October 12, 2012

Fun With Math

I happened upon this recently.  Can they really get away with this?  See if you can guess where I am going:
Authors Danforth Prince and Darwin Potter have spent years tracking down the scandalous details of the actress' romances and affairs and they have laid her love life bare in new tome Elizabeth Taylor: There is Nothing Like a Dame.

In the unauthorised biography, which promises "all the gossip unfit to print from the glory days of Hollywood", Prince and Porter claim Reagan was 36 when he invited a teenage Taylor to dine with him at his home in the Hollywood Hills - and she seduced him.

According to the book, she told a close pal, "Reagan was treating me like a grown woman, and that thrilled me. We sat on his sofa and I could tell he wanted to get it on but he seemed reluctant to make the first move. I became the aggressor.

"After a heavy make-out session on the sofa, we went into the bedroom."
While they are more or less exact with The Gipper's age (36) Prince and Potter are less so with Taylor's (she's characterized as a "teenager" - which could be as old as 19).  So let's run the numbers.

According to Whitehouse.gov, Ronald Reagan was born Feburary 6, 1911.  Which means he was 36 from February 6, 1947 to February 5, 1948.

According to biography.com, Elizabeth Taylor was born on February 27, 1932. Which means that she was 14 from February 6, 1947 to her birthday in 1947, when she turned 15.

The Daily Mail in the UK says roughly the same thing:
A NEW US biography, Elizabeth Taylor: There is Nothing Like a Dame, by Danforth Prince and Darwin Porter, claims actor Ronald Reagan, then 36 – later America’s 40th president – dallied at his Hollywood home with Elizabeth Taylor, then 15...
Whah???

These are some very serious allegations.  If this story is true, The Gipper, at the very least, participated in a "heavy make-out session" with a girl of (let's give him benefit of the doubt) 15.

And this was when he was 36 and married to Jane Wyman.

1 comment:

  1. He was a man of integrity and moral fortitude, apparently.

    ReplyDelete