Neil Reagan

John Neil Reagan (September 16, 1908 – December 11, 1996) was a radio station manager, CBS senior producer and senior vice president of McCann Erickson. He was the older brother of Ronald Reagan.

Neil "Moon" Reagan was baptized as a Roman Catholic at birth. As an infant, Neil attended his mother's Disciples of Christ church, but became affiliated with his father's Catholic faith in his youth.^[3] He was described as a boisterous and gregarious personality in his youth.^[4] In 1933, Neil graduated Eureka College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.^[1] He followed his brother to California and established a career as a television producer and advertising executive.

From the '30s through the '50s, Neil Reagan directed the radio series Dr. Christian, starring Jean Hersholt. In between he launched a brief Hollywood career as a supporting actor in films such as Tugboat Annie Sails Again (1940) and Doughboys in Ireland (1943). Neil Reagan directed Ronald Reagan in the television series Death Valley Days.

He served as president of both the Hollywood and Los Angeles advertising clubs, as well as served on numerous community and professional boards including: the Crippled Children's Society of Los Angeles, the Kennedy Child Study Center in Santa Monica, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

He was an alternate delegate to the 1972 Republican National Convention from California, and a delegate to the 1980 Republican National Convention. Neil Reagan served two terms as trustee of Eureka College before his death in December 1996. The Reagan Physical Education Center on the Eureka College campus was dedicated in 1970 in honor of both Ronald and Neil Reagan. Twelve years later, Ronald Reagan would return to the Reagan Center to make one of his most important foreign policy speeches of his first term known as the START speech, or Eureka speech.

His wife, Bess Reagan, died in 2010 at the age of 102.

References

Bibliography

• Harmer, John, Reagan: Man of Principle, Cedar Fort, 2002, ISBN 1-55517-619-4
• Watson, Robert W., White House Studies Compendium, Volume 1, Nova Publishers, 2007, ISBN 1-60021-521-1
• Yager, Edward M., Ronald Reagan's Journey: Democrat to Republican, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, ISBN 0-7425-4421-4

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