Warner Bros. lobbied mightily but failed to keep Reagan out of World War II, most of which he spent making war movies, including This Is the Army and Rear Gunner. As a captain with the Army Air Corps's First Motion Picture Unit, he specialized in uplifting stories about young men dying for the perfect cause. He was a soldier playing a soldier, who went to war without ever leaving home. "His war stories were his war," writes Garry Wills in his 1987 book, Reagan's America. In fact, Reagan dramatized so many stories about the war that, later, he often seemed unable to distinguish the real from the imaginary.

By the time Reagan's military service ended, his movie career and his marriage were both headed downhill. Older moviegoers hadn't seen him in years, and newer ones didn't know who he was. And though Reagan believed his work in Kings Row entitled him to meatier roles, Warner Bros. preferred to cast him in light comedy parts. He was practically forced by the studio to appear as the overage leading man to a suddenly grown-up Shirley Temple in That Hagen Girl. Audiences and critics hated the movie. So did Reagan. Adding to his woes: He came down with pneumonia, and Wyman had a miscarriage during filming. Meanwhile, Wyman's career began to skyrocket. She earned a best-actress nomination for her role as Ma Baxter in The Yearling, and two years later, she took home an Oscar for her portrayal of a deaf, mute teenager raped in Johnny Belinda.

Reagan and Wyman divorced in 1949. At the time, their breakup was widely attributed to the tensions created by her rise and his fall. But friends say that was only part of the problem. "My husband and I engaged in continual arguments on his political views," Wyman told the judge overseeing their divorce. "Finally, there was nothing in common between us." Reagan was devastated by the split. His career petered out, as did his bank account. At his lowest point, he was thousands of dollars in debt, and both his house and his ranch were heavily mortgaged.

Ironically, the very thing that drove a wedge between Reagan and Wyman would bring Nancy Davis into his life and rescue him from despair. In 1949, a producer asked Reagan to run a check on Davis, a young MGM player, whose name kept turning up against her wishes on Communist petitions, letterheads, and mailing lists. Reagan discreetly checked her out and found nothing untoward. Within a week he was wining and dining her; three years later they were married.

Reagan's movie career continued to decline, and that same year, after 15 years and 53 movies, Warner Bros. dropped his contract. But with his new wife, a growing political name, and a reputation as one of Hollywood's leading anti-Communists, "Mr. Norm" was transforming from liberal actor to conservative defender of American democracy. Now he was ready to do in real life what he had so often achieved on film: grab the moment, steal the scene, and become that ordinary man who accomplishes extraordinary things.

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