“Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection” Debuts January 25 From Warner Home Video

(November 8, 2010 – Burbank, CA) – Honoring our 40th American President’s 100th birthday, Warner Home Video will introduce the “Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection,” featuring eight outstanding film performances from the prolific actor and long time Warner Bros. contract player, who served two terms as Governor of California and then became one of the most popular American presidents of the 20th century. The “Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection” is timed to release on January 25, just prior to Reagan’s centennial birthday celebrations (see below for more information). The collection will sell for $59.92 SRP. Order due date is December 21, 2010. “Warner Home Video is proud to preserve and promote Mr. Reagan’s enduring legacy during this historic centennial celebration,” said Jeffrey Baker, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Theatrical Catalog, Warner Home Video. “The ‘Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection’ is more than a DVD collection; it’s a tribute to one of the most beloved figures in cinematic and American history and one that fans of Mr. Reagan’s films will surely treasure for years to come.” "As we look forward to celebrating President Reagan's 100th birthday throughout 2011, it is important to pay tribute to all he accomplished and recognize where it all began," said Stewart McLaurin, Executive Director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Centennial Celebration. "Ronald Reagan's 27 years in Hollywood, owed in large part to his humble beginnings at Warner Bros., cannot be overlooked in its importance in forming the man the nation came to know and respect." Included in the collection are “Dark Victory,” starring Bette Davis; “Knute Rockne All- American,” the actor’s best remembered role (“win one for the Gipper!”); “Kings Row,” an Academy Award nominee for Best Picture and arguably one of Mr. Reagan’s best performances; “Desperate Journey” starring Errol Flynn; the Technicolor musical spectacular “Irving Berlin’s This is the Army”; the wartime drama “The Hasty Heart,” the topical “Storm Warning” and lastly, “The Winning Team,” with Reagan playing Hall-of-Fame baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander. About The Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration: February 6, 2011 is President Reagan’s 100th birthday and to honor his legacy, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation is planning a series of exciting events, programs and initiatives to celebrate this historic moment. To learn more about the events, please visit www.reagancentennial.com. About Ronald Reagan: Reagan was born February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Ill. and was raised in Dixon. During high school, he played football and appeared in his first play, Philip Barry’s “You and I.” He attended Eureka College, a small school near Peoria where he majored in Economics, continued to play football and act in school productions. Following graduation, in an effort to merge his interest in sports and acting, he decided to try his hand at radio and landed a job at WOC in Davenport, Iowa, broadcasting University of Iowa football. Subsequently, he went to work for WHO, the NBC affiliate in Des Moines where he continued to broadcast games, and conduct interviews but became best known for his local play-by-play recreations from telegraph reports of Chicago Cubs games. On a trip to California for Cubs spring training, Reagan met a former WHO friend, who had appeared in a few movies. She set up a meeting with an agent who arranged a screen test with Warner Bros., resulting in a seven-year contract. Reagan made his screen debut in “Love is on the Air” but first came to prominence when he was cast in a major role opposite Bette Davis in “Dark Victory,” a performance which helped him win his most famous role, as the ill-fated Notre Dame football hero George Gipp in “Knute Rockne All-American.” Mr. Reagan made 50 films in all. Highlights include “Brother Rat” (with first wife Jane Wyman), “Going Places,” “This Is the Army,” “The Voice of the Turtle,” “Hong Kong,” “Hellcats of the Navy” (with second wife and First Lady, Nancy), and the infamous “Bedtime for Bonzo” (fodder for many jokes throughout his political career) in which he played opposite a chimpanzee. Mr. Reagan served a five-year term as president of the Screen Actors Guild, a position he again assumed in 1959. In 1954 he began an eight-year stint as the host of the television series “General Electric Theater.” His final film was Don Siegel’s 1964 remake of “The Killers,” co-starring Lee Marvin and Angie Dickenson. 1964 was also the year Reagan entered politics, actively campaigning for Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. In 1966, Reagan was elected Governor of California and during his eight-year tenure surfaced as one of the Republican party's most powerful voices. In 1976, he mounted an unsuccessful run against Gerald Ford in the Republican Presidential primary; in 1980, he defeated Jimmy Carter to become the nation's 40th President. About The Films: “Dark Victory” (1939)
A young socialite is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and must decide whether she'll meet her final days with dignity. Bette Davis enjoyed one of her signature roles as a spoiled socialite facing terminal illness – with friend Reagan among those helping her toward a last chance to give her life meaning. DVD special features include:

“Knute Rockne All-American” (1940)
“I’ve decided to take up coaching as my life work,” Knute Rockne says. Coach he does, revolutionizing football with his strategies, winning close to 90 percent of his games, and helping establish the University of Notre Dame’s “Fighting Irish” as a gridiron powerhouse. But victories alone do not mean success to Rockne. He wants to shape his players into responsible and honorable men. This famed sports biopic combines a passion for the game (and footage of actual Notre Dame contests) with two superb performances: Pat O’Brien in the title role and Ronald Reagan as George Gipp, the gifted but doomed halfback whose deathbed plea to “win one for the Gipper” remains one of cinema’s most memorable quotes. And for the rest of his life, Reagan would often be called the Gipper. DVD special features include:

