Before Ronald Reagan became Governor of California, and eventually, of course, the President, how famous was he? Would the average American have known his name?
Yes, he was quite well known. For eight years before he ran for governor, he hosted a television show called The General Electric Theater which peaked at #3 in the annual Nielsen ratings in 1956-57, and spent seven of its eight seasons with Reagan as host in the Top 30. As an example, a 1959 episode of the show scored a 25.5 in the Nielsen ratings which is north of 25 million people watching the episode. That's a sizable chunk of the populace who would be familiar with him any given week.
After he was let go in 1962, he hosted a long-running series called Death Valley Days from 1964-65 before jumping into the governor's race in 1966.
The average American absolutely would have known his name, at least from the GE Theater if not from his two decade long film career before that.
And of course, by the time he first ran for president in 1976, he had served for eight years as governor of California, and then when he actually became president in 1980, he had a long career as a film actor, TV host, governor, and previous candidate for the Republican nomination.
Hi, you may be interested in this answer from u/cubshound here; follow the links to a few more related comments
