HOLLYWOOD -- More than 40 celebrities have put their name on a list supporting Ronald Reagan's re-election, and one enthusiastic supporter says Hollywood's conservatives are finally coming out of the closet.
The list, supplied to United Press International by the Reagan-Bush 84 campaign committee, includes old friends of the president from his acting days like Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant, and new fans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephanie Zimbalist and Jaclyn Smith.
The diversity reflects a national trend toward conservatism that cuts across age and even party barriers, says Hazel Richardson, deputy campaign director for five Western states. She estimates that more than half the celebrities on the list are registered Democrats.
'Polls show the president's backing is coming from an extremely wide spectrum of Americans. It's impossible to stereotype who's for him and who isn't,' says John Buckley, 27, national deputy campaign director.
Entertainment figures are more willing to 'stand up and be identified' as Replicans than they were 10 or 20 years ago, Miss Richardson says.
It wasn't always that way.
Singer Pat Boone, one of Reagan's earliest political backers and one of the few celebrities who campaigned for him during his first gubernatoraial race in 1966, told told UPI Thursday he still suffers from a liberal blacklist.
'I've been blackballed from movie roles and TV shows because liberal producers don't want me around,' Boone says.
'There are more closet conservatives in the business than anyone knows. One said to me, 'I agree with everything you say and do, but I'm just a chicken. If I took the stand you take, I'd be ridden out of this business on a rail'.'
Celebrity support for Reagan's re-election takes various forms, from passively allowing their names to be put on the list to campaigning door to door.
Charlton Heston and Frank Sinatra have already RSVP'd for the Republican National Convention in Dallas beginning Aug. 20. Hugh O'Brian, country singer Jerry Reed and TV's 'Tarzan,' Ron Ely, have gone door-to-door registering Republican voters.
Heston, Morey Amsterdam of the old 'Dick Van Dyke Show' and Robert Stack have promised to do anything their 'old friend' Ronald Reagan asks them to. Frank Sinatra attended his old parish church in Hoboken, N.J., with the president and will continue to campaign.
Even Joan Rivers, who criticized James Watts's conservation policies when she was host at the Emmy Awards last year, and has performed at homosexual rights fund-raisers, came out of her conservative closet when she told UPI Tuesday, 'Republican women are not dull. I know, I am one of them.'
The comedian who used to tell jokes about Nancy Reagan's extravagant lifestyle and expensive china will speak at a Republican women's luncheon in Dallas during the GOP convention -- at Mrs. Reagan's invitation.
Many stars have promised to attend fund-raising dinners. Their support could cost them more than money, according to Pat Boone.
'Most of the people who hire and fire are ultra-liberal. You're taking your career in your hands and cutting your throat if you speak out for the conservative side.
'It's OK for Alan Alda and Jane Fonda to be ultra-feminist, pro-abortion and for unilateral disarmament. But if conservatives speak out, they're labeled fanatics, bigots or wackos -- and they don't work anymore,' Boone says.
Fred MacMurray is not a good friend of the president, although he has been to the Reagans' Santa Barabara ranch and will continue to attend fund-raisers, but not make speeches at them. 'I'm not a speechmaker. Why am I a Republican? My folks were. They passed it down to me.'
The celebrity roster, larger than in 1980, is an indication of broadbased support across America for the president, deputy campaign director Buckley says.
'It's not a slouchy group,' Boone says, 'even though the media tends to paint us with a swastika.'
