There's a reason, however, that the press cites Roosevelt's 1941 inauguration instead of, say, his first in 1933 - which was the Great Depression's worst year.

That's because - with the nation facing economic ruin, bread lines stretching around every other city corner, millions of Americans on the verge of losing their homes and a worldwide banking collapse looking imminent - the Democrats' man of the people threw a party that rivaled Hollywood's biggest and best.

In fact, Hollywood's stars turned out in droves to party with the new president - as Stephen Talbott, son of then-Warner Brother's actor Lyle Talbott, recalled in a 2001 Washington Post article.

The famed studio actually chartered a train to take its Silver Screen icons from California to D.C. - and scheduled it to arrive the very day FDR would take the oath of office.

"It was a fabled train, covered in silver and gold, ablaze with lights, awash in forbidden alcohol, and filled with movie stars and platinum-blond chorus girls," he said, drawing on recollections his father had shared with him.

The partying began with the inaugural parade, where America's favorite cowboy, Tom Mix, and a dozen beautiful young women marched to herald FDR's arrival.

"The sparkling contingent of chorus girls rode a carousel float down Pennsylvania Avenue past a smiling president," Talbott noted.

"Mix, a Saturday matinee idol, charmed spectators along the route by performing elaborate horse tricks. When he reached the reviewing stand, the actor paused dramatically and saluted the new president with a wave of his trademark 10-gallon white hat."

If there were any concerns about the economic privations that had crippled the nation, they had been dispensed with hours earlier with Roosevelt's famous "nothing to fear but fear itself" inaugural address.

"That night," said Talbott, "all the actors attended the inaugural ball, where they danced to the music of two popular bands, Rudy Vallee's Connecticut Yankees and Guy Lombardo's Royal Canadians."

FDR himself, however, skipped that night's festivities. Reports at the time said he was anxious to get to work on a remedy for the nation's devastated banking system, which was on the verge of collapse.

A more likely reason, however, was that his presence at the inaugural ball would have highlighted a personal problem that the Roosevelt White House would struggle to keep secret for the rest of his days in office. He was confined to a wheelchair, crippled with polio - a predicament that made it impossible for him to dance the night away with the other revelers.

In fact, the March 4, 1933 inaugural festivities were the last of FDR's four terms in office, a fact that suggests that it was his disability - and not World War II - that turned FDR into an inaugural ball party-pooper.

Editor's note: