Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins; July 6, 1921 – March 6, 2016) was an American actress who was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. She was the second wife of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States.
Reagan was born in New York City. After her parents separated, she lived in Maryland with an aunt and uncle for six years. When her mother remarried in 1929, she moved to Chicago and was adopted by her mother's second husband. As Nancy Davis, she was a Hollywood actress in the 1940s and 1950s, starring in films such as The Next Voice You Hear..., Night into Morning, and Donovan's Brain. In 1952, she married Ronald Reagan, who was then president of the Screen Actors Guild. He had two children from his previous marriage to Jane Wyman, and he and Nancy had two children together. Nancy Reagan was the first lady of California when her husband was governor from 1967 to 1975, and she began to work with the Foster Grandparents Program.
Reagan became First Lady of the United States in January 1981, following her husband's victory in the 1980 presidential election. Early in his first term, she was criticized largely due to her decisions both to replace the White House china, which had been paid for by private donations, and to accept free clothing from fashion designers. She championed opposition to recreational drug use when she founded the "Just Say No" drug awareness campaign, considered her major initiative as First Lady, although it received substantial criticism for stigmatizing poor communities affected by the crack epidemic. More discussion of her role ensued following a 1988 revelation that she had consulted an astrologer to assist in planning the president's schedule after the attempted assassination of her husband in 1981. She generally had a strong influence on her husband and played a role in a few of his personnel and diplomatic decisions.
The couple returned to their home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, after leaving the White House. Reagan devoted most of her time to caring for her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994, until his death at the age of 93 on June 5, 2004. Reagan remained active within the Reagan Library and in politics, particularly in support of embryonic stem cell research, until her death from congestive heart failure at age 94 in 2016. She gained high approval ratings in later life for her devotion to her husband in his final illness.
Early life and education
Anne Frances Robbins was born in Manhattan on July 6, 1921, but throughout her life she told others she was born in 1923. Her parents were used car salesman Kenneth Robbins and actress Edith Luckett. The actress Alla Nazimova was her godmother. She was named Anne after her great-great-great-grandmother, but her mother took to calling her "Nancy" until that became the name she was known by. Robbins lived her first two years in Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens, in a two-story house on Roosevelt Avenue between 149th and 150th Streets.
Robbins' parents split in 1923 when her mother decided to return to acting and the couple could not agree on where to live. Her father removed himself from her life, and her mother resumed work as a stage actress. Robbins was placed with her mother's sister, Virginia Galbraith, in Bethesda, Maryland, along with her uncle and cousin. She attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. Robbins missed her mother while living with her aunt, and they made trips to New York so she could see her mother perform on stage. She emulated her mother by wearing makeup and pretending to be an actress. Robbins' parents finalized their divorce in 1928. Later analysis of her life has focused on this unstable family environment as a reason why she held marriage as a life goal.
Robbins's mother remarried in 1929, giving her a stepfather at age seven. Loyal Davis was a neurosurgeon, and the family moved to Chicago together where she formed a close bond with her stepfather. She would always refer to him as her father. She also had a stepbrother but did not develop a close relationship with him. She attended Girls' Latin School in Chicago, where she involved in Drama Club, field hockey, and student government. In her senior year, she had the lead role in the school play First Lady.
Having a wealthy neurosurgeon as a stepfather meant a comfortable childhood where Robbins lived beyond the means of most Americans, and the family socialized in high society. Her mother's career also meant that Robbins had regular interactions with famous actors of the day, especially with their family friends Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, and Spencer Tracy. Her stepfather's conservative beliefs were a strong influence on her own politics.
Robbins was adopted by her stepfather at age fourteen, and she changed her legal name to Nancy Davis. In 1939, Davis left Girls' Latin School and began attending Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she studied English and drama. Among her instructors was Federal Theatre Project director Hallie Flanagan. Davis was a debutante that December, where she met Frank Birney, who kept introducing himself to her under different names to make her comfortable. They were eventually engaged, but he was struck by a train and killed before they were married.
