AHC: Reagan remains an actor.

I am not sure precisely what divergence is needed here; I will leave that to those more informed than I on the subject. But is there any way Reagan's career in the entertainment industry could have continued? I know a little spare, but I am curious to see how this might be managed if it is even possible, and where such a career might go.
 
George Bush becomes the Republican the President from 1981-1989.

Would the CIA director/Texas Rep get that much support? I find it more likely Ford comes back for 1980. I wonder who beats Pat Brown in 1966, or even if he'd run for a 3rd term.
 
Would the CIA director/Texas Rep get that much support? I find it more likely Ford comes back for 1980. I wonder who beats Pat Brown in 1966, or even if he'd run for a 3rd term.


I think it would be between Bush,Ford and Dole. I give the edge to Bush,Ford seemed just too squishy(Too soft and liberal. Not as liberal as Bush or Dole) to me.
 
First we have to determine how or even if Reagan's career in Hollywood could be saved. The divergence is early enough that even aside from butterflies, if we focus strictly on a predictable pattern of cause and effect, we should not presume 1980 is anything like the election we know.
 
To keep Reagan in acting you have to change a lot. For one, you have to figurte out a way to keep his career on the upswing, which was IOTL heavily stalled by Reagans work in film during WW2 in which he just wasn't seen in anything for several years.

Once you have his career returned to an upswing after WW2, and get him in even one good movie, his career could continue unlike how it stalled OTL. in doing this you would butterfly his role in GE Theater, and therefore his rise to political prominence.

however, he will likely in some form or fashion still become higher up in the Screen Actors Guild, possibly even President of it.
 
George Bush becomes the President from 1981-1989.

It's not that simple. I have a term I use called "hit the mark" alternate history, which is where something is assumed to just be destined to happen like an actor hitting their mark in a scripted production. That's not fair to history. Everything is changed completely on a dime and relies on all these tiny little details.

This affects California politics and who is governor, which in turn affects the nation. You've just altered things since 1966, if not earlier. No Reagan to pick up the pieces after Goldwater. No run in 1968, with a perpetual run until finally getting the nomination in 1980. Whatever thoughts or actions Reagan influenced in history and people is not there. Whoever may fill that gap makes for different things, and they leave a vacuum from wherever they left which needs to be filled, which leaves another vacuum to be filled, and so on, leading to more changes.

The OTL 1980 isn't going to happen.
 
It's not that simple. I have a term I use called "hit the mark" alternate history, which is where something is assumed to just be destined to happen like an actor hitting their mark in a scripted production. That's not fair to history. Everything is changed completely on a dime and relies on all these tiny little details.

This affects California politics and who is governor, which in turn affects the nation. You've just altered things since 1966, if not earlier. No Reagan to pick up the pieces after Goldwater. No run in 1968, with a perpetual run until finally getting the nomination in 1980. Whatever thoughts or actions Reagan influenced in history and people is not there. Whoever may fill that gap makes for different things, and they leave a vacuum from wherever they left which needs to be filled, which leaves another vacuum to be filled, and so on, leading to more changes.

The OTL 1980 isn't going to happen.


I would have been interesting if Ronald Magnus had become a Senator from California or become Governor maybe in the 1970s
 
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Brown stays Governor of California? Does that make him a VP candidate for HHH in 68. So does California vote for Humphrey in 68 and Humphrey, Brown beat Nixon and Agnew. That would be a huge change. Does the GOP have any other candidate that can sell supply side economics to the America people like Reagan did? So if they don't the National debt does not triple in a matter of years. Reagan was a fantastic political personality. I don't think he was a good leader but he had the type of personality, that America seemed to like in the 80's.
 
Brown stays Governor of California? Does that make him a VP candidate for HHH in 68. So does California vote for Humphrey in 68 and Humphrey, Brown beat Nixon and Agnew. That would be a huge change. Does the GOP have any other candidate that can sell supply side economics to the America people like Reagan did? So if they don't the National debt does not triple in a matter of years. Reagan was a fantastic political personality. I don't think he was a good leader but he had the type of personality, that America seemed to like in the 80's.

