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Frank Cotolo
October 17, 2013 |
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I sincerely liked Ronald Reagan before he was President, in those few years after he lost the
nomination to Gerald Ford. Ron's son Ron (I called him Junior) and I were pals since we met at an
audition for the Joffrey Ballet. Ron passed the audition and was kind to me, as well as to the
dancers I injured during my failed audition.
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I managed to get a job with the ballet cleaning sweat and chalk dust from the company's leotards.
This allowed me to tour with the company, seeing all performances by Junior, except the one that
included Ultimate Fighting, a gimmick to attract another kind of patron.
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The summer Junior invited me to Rancho de Cielo, his father's 688-acre spread in the Santa Ynez
Mountains, is when I got to know the soon-to-be-President. He loved to talk about his Hollywood
career while we built fences from old telephone poles. He built fences everywhere on the grounds
until eventually no one could make a phone call.
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"I always liked Errol Flynn," he said to me as he slammed a nail into a fence post. "I don't
believe that story about him ripping testicles from a goat with his teeth, even though he drank
more whiskey than a two-tailed possum in a barn fire."
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"That Bonzo monkey in that movie I made," he said another time while holding a rope that dragged
nine logs behind him for a mile or so, "he was filthy. Used to lick himself. Disgusting
cercopothecoid."
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"I think Bonzo was a playrrhine, not a cercopothecoid," I said.
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"Primates are primates and they're all filthy, which is why I don't think man evolved from them,"
he said confidently. "No man stinks as bad as a primate. Right Ron?"
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Junior didn't know what to think of the comment, one of many that started when he began performing
ballet.
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Those fence-building days high above Santa Barbara were great, though. Mr. Reagan was a regular
guy and treated us all like regular guys. One day he confided in Junior and me.
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"Men," he said, "one day I'd like to build a bridge, not a fence, and that bridge would dart out
over the cliff of the Santa Ynez Mountains. By the way, do either of you know if Ynez was related
to Desi Arnez?"
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We shrugged.
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