Orson, Warren, The Cowboy, and The Chunky Man By Barbara Leaming
IN THE MONTHS OF THE 1984 presidential campaign, Orson kept ceivingletters signed "Nancy and invitations to one Republican shinding or another-but nothing from the Democrats, who appear to have forgotten how vigorously, and effectively, Orson campaigned for Roosevelt.

"Roosevelt used to put me on prime time, and I wasn't running for anything," says Orson.

"Why did Roosevelt think it would be effective to have somebody who was a non-candidate do it?"

"All the more so, he thought. It's a concerned citizen and a popular artist who is going to say better than anybody in the political world. He was responsible for the kind of space and time that they gave me. Now, even though Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty are sitting at Gary Hart's side, they're not heard from."

"Why not?" I ask. (At this point, Gary Hart is still a serious tender for the Democratic nomination.)

"Have you noticed that they're not heard from?" says Orson.

"Yes, I read in one story that they were working on the cutting of a Hart commercial."

"Well," says Osron, "they're doing that kind og thing, but they also both want to be president."

"Both of them?" I gasp-Beatty doesn't amaze me, but the idea of Nicholson does.

"Oh sure," says Orson. "He seriously wants to be president."

But apparently with Warren Beatty it is more than just a case of his lieves that he will be president," says Orson.

"He really believes it?" I ask.

"Yes," says Orson, "he told me that."

"Do you think he ever could be?"

"No," says Orson. "Not a chance."

Our conversation returns now to why hart hasn't made much use of his movie-star supporters like Beatty and Nicholson.

"They would like to be used," says Orson, "but there has grown up this tight little group of experts on campaigns-and they won't give Warren or Jack five minutes on the siz o'clock news, ever, because he's getting in the way of their man."

"Every second of that five minutes," I begin.

"Has to be their man," Orson finishes my thought. "And they aren't doing his man any good, because what they need is their man. They don't want him to look like another Hollywood" -by which Orson means that since the Republicans already have a former movie star in office, the Democrats must somehow maintain their distance from Hollywood.

"The strength that they have, "he says of the Democrats, "is that they are not from Hollywood. In other words, these two poor movie stars" -he means Beatty and Nicholson-"are down there hoping somehow to get a foot into the door of the Merican political process and they should be told that the scene is hopeless. The last thing you want is a candidate who is chummy and with superstars and Hollywood."

Does this mean that Ronald Reagan has eliminated the possibility of another actor's being elected president in the near future?

"I think it's almost impossible for another actor to be president, certainly for fifteen years," says Orson. "That's what I've carefully told Warren, Jack, and the Chunky Man."

"A lot of people take Warren Beatty seriously," I say, "but I can't imagine Jack Nicholson."

"No, no never," says Orson. "I think he sees himself as Harry Hopkins."

"To Warren's president?" I ask.

"Warren or whoever gets it," says Orson. "And you see they've all missed it, because there's only going to be one actor to be president, and the right one-as I kept telling him, he would never listen to me-was Gregory Peck. Bad actor, but he'd be a hell of a president you know.

"Great for the role," I agree.

"Sure," says Orson, "and his heart is politically is politically in all the right places, you see. I kept nagging at him but he wouldn't do it."

"So Ronald Reagan got it," I say.

"That undoes it all," Orson groans. "It had to be a second-rate actor."