Byline: Connie Bruck

A Hollywood Story

Did the movies really make Steve Bannon?

Stephen K. Bannon, who maintains a precarious hold over the nativist wing of the Trump White House, honed his skills in the art of conservative persuasion in the most liberal precinct of the American imagination, Hollywood. He became himself in the byways of the movie business. These days, Bannon is a dishevelled presence in the Oval Office, but he cut a different figure in Beverly Hills, where he looked the part of a Hollywood executive-fast-talking, smartly dressed, aggressively fit, carrying himself with what one former colleague described as an "alpha swagger." He worked out of an impressive office on Canon Drive. He was passionate and knowledgeable about film, and boasted about his connections, his production credits, and his background in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs. He was a Republican, but not dogmatic, and he tried not to let his political beliefs get in the way of his work.

Bannon moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1987, to help Goldman expand its presence in the entertainment business. Two years later, Bannon and a senior colleague struck out on their own, opening a small investment company in Beverly Hills. According to Bannon, the firm's clients over the next half-dozen or so years included Credit Lyonnais, M-G-M, and PolyGram. In 1998, the company was acquired by an offshoot of the French bank Societe Generale, and he remained there for a couple of years. He had brief stints at Jefferies, an investment bank, and at a talent-management company, the Firm, as a strategic adviser. By the early aughts, the former Hollywood colleague recalled, "he was sitting on Canon Drive, in his fabulous office, his bookshelves lined with military and history books, and he would take meetings all day with people, some of whom came to him for money for their movies."

Tim Watkins, the president of a small advertising company in Maryland, was one of those people. A conservative and a devout Catholic, Watkins had an idea for a film, based on the book "Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism," by the political consultant Peter Schweizer. As Watkins began looking for someone to help make the movie, he was introduced to Bannon. He was impressed by Bannon's enthusiasm about Ronald Reagan, and by his Hollywood connections. Watkins showed him a trailer he had made, and Bannon "jumped in full-bore," Watkins told me. He understood that Bannon would raise the money to produce it and would also distribute it. To Watkins, he seemed an ideal partner. "Steve was very good at whipping people up into a passion," he said.

Before 9/11, Watkins had planned to make a traditional documentary, but by the time he started working with Bannon, he said, "something ticked in us-that life is about good versus evil, and history repeats itself." The film, called "In the Face of Evil: Reagan's War in Word and Deed," opens with archival...