According to Wikipedia, Brown promised not to run a 3rd term in '66, and broke that promise, plus the race riots made him an easy target to take out in the general election. Reagan not running makes it a bit easier for him, but by no measure makes it a guarantee.
 
Brown stays Governor of California? Does that make him a VP candidate for HHH in 68. So does California vote for Humphrey in 68 and Humphrey, Brown beat Nixon and Agnew. That would be a huge change. Does the GOP have any other candidate that can sell supply side economics to the America people like Reagan did? So if they don't the National debt does not triple in a matter of years. Reagan was a fantastic political personality. I don't think he was a good leader but he had the type of personality, that America seemed to like in the 80's.

He was a good leader, but even me being a fan of him, the massive spending in order to cripple the Soviet Union was not good in hindsight. I think other parts of his economic policy were good however.

As for someone who could replace him...... I don't see many. However, with Reagan staying out of politics even from the 1960's it could lead someone else entirely that we do not view as a politician to rise quickly, just as Reagan did OTL.

Heston/Bush '68! :D
 
The POD here is Reagan vision is worse and he flunks his army physical. hHe is career was on the upswing and never recovered from his absence from 1943 - 1945. gGerry Eillis in his biography of John Wayne noted the difference in the careers of these two rising stars of 1941. wEsyne took a dependency deferment and kept making movies and became a big star.
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Reagan didn't have good enough eyesight to pass the thing to begin with... he worked in hollywood during WW2 making training films for tail gunners and what not...In November of 1941, Reagan was called up but disqualified for combat duty because of his astigmatism. After Pearl Harbor, he acted for the First Motion Picture Unit in the United States Army Air Forces.
 
It's not that simple. I have a term I use called "hit the mark" alternate history, which is where something is assumed to just be destined to happen like an actor hitting their mark in a scripted production. That's not fair to history. Everything is changed completely on a dime and relies on all these tiny little details.

This affects California politics and who is governor, which in turn affects the nation. You've just altered things since 1966, if not earlier. No Reagan to pick up the pieces after Goldwater. No run in 1968, with a perpetual run until finally getting the nomination in 1980. Whatever thoughts or actions Reagan influenced in history and people is not there. Whoever may fill that gap makes for different things, and they leave a vacuum from wherever they left which needs to be filled, which leaves another vacuum to be filled, and so on, leading to more changes.

The OTL 1980 isn't going to happen.

The most simplistic handwave would be to assume Ford wins '76, which ignores that Governor Reagan running as a Republican Wallace influenced Nixon in 1968 heavily. Not only will 1968 be a lot different, 1967 will be a lot different.
 
Not only would this impact the political world, but this would have to at least cause some minor accumulative differences in the history of film and possibly television. If Reagan remains an actor, and if he's successful enough to keep being used by the studio system in some capacity, then he will be given roles that were historically given to other actors. Additionally, it isn't inconceivable that Reagan's continued presence could at least indirectly lead to films being made that were not historically. Over time, these small differences could accumulate into a different history of Hollywood from the 1940's on.
 
Glass Onion said:
First we have to determine how or even if Reagan's career in Hollywood could be saved.
I'd say his movie career was done. He might have been able to get work in TV regularly enough to make a living.

That alone has serious cultural butterflies. What jobs does he get OTL somebody else did? How many might be enough to get a project accepted, or dropped,:eek: that wasn't OTL?

To name just one that came to me: Reagan as Robert April in "The Cage".:eek: (Instead of Jeff Hunter, for the non-Trekkers.;))
 
First we have to determine how or even if Reagan's career in Hollywood could be saved. The divergence is early enough that even aside from butterflies, if we focus strictly on a predictable pattern of cause and effect, we should not presume 1980 is anything like the election we know.

How about Reagan loses the host role for General Electric Theatre and instead auditions and wins the role of Ben Cartwright in Bonanza (instead of Lorne Greene)

Reagan finally gets a battlestar (to blow up) afterwards?
 
How about Reagan loses the host role for General Electric Theatre and instead auditions and wins the role of Ben Cartwright in Bonanza (instead of Lorne Greene)

Reagan finally gets a battlestar (to blow up) afterwards?

But what is the name of the battlestar? Galactica?
 
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