Ronald Reagan: His Life in Pictures
- Book Review,
by James Spada
From Library Journal
Spada follows up his pictorial bios of Jackie and Marilyn. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Published to coincide with its subject's ninetieth birthday, Spada's black-and-white photo biography of the fortieth president forcibly recalls his enormous popularity when in office. Photogenic as well as handsome, physically robust (hence his longevity, perhaps, despite the ravages of Alzheimer's), radiating the same "talent for happiness" that he attributed to his mother, epitomizing the all-American boy who made good, Reagan charmed even many who loathed his "conservative" politics (most notably, many in the "liberal" media), convincing them that he was "presidential." Spada's selection spans Reagan's life from nine months to 89 years of age, and he looks good, if not always beaming, in every well-reproduced picture. For a man who was extremely controversial in his political career, he never looks more than miffed when angry, and he looks only slightly ill at ease in a picture from a low point in his acting career when he was a stooge for a Vegas comedy act in 1954. Good popular Americana. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
An extraordinary life story in more than 340 photographs, most never before published.
Ronald Wilson Reagan lived the American Dream-- over and over again. During his long, astonishing life, he has succeeded at everything he attempted. College football letterman. Heroic lifeguard. Sports announcer. Movie star. Television host. Corporate spokesman. Governor. And finally, the greatest dream of all: President of the United States.
Fully two-thirds of the images in this book have never been published before, and they offer us glimpses into the private man as well as the public icon. We see him as a little boy in his mother's Sunday-school class; welcoming home GIs with Bette Davis; helping his daughter prepare for a ballet recital, and celebrating the birth of his namesake with his wife Nancy. In a wonderful assortment of unseen images from his presidential library, we see every aspect of the President, from building a snowman with his grandson on the White House lawn to anguishing over the deaths of Marines in Beirut.
No matter what one's politics, these images, and James Spada's evocative, balanced text, provide new insights into a man whose life embodies the promise of America.
About the Author
James Spada is a writer and photographer who has written internationally bestselling biographies of Barbra Streisand, Bette Davis, Peter Lawford, and Princess Grace of Monaco. He has also compiled pictorial biographies of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Redford, and Jane Fonda, among others. He lives in Natick, Massachusetts.
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