“Kings Row” (1942)
It’s a quaint turn-of-the-century small town with shady streets, swimming holes and the clip-clop of horse and buggy. But that peaceful exterior conceals human lives twisted by cruelty, murder and madness. “Kings Row” is one of Warner Bros.’ most distinguished productions, highlighted by an outstanding cast, haunting James Wong Howe cinematography and a somber, emotion-laden Erich Wolfgang Korngold score. Oomph Girl Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Betty Field, Claude Rains and Charles Coburn give indelible performances – and Ronald Reagan’s portrayal of Drake, a cheerful ne’er-do-well shattered by tragedy, has been hailed as a career high. Nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture, “Kings Row” is a powerful American saga of dreams, despair and triumph. DVD special features include:

“Desperate Journey” (1942)
When Flight Lt. Forbes and his crew are shot down after bombing their target, they discover valuable information about a hidden German aircraft factory that must get back to England. In their way across Germany, they try and cause as much damage as possible. Then, with the chasing Germans about to pounce, they come up with an ingenious plan to escape. Errol Flynn leads Reagan and other flyboys in a rousing wartime spirit-lifter. DVD special features include:

“Irving Berlin’s This is the Army” (1943)
Irving Berlin’s beloved songs propel a Technicolor musical spectacular based on the hit stage revue with an all-GI cast plus Hollywood’s Reagan, George Murphy and Joan Leslie. DVD special features include:

“The Hasty Heart” (1949)
Monsoons drench them. The sun scorches them. Still, the Allies fight doggedly through Burma in 1945. For easygoing Yank (Ronald Reagan) and hard-headed Lachie (Richard Todd), the road to victory ends at a jungle hospital. With the help of a devoted nurse (Patricia Neal), they face a new battle called recovery. “The Hasty Heart” playwright John Patrick drew from his own wartime service in a British ambulance unit. Vincent Sherman (“The Hard Way,” “Mr. Skeffington”) directs this sensitive adaptation sparked by the performance that ranks with “Kings Row” as among Reagan’s best. The future President wasn’t the only one to draw accolades. Todd won a 1949 Best Actor Oscar nomination and a Most Promising Newcomer Golden Globe Award as the valorous, wounded Scotsman who doesn’t know that his new fight is his last. DVD special features include:

“Storm Warning” (1951)
A mob in hooded white robes. A man running for his life. Gunfire. In the South to visit her sister Lucy, Marsha Mitchell witnesses a Ku Klux Klan murder. Once safely with Lucy, Marsha relays the terror she has seen…then recognizes her sister’s brutish new husband as one of the killers. She could lie, protect her sister and leave town. Or she could be the one person brave enough to bring the Klan to justice. Ginger Rogers and Doris Day as the sisters, Steve Cochran as the husband and Ronald Reagan as a crusading D.A. give some of their finest performances in this explosive indictment of a hate that poisoned America from within. Part thriller, part exposé, part stirring human drama, “Storm Warning” is “feverish…engrossing” (Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide) – and moviemaking at its most powerful. DVD special features include:

“The Winning Team” (1952)
He was Hollywood’s ideal of the boy next door. She was America’s Sweetheart. Ronald Reagan and Doris Day headline this film about our national pastime. In “The Winning Team” Reagan is Grover Cleveland Alexander, the Hall of Fame pitcher whose baseball victories paralleled triumphs in his personal life. Suffering from double vision and fainting spells, Alexander sees his career bottom out. But, helped by his wife (Day), he makes a successful return that reaches its peak in the 1926 Yankees/Cardinals World Series. Real-life major leaguers Bob Lemon, Peanuts Lowrey, Hank Sauer, Gene Mauch and more appear in this story of the legendary pitcher. DVD special features include:

About Warner Home Video: With operations in 90 international territories, Warner Home Video, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, a division of the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, commands the largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace. Warner Home Video's film library is the largest of any studio, offering top quality new and vintage titles from the repertoires of Warner Bros. Pictures, Turner Entertainment, Castle Rock Entertainment, HBO Home Video and New Line Home Entertainment. About The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the legacy of Ronald Reagan and his timeless principles of individual liberty, economic opportunity, global democracy, and national pride. It sustains the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, the Reagan Center for Public Affairs, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Presidential Learning Center and The Air Force One Pavilion. Located in Simi Valley, California the Library and Museum houses over 55 million pages of Gubernatorial, Presidential and personal papers and over 40,000 gifts and artifacts chronicling the lives of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration is a historic, year-long celebration of the 100th birthday of America’s 40th President that will occur throughout 2011.###