Davis graduated from Smith College in 1943. She took a job as a sales clerk at Marshall Field's in Chicago, but she left the job before long and volunteered as a nurse's aide.
thumb|Young Nancy with her mother, actress [[Edith Luckett<!--The date provided by the National Archives Catalog is January 1931, but this is obviously wrong. Mrs. Reagan was born in July 1921 and would have been 9½ years old at that time.-->]]
Acting career
Davis moved to New York to work as an actress and model under the tutelage of Walter Huston and Spencer Tracy. This began when family friend ZaSu Pitts got her a role in the play Ramshackle Inn on Broadway in 1945. She had a total of three lines. Although the play closed soon after, she followed it with a role in Lute Song. Davis dated Clark Gable for one week, which brought her a higher public profile.thumb|upright|right|Davis, 1949–50
In 1940, a young Davis had appeared as a National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis volunteer in a memorable short subject film shown in movie theaters to raise donations for the crusade against polio. The Crippler featured a sinister figure spreading over playgrounds and farms, laughing over its victims, until finally dispelled by the volunteer. It was very effective in raising contributions.
She landed the role of Si-Tchun, a lady-in-waiting, in the 1946 Broadway musical about the Orient, Lute Song, starring Mary Martin and a pre-fame Yul Brynner.
thumb|upright|left|Davis in 1950
Davis went to Hollywood in 1949 when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer asked her to participate in a screen test. Her mother worked with Tracy to get director George Cukor to evaluate the test. They gave her a seven-year contract and was paid $250 () per week. She went on to appear in eleven films, including The Doctor and the Girl (1949), East Side, West Side (1949), Night into Morning (1951), It's a Big Country (1951), and Donovan's Brain (1953). She was generally well-received but did not achieve mainstream success. These appearances generally typecast her as a wife and mother.
Davis played a child psychiatrist in the film noir Shadow on the Wall (1950) with Ann Sothern and Zachary Scott; her performance was called "beautiful and convincing" by New York Times critic A. H. Weiler. She co-starred in 1950's The Next Voice You Hear..., playing a pregnant housewife who hears the voice of God from her radio. Influential reviewer Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that "Nancy Davis [is] delightful as [a] gentle, plain, and understanding wife." MGM released Davis from her contract in 1952; she sought a broader range of parts, but also married Reagan, keeping her professional name as Davis, and had her first child that year. In her next-to-last movie, Hellcats of the Navy (1957), she played nurse Lieutenant Helen Blair, and appeared in a film for the only time with her husband, playing what one critic called "a housewife who came along for the ride". Another reviewer, however, stated that Davis plays her part satisfactorily, and "does well with what she has to work with".
thumb|right|Nancy and Ronald Reagan aboard a boat, 1964
Author Garry Wills has said that Davis was generally underrated as an actress because her constrained part in Hellcats was her most widely seen performance. In addition, Davis downplayed her Hollywood goals: promotional material from MGM in 1949 said that her "greatest ambition" was to have a "successful happy marriage"; decades later, in 1975, she would say, "I was never really a career woman but [became one] only because I hadn't found the man I wanted to marry. I couldn't sit around and do nothing, so I became an actress." where she played opposite Ronald Reagan, as well as Wagon Train and The Tall Man, until she retired as an actress in 1962.
During her career, Davis served for nearly ten years on the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild. Decades later, Albert Brooks attempted to coax her out of acting retirement by offering her the title role opposite himself in his 1996 film Mother.
Marriage and family
left|thumb|upright|Newlyweds Ronald and Nancy Reagan, March 4, 1952
During her Hollywood career, Davis dated many actors, including Clark Gable, Robert Stack, and Peter Lawford;
Both of the Reagans had experiences with frequent moving and instability during their childhoods and strained relationships with their fathers. They were contrasted by their personalities, as Ronald was an optimist while Nancy was a pessimist. Ronald's gregariousness and his status as a self-made man are cited as reasons for Nancy's attraction to him. There's disagreement among historians as to whether Nancy or Ronald influenced the other in a rightward political shift, or whether they both already held strong conservative political views when they met.
After three years of dating, they eventually decided to marry while discussing the issue in the couple's favorite booth at Chasen's, a restaurant in Beverly Hills. As president and first lady, the Reagans were reported to display their affection frequently, with one press secretary noting, "They never took each other for granted. They never stopped courting." While the president was recuperating in the hospital after the 1981 assassination attempt, Nancy wrote in her diary, "Nothing can happen to my Ronnie. My life would be over." In a letter to Nancy, Ronald wrote, "whatever I treasure and enjoy ... all would be without meaning if I didn't have you." In 1998, a few years after her husband had been given a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, Nancy told Vanity Fair, "Our relationship is very special. We were very much in love and still are. When I say my life began with Ronnie, well, it's true. It did. I can't imagine life without him." Nancy was known for the focused and attentive look, termed "the Gaze", that she fastened upon her husband during his speeches and appearances.
