In 1966, Ronald Reagan won election to the California’s governor’s mansion. Fourteen years later, he became president of the United States. His rise to the highest elected office in America marked the final triumph of the Hollywood Right. The coterie of conservative Hollywood activists who had emerged in the late 1940s to combat communist influence in the film industry had no expectation that out of their group might emerge a future U.S. president. Nonetheless, the foundation for Reagan’s success began with the anticommunist struggle in these early years. Reagan honed his political skills as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and his shift to conservatism was rooted in his battle against communist influence in Hollywood. One can conjecture that without the growth of the Communist Party in Hollywood, there would not have been a conservative Ronald Reagan. He was a committed liberal in the 1940s, and he might well have remained one if he had not entered into a fierce battle with this political faction within the SAG and the movie industry. After all, most within Hollywood did remain liberals.

One of the ironies of Reagan’s advance in politics is that the Hollywood Right itself was in decline. Although Reagan drew upon Hollywood stars in his 1966 governor’s race, in his race for the presidency in 1980 the Hollywood Right had become so small that the campaign did not even try to form an entertainment committee with named stars. Instead, it focused on fundraising from agents and studio executives. By the 1970s, Hollywood had become a bastion of liberalism and left-wing activism.