Michael Edward Reagan (born March 18, 1945) is an American political commentator,
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
strategist, and former radio talk show host. He is the adopted son of former U.S. president
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
and his first wife, actress
Jane Wyman
Jane Wyman ( ; born Sarah Jane Mayfield; January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007)["Actress, P ...](_blank)
. He works as a columnist for
Newsmax
Newsmax (Newsmax Media, Inc. or Newsmax.com, previously styled NewsMax) is an American right-wing to far-right cable news and digital media company founded by Christopher Ruddy on September 16, 1998. Newsmax Media divisions include its cable ...
.
Early life
Michael Edward Reagan was born John Charles Flaugher at
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center
CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, formerly known as Queen of Angels-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, is a private hospital located at 1300 North Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles, California. The hospital has 434 beds. It is owned by Sou ...
in Los Angeles to Essie Irene Flaugher
(October 18, 1916 – December 26, 1985), an unmarried woman from
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
who became pregnant through a relationship with John Bourgholtzer, a
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
corporal. He was adopted by
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
and
Jane Wyman
Jane Wyman ( ; born Sarah Jane Mayfield; January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007)["Actress, P ...](_blank)
shortly after his birth.
[
He was expelled from Loyola High School after a short period of time at the school] and in 1964, he graduated from the Judson School
The Judson School was a K–12 boarding school in Paradise Valley, Arizona. It closed in 2000 after more than 70 years of operation. It was owned and operated by Henry and Barbara Wick, along with their son, Hank Wick.
In 1928, Judson School op ...
, a boarding school outside of Scottsdale, Arizona
, settlement_type = City
, named_for = Winfield Scott
, image_skyline =
, image_seal = Seal of Scottsdale (Arizona).svg
, image_blank_emblem = City of Scottsdale Script Logo.svg
, nick ...
. He attended Arizona State University
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...
for less than one semester and Los Angeles Valley College
Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) is a public community college in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Los Angeles Community College District.
The college is adjacent to Grant High School in the neighborhood of Valley Glen. Often call ...
[ but never graduated.
In 1965, the FBI warned Ronald Reagan that in the course of an organized crime investigation it had discovered his son Michael was associating with the son of crime boss ]Joseph Bonanno
Joseph Charles Bonanno (born Giuseppe Carlo Bonanno; ; January 18, 1905 – May 11, 2002), sometimes referred to as Joe Bananas, was an Italian-American crime boss of the Bonanno crime family, which he ran from 1931 to 1968.
Bonanno was born i ...
, which would have become a campaign issue had it been publicly known. Reagan thanked the FBI and said he would tell his son to discreetly discontinue the association.
Careers
Salesman
Sometime prior to September 1970, Reagan was working as a salesman for the clothing company Hart, Schaffner & Marx
Hart Schaffner Marx is an American manufacturer of tailored menswear owned by New York-based Authentic Brands Group. Founded in 1887 and incorporated in 1911 as "Hart Schaffner & Marx", the company is located in Des Plaines, Illinois.
History
T ...
. He then became a director of special events catering at Michaelson Food Service Company in Los Angeles.[ In 1981, Reagan was hired as a salesman for Industrial Circuits, a circuit board company owned by Robert Herring Sr.]
Actor
Reagan has had small roles in movies and television shows since 1985, including ''Falcon Crest
''Falcon Crest'' is an American prime time television soap opera that aired for nine seasons on CBS from December 4, 1981, to May 17, 1990. The series revolves around the feuding factions of the wealthy Gioberti/Channing family in the California ...
'', which starred his mother, Jane Wyman.
Television
In 1987, Reagan served as the host for the first season of the television game show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or Let's Play, demonstrative and are typically directed b ...
''Lingo
Lingo, a contraction of language, often refers to jargon, but in a less formal or technical sense.
Lingo may also refer to:
Technology
* Lingo (programming language), one of several unrelated programming languages
* Lingo (VoIP Service operator ...
''.
Radio
His work in talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...
started in the Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
local market as a guest host for radio commentator Michael Jackson's talk radio show slot on KABC in Los Angeles. After this beginning, he landed a talk show spot on KSDO
KSDO is a radio station in San Diego, California, broadcasts at 1130 kilohertz, KHz. The station is licensed for 10,000 watts of power from a directional antenna system, but has been operating since 2016 with 2,500 watts non-directional from a dif ...
radio in San Diego.
Reagan also hosted ''The Michael Reagan Show'' nationwide for most of the 2000s. The show was variously syndicated on Premiere Networks
Premiere Networks (formerly Premiere Radio Networks, shortened as PRN) is an American media company, a wholly owned subsidiary of iHeartMedia, for which it currently serves as its main original radio content distribution and production arm. It ...
and Radio America. Since then he has focused on public speaking about his father.
