Kelley’s Nancy a Stranger Here

The country may be clamoring for Kitty Kelley’s scandalous biography of Nancy Reagan, but the 603-page tome is getting the cold shoulder from many of Orange County’s social and political leaders.

In a county where the Grand Old Party is the name of the power game and where votes for Ronald Reagan were easy, Nancy-trashers are hard to come by.

After all, during the past two years, the woman Kelley paints as cheap, always looking for something free, has appeared here at benefits for the Hoag Cancer Center and the Assessment Treatment and Services Center.

And the woman Kelley describes as chilly and apt to put on airs was all warmth and diplomacy in 1988 when she schmoozed at developer William Lyon’s Coto de Caza mansion during a $100,000-per-couple benefit for the Reagan Library.

The folks at the Nixon Library wouldn’t think of touching the dust jacket that dresses up “Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography,” much less read the book that begins: “Two entries on Nancy Reagan’s birth certificate are accurate--her sex and her color. Almost every other item has been invented.”

“That piece of fiction?” sniffs Kevin Cartwright, the library’s director of public affairs. “Absolutely not. Here, we have too many important things to read.”

(At the offices of the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, a source says a library staffer rushed to order flowers for the former First Lady after hearing Ronald Reagan say Nancy needs all the support she can get).

State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) is also snubbing the book that promises its readers “a look at the face behind the mask.”

“I have no desire to read it,” Bergeson says with disdain. “Nancy is a lovely lady, tremendously poised and friendly. The book is an aberration. I look upon it with disgust.”

As for Orange County Supervisor Harriett Wieder, who has hobnobbed with Nancy Reagan on several occasions (and knows Kelley personally, she says) the book represents another example of the media behaving like “vultures.”

“The thing that bothers me is, when you’re in public life, people suddenly love to read about your problems, your tragedies. I have an empathy for that. Nobody’s perfect, and I don’t know why anybody would expect Nancy to be.”

Buzz and Lois Aldrin are miffed about the skyrocketing sales of the latest sizzler. When the former astronaut’s book about heroism in space was published in 1989, a similar tell-all about Jackie O outsold it by a wide margin.

Aldrin’s “Men in Space” was no match for C. David Heymann’s juicy tale about the life and loves of the widow of President John F. Kennedy. “Buzz’s book only sold 70,000,” Lois wails. “Guess there wasn’t enough gossip in it.”

Lois Aldrin isn’t interested in Kelley’s new bestseller. “I’m so busy, I have to choose my books carefully” she says. “Believe me, given a choice, I’d select another book.”

Kelley’s scandal theme is all too familiar to the second man to walk on the moon. The public’s penchant for dirt has disrupted his peace of mind more than once. All too often, people don’t want to hear about the good side of a person in the public eye, he says.

Judie Argyros, wife of GOP heavyweight George Argyros, plans to buy the tattle-tale biography. “You have to read these things around here to keep up,” says the Newport Beach resident, who has dined privately with the Reagans.

“But I think the book is a total frame-up. Nancy Reagan is a lovely lady who doesn’t deserve the treatment she’s getting. It’s totally unjustified. She had only the country and the Reagans’ interest at mind and heart.”

Former Los Angeles Times society editor Jody Jacobs, now a book columnist for Orange County Magazine, calls the book “not terribly deep.”

“It doesn’t analyze,” says Jacobs, who is quoted in the book several times. “It just tells you what she did, how she covered up her early life, what she wanted to be known for.”

Will Jacobs review the book for her column? Probably not. “By the time my next column comes out (June), book sales may have plummeted,” she says.

Worst Dressed List author Mr. Blackwell, a frequent visitor to Orange County, says he wouldn’t think of assassinating a First Lady in print.

“I don’t believe in doing that,” Blackwell huffs. “I won’t read Kelley’s book. I’m not interested. I think it’s horrible that some people make money by making others look like a garbage pail to the world.” (Blackwell concedes, however, that Nancy Reagan once made his Fashion Fiasco list. “That was when she wore knickers to Paris,” he says. “I told her: ‘Let the French do that!’ ”)

Perhaps Dorothy Bendetti--the Republican activist who directed the soirees that surrounded the opening of the Nixon Library--sums up Orange County’s attitude toward Kelley’s slash-for-cash book best: “The Reagans shouldn’t become fair game,” she says. “We should maintain a little mystique about the presidency.”