In 1964, the handsome, virile star, Anthony Eisley, emceed a "Project Prayer" rally attended by 2,500 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California.
Eisley played Tracey Steele on the "Hawaiian Eye" series, and appeared 17 times on the eight-year run of ABC's The F.B.I., with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr (another Hollywood conservative).
Eisley was later replaced on Hawaiian Eye by Hollywood icon Troy Donahue (a conservative---and practicing Catholic). Eisley also appeared three times on CBS's Perry Mason during its final three seasons.
The Hollywood gathering sought to flood the United State Congress with letters in support of school prayer, following two decisions in 1962 and 1963 of the United States Supreme Court which struck down the practice as in conflict with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Eisley declared that the nation was facing in 1964 "an ideological crisis. Movie stars and the stars of the entertainment world will tell you what you can do about it. Everything will be from the heart."
Eisley was joined at the event by Walter Brennan, on whose series The Real McCoys he had once been a guest star, Rhonda Fleming, Lloyd Nolan, Dale Evans, Pat Boone, and Gloria Swanson.
Eisely added that John Wayne, Ronald W. Reagan, Roy Rogers, Mary Pickford, Jane Russell, Ginger Rogers, and Pat Buttram would also have attended the rally had their schedules not been in conflict.
Syndicated columnist Drew Pearson claimed in his "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column that Project Prayer had "backstage ties" to the anti-Communist John Birch Society. Pearson noted that the principal author of the prayer decisions, Chief Justice Earl Warren, was a Republican former governor of California and that most mainline denominations endorsed the court's restrictive rulings.
Sylvia Sydney---staunch Republican and conservative.
Memorable co-starring w/ George Raft.
Later appeared in one of the "Omen" sequels.
Film legend Ginger Rogers was another Hollywood conservative and lifelong Republican and appeared in the Nixon-Lodge Bumper Sticker Modorcade in Los Angeles in 1960.
Her biographers all considered Rogers to have been Fred Astaire's finest dance partner, principally because of her ability to combine dancing skills, natural beauty, and exceptional abilities as a dramatic actress and comedienne, thus truly complementing Astaire, a peerless dancer who sometimes struggled as an actor and was not considered classically handsome. The resulting song and dance partnership enjoyed a unique credibility in the eyes of audiences.
Loretta Young was a lifelong Republican. In 1952 she appeared in radio, print, and magazine ads in support of Dwight D. Eisenhower and was in attendance at his inauguration along with Anita Louise, Louella Parsons, Jane Russell, Dick Powell, June Allyson, and comic Lou Costello, among others.
In both 1968 and 1981 she was a vocal supporter of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. She was also an active member of the Hollywood Republican Committee with close friend Irene Dunne as well as Ginger Rogers, William Holden, George Murphy, Fred Astaire, and John Wayne.
Superstar director Leo McCarey was a devout Roman Catholic and deeply concerned with social issues. He was considered the most handsome director in Hollywood---a Cary Grant look-alike.
During the 1940s, McCarey's work became more serious and his politics more conservative. In 1944 he directed Going My Way, a story about an enterprising priest, the youthful Father Chuck O'Malley, played by Bing Crosby, for which McCarey won his second Best Director Oscar.
McCarey's share in the profits of this smash hit gave him the highest reported income in the U.S. for the year 1944, and its follow-up, The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), which was made by McCarey's own production company, was similarly successful.
Going My Way also produced the fanciful hit song sung by Bing, "Would you like to swing on a star."
Gloria Swanson 1922
Swanson's most celebrated role--was as faded silent star Norma Desmond--1950. In 1980 Gloria Swanson chaired the New York chapter of "Seniors for Reagan-Bush". In 1964, Swanson spoke at the "Project Prayer" rally attended by 2,500 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Swanson declared, "Under God we became the freest, strongest, wealthiest nation on earth, Should we change that?"
The gathering, which was hosted by Anthony Eisley, a star of ABC's Hawaiian Eye series, sought to flood the United States Congress with letters in support of school prayer, following two decisions in 1962 and 1963 of the United States Supreme Court which struck down the practice as in conflict with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Joining Swanson and Eisley at the Project Prayer rally were Walter Brennan, Lloyd Nolan, Rhonda Fleming, Pat Boone, and Dale Evans.
Both Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were Republicans. Comic star ZaSu Pitts was a staunch Republican---she mentored starlet Nancy Davis (Reagan).