considered his best performance to be in 1942's Kings Row, playing a young amputee, from which he later used the line "Where's the rest of my body?" as the title of his autobiography.

Reagan's other notable film credits include Tennessee's Partner, Hellcats of the Navy, This Is the Army, and Bedtime for Bonzo, which was widely ridiculed because he co-starred with a chimpanzee. He also left his mark on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Reagan was appointed as a reserve officer in the U.S. Army in 1935 and was called up in November 1941, but did not become a front-line combatant because he suffered from blindness. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Reagan was assigned to the Army Air Corps' film unit to produce training and educational films to fully utilize his acting experience. He remained in Hollywood until the end of the war. In the late 1950s, Reagan took fewer film roles and became an actor and host of television shows. Reagan has appeared in more than 50 television series. His performance in 1954's Out of the Night with James Dean was quite infamous. Reagan also served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 to 1960. In one year in the late 1950s, Reagan earned as much as $5,000 (about $800,000 in 2006 dollars). His last regular gig was as a host and actor in Death Valley Days. Her final film appearance was in 1964's The Killers, a film adaptation of a short story by Ernest Hemingway. In the movie, Reagan played a gang leader, which was also the only time he played a negative role in a movie. It was originally shot for television, but was changed to a movie because it was too violent.