President Reagan's death in June 2004 ended what Charlton Heston called "the greatest love affair in the history of the American Presidency". Patti became estranged from her parents. Soon after her father's Alzheimer's disease was diagnosed, Patti and her mother reconciled and began to speak on a daily basis. Nancy's disagreements with Michael were also public matters; in 1984, she was quoted as saying that the two were in an "estrangement right now". Michael responded that Nancy was trying to cover up for the fact she had not met his daughter, Ashley, who had been born nearly a year earlier. They too eventually made peace. Nancy was thought to be "closest" to her stepdaughter Maureen during the White House years, but earned a reputation for being a poor mother. Her redecoration of the California State Capitol was received more positively.
Nancy was a socialite in California, making appearances at major events and shopping in the wealthy neighborhood of Beverly Hills. At the same time, she had to acclimate to the political attacks against her husband and her family, which offended her more than him. She held her first press conference when she was accused of taking donations to the governor's home for her own personal use. On June 6, 1968, Nancy was the subject of a biographical profile titled "Pretty Nancy" following an interview with Joan Didion; Didion was deeply critical in her publication, portraying Nancy as out-of-touch and insincere. To vent her frustration, Nancy began having imaginary arguments while she was in the bath.
In 1967, Ronald appointed Nancy to the California Arts Commission, and a year later she was named Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year; in its profile, the Times labeled her "A Model First Lady".
Nancy did not know that her husband intended to seek the presidential nomination at the 1968 Republican National Convention until after he did so.
Nancy worked with the Foster Grandparents Program that brought the elderly to work with special needs children. She had the program expanded in California and facilitated the creation of another such program in Australia. She later expanded her work with the organization after arriving in Washington, and wrote about her experiences in her 1982 book To Love a Child. Nancy also spent time with people in veterans' hospitals and the families of prisoners of war in Vietnam. Additionally, she was a member of the Junior League of Los Angeles, CA.
The Reagans purchased Rancho del Cielo, a vacation home in Santa Barbara, California, in 1974. Nancy's tenure as first lady of California ended in 1975 when her husband left office, and she was relieved to be out of public life.
Role in 1976 and 1980 presidential campaigns
Governor Reagan's gubernatorial time in office ended in 1975, and he did not run for a third term; instead, he met with advisors to discuss a possible bid for the 1976 presidency, challenging incumbent president Gerald Ford. Ronald still needed to convince a reluctant Nancy before running, however. She feared for her husband's health and his career as a whole, though she felt that he was the right man for the job and approved eventually. Nancy took on a traditional role in the campaign, holding coffees, luncheons, and talks. Nancy was upset by the warmonger image that the Ford campaign had drawn of her husband. She organized a meeting among feuding campaign managers John Sears and Michael Deaver and her husband, which resulted in Deaver leaving the campaign and Sears being given full control. After the Reagan camp lost the Iowa Caucus and fell behind in New Hampshire polls, Nancy organized a second meeting and decided it was time to fire Sears and his associates; she gave Sears a copy of the press release announcing his dismissal.
First Lady of the United States (1981–1989)
White House glamour
Renovation
thumb|left|The new president and his wife wave to the crowd during the Inaugural Parade, January 20, 1981, the same day that 52 Americans held [[Iran hostage crisis|hostage by Iran for 444 days were set free]]
Reagan became the first lady of the United States when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president in January 1981. Early in her husband's presidency, Reagan stated her desire to create a more suitable "first home" in the White House, as the building had fallen into a state of disrepair following years of neglect. Rather than use government funds to renovate and redecorate, she sought private donations. In 1981, Reagan directed a major renovation of several White House rooms, including all of the second and third floors and rooms adjacent to the Oval Office, including the press briefing room. The renovation included repainting walls, refinishing floors, repairing fireplaces, and replacing antique pipes, windows, and wires.
thumb|right|Official portrait of the First Lady in the [[Red Room (White House)|Red Room, 1981]]
The First Lady secured the assistance of renowned interior designer Ted Graber, popular with affluent West Coast social figures, to redecorate the family living quarters. A Chinese-pattern, handpainted wallpaper was added to the master bedroom. Family furniture was placed in the president's private study.
The extensive redecoration was paid for by private donations.
