People (Births)

• 1911 – Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the United States (d. 2004)
• 1922 – Patrick Macnee, English-American actor and costume designer (d. 2015)
• 1931 – Rip Torn, American actor (d. 2019)
• 1939 – Mike Farrell, American actor, director, producer, activist and public speaker
• 1982 – Alice Eve, English actress
• 1986 – Dane DeHaan, American actor

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan (06 February 1911 to 05 June 2004) was an American politician, union leader, and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Before ascending to the presidency, he previously served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and was the president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 until 1960.

Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. He graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and began to work as a sports announcer in Iowa. In 1937, Reagan moved to California, where he found work as a film actor. From 1947 to 1952, Reagan served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild. In the 1950s, he worked in television and became a spokesman for General Electric. From 1959 to 1960, he again served as the Screen Actors Guild’s president. In 1964, Reagan’s speech “A Time for Choosing” earned him attention as a new conservative figure. He was elected governor of California in 1966. During his governorship, he raised taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus, and cracked down on student protests at the University of California, Berkeley. In the 1976 Republican presidential primaries, Reagan challenged and nearly defeated sitting president Gerald Ford.

Reagan won the Republican nomination in the 1980 presidential election and went on to defeat incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter. Early in his presidency, Reagan implemented “Reaganomics”, which promoted economic deregulation and cuts in both taxes and government spending during a period of stagflation. He escalated an arms race with the Soviet Union and transitioned Cold War policy from détente to rollback. He also survived an assassination attempt, fought public sector labour unions, spurred the war on drugs, and ordered an invasion of Grenada. In the 1984 presidential election, Reagan defeated former vice president Walter Mondale in a landslide victory. Foreign affairs dominated Reagan’s second term, including the bombing of Libya, the Iran-Iraq War, the Iran-Contra affair, and a more conciliatory approach in talks with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The talks culminated in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Throughout Reagan’s presidency, the American economy saw a significant reduction of inflation, the unemployment rate fell, and the United States entered its then-longest peacetime expansion. His cuts in domestic discretionary spending and taxes, as well as increased military spending, contributed to a near tripling of the federal debt. After leaving the presidency in 1989, Alzheimer’s disease hindered Reagan’s physical and mental capacities. He died at his home in Los Angeles in 2004. His tenure constituted the Reagan era, and he is often considered a prominent conservative figure in the United States. Evaluations of his presidency among historians and scholars tend to place him among the upper tier of American presidents.

Patrick Macnee

Daniel Patrick Macnee (06 February 1922 to 25 June 2015) was a British film and television actor. After serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, he began his acting career in Canada. Despite having some small film roles, Macnee spent much of his early career in playing small roles in American and Canadian television shows. In 1961, he landed the role of secret agent John Steed in the British television series The Avengers. The show was a success running for eight seasons from 1961 to 1969 and was revived in 1976 as The New Avengers. The show was a major breakthrough for Macnee and led to his roles in many films including This Is Spinal Tap and A View to a Kill as well as continuing to appear in both British and US television shows up until 2001.

Macnee studied acting at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, but shortly before he was to perform in his first West End leading role, which would have had him acting alongside Vivien Leigh, he was called up for the Royal Navy. He joined as an ordinary seaman in October 1942 and was commissioned a sub-lieutenant in June 1943, becoming a navigator on Motor Torpedo Boats in the English Channel and North Sea. Reassigned as first lieutenant on a second MTB, Macnee caught bronchitis just before D-Day; while he was recuperating in hospital, his boat and crew were lost in action. Two of the crew received the Distinguished Service Medal. He left the Royal Navy in 1946 as a lieutenant.

Rip Torn

Elmore Rual “Rip” Torn Jr. (06 February 1931 to 09 July 2019) was an American actor whose career spanned more than 60 years.

Torn was a member of the Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets, although he graduated from the University of Texas where he studied acting under the Shakespeare Professor B. Iden Payne, and was a member of the Alpha Nu chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity. After graduation, he served in the military police in the United States Army.

After moving to Hollywood, Torn made his film debut in the 1956 film Baby Doll. More military roles followed, as a Marine drill instructor in an episode of The Lieutenant in 1963 and as a GI in an episode of Combat! the next year.

On television 1965, Torn portrayed Colonel Royce in the episode “The Lorelei” of Twelve O’Clock High. In 1990, he portrayed Colonel Fargo in By Dawn’s Early Light, a film from HBO about a fictional world war. He was a naval officer presiding over a wargame in the Kelsey Grammer submarine comedy Down Periscope in 1996.

Mike Farrell

Michael Joseph Farrell Jr. (born 06 February 1939) is an American actor, best known for his role as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the television series M*A*S*H (1975-1983). Farrell was a producer of Patch Adams (1998) starring Robin Williams, and starred in the television series Providence (1999-2002). He is also an activist and public speaker for various political causes.

Alice Eve

Alice Sophia Eve (born 1981/1982) is a British actress. Her movie career includes roles in She’s Out of My League, Men in Black 3, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and Before We Go. She has had recurring roles on the TV series Entourage and Iron Fist.

In 2009, she played Roxane in a production of Cyrano de Bergerac at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Dane DeHaan

Dane William DeHaan born 06 February 1986) is an American actor known for his roles as Andrew Detmer in Chronicle (2012), Lucien Carr in Kill Your Darlings (2013), Harry Osborn / Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Lockhart in A Cure for Wellness (2016), Valerian in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), and Chris Lynwood in ZeroZeroZero. In 2021, he starred in psychological romance horror miniseries Lisey’s Story. He also had a role in the true crime limited series adaptation of The Staircase in 2022.