‍THE RISE OF A ‘HORNDOG’ PRESIDENT ON THE TRAIL TO THE WHITE HOUSE

‍IN 1933 a strait-laced radio sports announcer in Illinois nicknamed ‘Dutch’ was known for his love of baseball but years later he got the nickname ‘Horndog’ for his love of women — and he became the most powerful man in the world. Sounds like the plot of a novel but it’s true, of course.

‍

‍For that man was Ronald Reagan, who became the 40th President of the United States of America on January 20, 1981. And much has been written about him, his politics and his sex life in equal measure.

‍

‍But not all was known until he died and the press and biographers began to find out more about his secret love life in Hollywood and the ‘horny’ antics at the infamous Garden of Allah hotel on Sunset Boulevard with his friend, actor Errol Flynn.

‍

‍Stories grew and many biographers who had sketched over Reagan’s real love life were left red faced, except one, Darwin Porter, and his book ‘Love Triangle: Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman & Nancy Davis.’ It was picked up by Fleet Street and the American Press.

‍

‍We discovered that Reagan, who starred in 53 movies, and married actress Jane Wyman, bedded more than 50 women. Among them Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe and Doris Day.

‍

‍Lana, who died in 1995, said: “He was a ’40-minute man’ in contrast with another presidential romancer – ‘four-minute man’ John F Kennedy.”

‍

‍Reagan, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance  in Kings Row in 1942, was heavily influenced by notorious womaniser Flynn, his roommate at the hotel, home to celebrities and known for its all-night parties. Flynn boasted that he bedded 150 warm bodies, sometimes four at a time.

‍

‍But Reagan’s love life was to be finally defined by his 52-year marriage to movie starlet Nancy Davis. They met for dinner on November 15, 1949, because she needed help with a case of mistaken identity that put her on the Hollywood blacklist as being sympathetic to the Communists. They married in 1952 after he divorced Jane.

‍

‍His new life was a partnership renowned for its intense devotion, public displays of affection, and frequent love letters. They starred in just one film together, ‘Hellcats of the Navy’, which was released in 1957.

‍

‍When the American president announced he had Alzheimer’s in a letter to the people, his first thought was for his beloved wife.

‍

‍He wrote: “I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience.”

‍

‍Most of us will remember that day, that letter.

‍

‍At that time, they had been together for 40 years and now she was to become his rock more than ever. There was little doubt she was. But author Kitty Kelly, had other information. In her book entitled ‘Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorised Biography’ serialised in the Los Angeles Times, she claimed that the President’s doe-eyed wife was the most influential First Lady in American history for the wrong reasons.

‍

‍And all because Reagan was a puppet in her hands. He couldn’t get anything done,” Kelly said. “He took naps all the time; she was the one who called the shots?’

‍

‍The White House staff were frustrated. Nancy was President. And Kelly added that Nancy then had a long-term affair with Sinatra, claiming the singer visited the White House for private “lunches” with her that lasted three or more hours in private rooms.

‍

‍“When Nancy was with Sinatra, she was not to be disturbed, even for calls from the President,” said Kelly.

‍

‍When Reagan died on June 5, 2004, aged 93 at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, legendary actor Charlton Heston said: “He had the greatest love affair in the history of the American presidency”.

‍

‍Nancy died in 2016, aged 94 of congestive heart problems.

‍

‍Heads, you lose!

‍

‍

‍

‍FAKE pictures are nothing new it seems, the Victorians with their obsession for death; the afterlife and the macabre, were doing it way back in 1856. And newspapers were using them for ghost stories.

‍

‍Take the couple in our picture. They posed for Oscar Rejlander, known today as the Father of Art Photography. The Swedish artist set up a studio in Wolverhampton in 1846 and developed Photomontage and Combination Printing, using negatives from two or more images to create a single image. They became the basis for Victorian Era trick photography.

‍

‍Rejlander was also known for his erotic work, using circus girls, street children and child prostitutes for models. One of his most famous prints was ’The Two Ways of Life’, in which he seamlessly combined 32 images which included nudity and was branded “indecent” by the Press, until …Queen Victoria ordered a framed copy for Albert and hung it in their bedroom.

‍

‍

‍The Mona Lisa Pearls gang: mastermind Grizzard second from left

‍

‍GANG SWOOPS ON WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE PEARLS SENT BY POST

‍IT WAS known as the Mona Lisa of pearls, a fabulous 61-pearl necklace that took 10 years to make and would be worth £22million today.

‍

‍Its reputation had spread worldwide, so its theft in May 1913 did too. 

‍

‍Newspapers in London, Paris and New York ran the story for weeks, following every police move.