Author
In 1988, he wrote, with Joe Hyams
Joe Hyams (June 6, 1923 – November 8, 2008) was an American Hollywood columnist and author of bestselling biographies of Hollywood stars.
Career
Hyams was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 6, 1923, and grew up in nearby Brookline. ...
, an autobiography, ''Michael Reagan: On the Outside Looking In''. He also wrote that he was sexually abused at the age of seven by a camp counselor.
In 2005, he wrote ''Twice Adopted'' about his feelings of rejection being adopted, parents divorcing and becoming a born-again Christian.[
]
Political commentary
Same-sex marriage
In April 2013, in a syndicated column, Reagan accused American churches of not fighting hard enough to block same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...
. He wrote that, in regard to arguments supporting gay marriage, similar arguments could be used to support polygamy
Crimes
Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married ...
, bestiality, and murder. As he wrote: "There is also a very slippery slope
A slippery slope argument (SSA), in logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and caselaw, is an argument in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usuall ...
leading to other alternative relationships and the unconstitutionality of any law based on morality. Think about polygamy, bestiality, and perhaps even murder."
Call for the execution of Mark Dice
In June 2008, Mark Dice
Mark Shouldice (born December 21, 1977), better known as Mark Dice, is an American YouTuber, right-wing conservative political commentator, author, activist, and conspiracy theorist.
Career The Resistance
Dice is the founder of a San Dieg ...
launched a campaign urging people to send letters and DVDs to US troops stationed in Iraq which support the theory that the September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
were an "inside job
An insider threat is a malicious threat to an organization that comes from people within the organization, such as employees, former employees, contractors or business associates, who have inside information concerning the organization's security ...
". "Operation Inform the Soldiers", as Dice has called it, prompted Reagan to comment that Dice should be executed for treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) is a progressive left-leaning media critique organization based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1986 by Jeff Cohen and Martin A. Lee. FAIR monitors American news media for bias, inaccu ...
, a liberal/progressive media criticism organization, asked Radio America at the time to explain whether it permits "its hosts to call for murder on the air".
Support for profiling
He spoke out in support of profiling in October 2014. In a piece called ''Profile or Die'', he wrote that it would be left to citizens to defend themselves if there were an attack against them by terrorists such as the Islamic State
An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...
.
Legal problems
In 1981, Reagan was accused of felony violations of California securities laws in court documents. The Los Angeles County District Attorney alleged that Reagan had baited investors into unlawful stock arrangements, and selling stocks despite the fact that he was not legally permitted to do so.[ The D.A.'s office investigated allegations that Reagan improperly spent money invested by others in a company, Agricultural Energy Resources, he operated out of his house in a venture to develop the potential of gasohol, a combination of alcohol and gasoline. Investigators said they were also checking whether he had spent up to $17,500 of investors' money for his living expenses.] The district attorney's office cleared Reagan of both charges later that year.
On September 20, 2012, Reagan, Tim Kelly and Jay Hoffman were sued by a fellow partner, for allegedly withholding the partner's interest in an e-mail business built around the Reagan.com domain name
A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...
. In 2015, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Reagan liable for conversion
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
and breach of fiduciary duty
A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other assets for another person. One party, for examp ...
. Reagan and his business partners were ordered to pay $662,500 each in damages.
Personal life
In June 1971, Reagan married Pamela Gail Putnam (born 1952), daughter of Duane Putnam
Charles Duane Putnam (born September 5, 1928) is a former American football offensive guard who spent ten seasons in the National Football League (NFL) playing for the Los Angeles Rams, Dallas Cowboys, and the Cleveland Browns. After retiring, he ...
, former Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...
football line coach. The couple divorced in 1972.
He married Colleen Sterns, an interior decorator, in 1975 at The Church on the Way. They have two children, Cameron and Ashley. Reagan and his wife live in the Toluca Lake
Toluca Lake is an affluent neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley northwest of downtown. The name is also given to a private natural lake fed by wells and maintained by neighboring property owner ...
area of Los Angeles.
In January 2011, he called his adoptive brother Ron Reagan
Ronald Prescott Reagan (born May 20, 1958) is an American liberal political commentator, writer, radio personality, television host, and dancer. He is a former radio host and political analyst for KIRO and Air America Radio, where he hosted hi ...
, the biological son of Ronald Reagan and his second wife, Nancy Davis Reagan, "an embarrassment" for speculating in a memoir that their father suffered from Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
while president.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reagan, Michael
1945 births
Living people
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American adoptees
American autobiographers
American conservative talk radio hosts
American game show hosts
American male journalists
American people of German descent
American political commentators
American talk radio hosts
California Republicans
Children of presidents of the United States
Journalists from California
Radio programs on XM Satellite Radio
Reagan family
Writers from Los Angeles
21st-century American male writers