TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/80/80capr.3

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Four Reagans Used to Going Their Own Ways
January 5, 1981

"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