Posted on 02/13/2014 8:38:05 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
For those who didn't know much about Shirley Temple, her passing this week revealed two surprises. First, that her post-Hollywood career was dominated by public service. She ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress in 1967, served as a representative to the United Nations and was ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. And second, she was a Republican. She was that rarest of things nowadays: a Hollywood star who admitted to voting for the GOP.
Today, Hollywood appears uniformly liberal. But once upon a time, things were different. While researching my forthcoming book on Hollywood and politics, I was surprised to discover how many vocal conservatives there were in Hollywood well into the 1970s - and that many of them enjoyed the company of Richard Nixon.
John Wayne narrated a Nixon biographical documentary at the 1972 GOP convention, where Clint Eastwood was a highly visible guest. Bob Hope toured the country with Jack Benny and country pop star Glenn Campbell to drum up support for the troops in Vietnam. Hope closed his 1970 Christmas TV special with a plea for viewers to get behind the President. James Stewart once told reporters, "All you have to do is go to Vietnam to see that the kids are still patriotic," and suggested that antiwar Hollywood actors were just eaten up with bitterness at Nixon's popularity.
Yet in 21st century America, the only public Hollywood support Republicans can get (look at Romney's pitiful donations) tends to come from faded action heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I would add Tim Holt, who served as a B-29 bombardier in the XXI Bomber Command under Curtis Lemay. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross as well as a Purple Heart.
Buddy Ebsen was a serious conservative also. He campaigned against the communist who played Miss Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies.
I have to say this as a retired US Air Force Airman (we had Air Force history questions on our promotion tests)...
The US Army Air Corps became the US Army Air Forces in June 1941. For WWII veterans, they would have been in the US Army Air Forces, not the Air Corps.
Jimmy Stewart became a Brigadier General in 1959 while in the US Air Force Reserves.
There is still a few Hollywood Republicans. Tom Selleck, Gary Sinse and Pat Sanjak are just 3 of them.
There were also a lot of performers who served in allied forces in WWII. James Doohan, (Scotty in Star Trek) was wounded on D-Day and lost several fingers. He was always self conscious about it and tried to hide that hand in scenes.
Richard Todd had the distinction of portraying a person (In The Longest Day) who met the real Richard Todd who was some kind of British special forces. In other words he met himself in the movie.
Another I can think of is David Niven. Also Ian Fleming served in British secret service during the war.
I’m assuming you’re just listing actors who have served, not just ones who are/were conservatives, because there are liberals on your list.
Correct.
There was a time when even most democrats were patriots.
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