‍

‍The flawless blue-pink pearls with a diamond clasp, were owned by Hatton Garden diamond trader Max Mayer. The centrepiece featured a large pearl that had once belonged to the royal family of Portugal.

‍

‍Mayer sent the necklace to a potential buyer in Paris to view — by post!

‍

‍The French buyer changed his mind and sent the most valuable necklace in the world back — by post, would you believe? When trader Max received it, he opened the package, only to find a string of sugar lumps that weighed the same as the pearls he sent.

‍

‍Jewel thief Joseph Grizzard had struck again. The charming and debonair career criminal was well known by the Yard for outfoxing them.

‍

‍Tall and elegant, he was so composed that when police searched his home over a diamond heist, he welcomed them with a smile while entertaining a collection of potential buyers for dinner.

‍

‍The police found nothing and left, at which point 46-year-old Grizzard returned to eating his now tepid pea soup — and pulled a long string of diamonds from the bottom of the bowl to gusts of laughter from guests!

‍

‍Now he had masterminded the theft of the world’s most expensive pearls. His main collaborator was a master thief named James Lockett, 42, who had no criminal record.

‍

‍Lockett had been arrested many times but as this was before the age of fingerprints thieves could give different names every time they were nicked. So, they were always “first-time offenders.” Lockett never used his proper name.

‍

‍Grizzard and Lockett tailed successful trader Mayer, eavesdropping on his business lunches until they were able to learn when the rejected pearls would be placed in the mail back to him from the prospective buyer in Paris.

‍

‍Grizzard then flew to France and spent the day wining and dining in Paris, picking up French sugar cubes and newspapers.

‍

‍Another gang member, Simon Silverman rented an office at 101 Hatton Garden, on the same postal route as Mayer’s office at No.88, then he befriended the regular mailman, William Neville.

‍

‍He made him an offer of £400 (£40,000 today) to allow the gang brief access to his post collection on the day the pearls were due back. To Neville, a drunk who earned just a few pounds a week, this was a fortune.

‍

‍When the valuable package arrived back in England, Neville delivered it to Silverman’s fake office instead. Silverman quickly sliced it open, removed the pearls, rewrapped it with the same blue linen paper Mayer was known to use and the French newspapers. Then he sealed it in wax, with the trader’s designated MM seal, forged by an engraver.

‍

‍Neville delivered it to Mayer. When the trader opened it, he found a well-wrapped package filled with nothing but eleven cubes of French sugar and a ripped page from a French newspaper (courtesy of Grizzard), which later made police believe the robbery had taken place in France.

‍

‍For 18 months, the police struggled to find the culprits and a £10,000 reward was offered. Finally, a Hatton Garden precious stones expert Leiser Gutwirth, was paid by the gang to sell the pearls.

‍

‍He told a prospective buyer the gemstones were intact, minus the diamond clasp. Undercover police officers tricked their way into the deal and lured the gang to a restaurant meeting near Chancery Lane posing as buyers. The game was finally up and the gang were arrested.

‍

‍Grizzard and Lockett were sentenced to seven years penal servitude, Silverman to five years, and Gutwirth to 18 months hard labour. All the pearls were recovered except one.

‍

‍Two weeks after the gang’s arrest, a piano-maker, Augustus Horne, was walking to work in Highbury, North London, when he saw a man drop a something deliberately in the gutter and dash away.

‍

‍It was a matchbox. He opened it and found a broken string of pearls. Assuming them to be imitation, he gave one to a street urchin to use as a marble and handed the rest to the police. It was Mayer’s necklace. The lad playing marbles was never found.

‍

‍CURTAIN UP ON MAE’S COURT SCENE

‍The courthouse had turned into a press circus. Inside reporters fought over seats in the Press Gallery. Outside hundreds of people gathered hoping to get an autograph from the defendant.

‍

‍Mae West was in town.

‍

‍The judge asked her if she was indeed Mae West. She replied with her customary sarcasm: “Don’t you read the newspapers?”

‍

‍It was April 19, 1927, and the wise-cracking star of the suggestive one-liners, had been arrested backstage at her play in New York called: ‘Sex’, a Broadway comedy-drama she wrote about a prostitute named Margy.

‍

‍As the blonde bombshell was thrown into the back of a police van with the rest of the cast, a journalist asked her what she thought would happen. She turned and said: “I expect this will be the making of me.” She was right.

‍

‍Mae was charged with obscenity and behaviour designed to corrupt the morals of youth. The media attention boosted her career to new heights. But first, she was sentenced to 10 days in a workhouse.

‍

‍

‍TERRY MANNERS

‍18 May 2026

‍