December 9, 2003
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu

Esteemed journalist Lou Cannon delivers the timely lecture The Rise of the Celebrities: Republican Politics from Reagan to Schwarzenegger

Summary Facts:

• Lou Cannon
• The Rise of the Celebrities: Republican Politics from Reagan to Schwarzenegger
• Author of Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power and four other definitive books on President Ronald Reagan
• Long-time White House correspondent for the Washington Post
• Tuesday, January 13
• 8 pm / Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria St., Santa Barbara
• Free event
• Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

Journalist and author Lou Cannon, considered by many to be the preeminent biographer of President Ronald Reagan, will present the timely lecture The Rise of the Celebrities: Republican Politics from Reagan to Schwarzenegger on Tuesday, January 13 at 8 pm at Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria Street, Santa Barbara. This is a free event presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life, and the UCSB Center for Cold War Studies.

Famed Watergate journalist and author Bob Woodward has called Lou Cannon “a great reporter,” claiming Cannon “knows more about California, politics, the White House, the presidency and Ronald Reagan than just about anyone.” Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power (PublicAffairs, 2003)—Cannon’s most recent book and his fifth about the former president—has earned rave reviews for its insight and balance. Most critics quickly point out the parallels between California’s actors turned governors. “Not until Cannon’s book have we been able to follow the Reagan-Schwarzenegger parallel to the vanishing point, where these two receding-yet-charismatic ciphers start to blur together,” writes the San Francisco Chronicle. “Half the fun of reading Governor Reagan comes from extrapolating Reagan’s post-campaign experiences onto Schwarzenegger’s still-unwritten future and, inevitably, handicapping what might happen now. Nobody could ask for a better guide than Cannon.” His lecture will explore these comparisons in even more depth, illuminating the merging of the entertainment and political spheres.

Cannon’s other Reagan biographies include the acclaimed President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, a Book of the Month Club main selection when Simon and Schuster published it in 1991. An updated version of this book with new material from former Soviet diplomats, Nancy Reagan and former independent counsel Lawrence Walsh was published in April 2000 by PublicAffairs and became a best-seller. The late news anchor John Chancellor called President Reagan “indispensable,” saying that it presented “the real Reagan, without the makeup or the handlers, seen through the eyes of the keenest Reagan-watcher of them all.”

Other books written by Cannon include Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD, published in 1998 by Times Books and in paperback in 1999 by Westview Press. Garry Wills called this social history “a classic” and George Will said it was “a dazzling demonstration of the reporter’s craft.” The Los Angeles Times ranked Official Negligence among the best non-fiction books in 1998. The newspaper’s Jim Newton said the book is “the definitive work of modern Los Angeles, a massive effort to see the nation’s most dynamic city at its most important crossroads.”

Born in New York City and raised in Reno, Nevada, Cannon attended the University of Nevada (now UNR-Reno) and San Francisco State College. After service in the U.S. Army he became a reporter for various California newspapers and covered Reagan’s first term as governor of California for the San Jose Mercury-News. He moved to Washington as a national correspondent for Ridder Publications. Beginning in 1972 he worked 26 years for The Washington Post, as political reporter, White House correspondent, columnist and Los Angeles bureau chief. During the Reagan presidency, Cannon was the senior White House correspondent for The Washington Post and wrote a weekly syndicated column.

Cannon has won many awards, beginning with one from the American Political Science Association in 1969 for “distinguished reporting of public affairs.” In 1984 he received the White House Correspondents Association coveted Aldo Beckman Award for overall excellence in presidential coverage. The following year a survey by Washington Journalism Review named Cannon as “the best newspaper White House correspondent.”

In 1995 Cannon was Raznick Distinguished Lecturer in the History Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1996 he was Freedom Forum journalist in residence at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California. Cannon has four children and six grandchildren. He and his wife Mary live in Summerland.

Courtesy of UCSB Bookstore, books by Lou Cannon will be available for purchase and signing at the event. This event is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life, and the UCSB Center for Cold War Studies.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.