Fashion
Reagan's interest in fashion was another one of her trademarks. While her husband was still president-elect, press reports speculated about Reagan's social life and interest in fashion. In many press accounts, Reagan's sense of style was favorably compared to that of a previous first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. Friends and those close to her remarked that, while fashionable like Kennedy, she would be different from other first ladies; close friend Harriet Deutsch was quoted as saying, "Nancy has her own imprint."
Reagan's wardrobe consisted of dresses, gowns, and suits made by luxury designers, including James Galanos, Bill Blass, and Oscar de la Renta. Her white, hand-beaded, one shoulder Galanos 1981 inaugural gown was estimated to cost $10,000, She favored the color red, calling it "a picker-upper", and wore it accordingly. She employed two private hairdressers, who would style her hair on a regular basis in the White House.
thumb|upright|left|Reagan models for [[Vogue (magazine)|Vogue in the Red Room, 1981]]
Fashion designers were pleased with the emphasis Reagan placed on clothing. and that she was promoting the American fashion industry. While often buying her clothes, she continued to borrow and sometimes keep designer clothes throughout her time as first lady, which came to light in 1988. None of this had been included on financial disclosure forms;
Despite the controversy, many designers who allowed her to borrow clothing, noted that the arrangement was good for their businesses, In 1989, Reagan was honored at the annual gala awards dinner of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, during which she received the council's lifetime achievement award. Barbara Walters said of her, "She has served every day for eight long years the word 'style.'" A full china service had not been purchased since the Truman administration in the 1940s, as only a partial service was ordered in the Johnson administration. Although it was paid for by private donations, some from the private J. P. Knapp Foundation, the purchase generated quite a controversy, for it was ordered at a time when the nation was undergoing an economic recession. Furthermore, news of the china purchase emerged at the same time that her husband's administration had proposed school lunch regulations that would allow ketchup to be counted as a vegetable. gave her an aura of being "out of touch" with the American people during the recession. and her taste for splendor inspired the derogatory nickname "Queen Nancy". The skit helped to restore her reputation.
Reagan reflected on the criticisms in her 1989 autobiography, My Turn. She described lunching with former Democratic National Committee chairman Robert S. Strauss, wherein Strauss said to her, "When you first came to town, Nancy, I didn't like you at all. But after I got to know you, I changed my mind and said, 'She's some broad!'" Reagan responded, "Bob, based on the press reports I read then, I wouldn't have liked me either!"
thumb|left|Vice President [[George H. W. Bush, Reagan, and Raisa Gorbacheva (spouse of Mikhail Gorbachev) in Washington, D.C., 1987]]
After the presidency of Jimmy Carter (who dramatically reduced the formality of presidential functions), Reagan brought a Kennedy-esque glamour back into the White House. She hosted 56 state dinners over eight years. She remarked that hosting the dinners is "the easiest thing in the world. You don't have to do anything. Just have a good time and do a little business. And that's the way Washington works."
In general, the First Lady's desire for everything to appear just right in the White House led the residence staff to consider her not easy to work for, with tirades following what she perceived as mistakes. One staffer later recalled, "I remember hearing her call for her personal maid one day and it scared the dickens out of me—just her tone. I never wanted to be on the wrong side of her." She did show loyalty and respect to a number of the staff. In particular, she came to the public defense of a maid who was indicted on charges of helping to smuggle ammunition to Paraguay, providing an affidavit to the maid's good character (even though it was politically inopportune to do so at the time of the Iran–Contra affair); charges were subsequently dropped, and the maid returned to work at the White House.
In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev became the first Soviet leader to visit Washington, D.C., since Nikita Khrushchev made the trip in 1959 at the height of the Cold War. Nancy was in charge of planning and hosting the important and highly anticipated state dinner, with the goal to impress both the Soviet leader and especially his wife Raisa Gorbacheva. After the meal, she recruited pianist Van Cliburn to play a rendition of "Moscow Nights" for the Soviet delegation, to which Mikhail and Raisa broke out into song. Secretary of State George P. Shultz later commented on the evening, saying "We felt the ice of the Cold War crumbling." Reagan concluded, "It was a perfect ending for one of the great evenings of my husband's presidency."
Just Say No
With the help of her Chief of Staff James Rosebush, the first lady launched the "Just Say No" drug awareness campaign in 1982, which was her primary project and major initiative as first lady. She remarked in 1981 that "Understanding what drugs can do to your children, understanding peer pressure and understanding why they turn to drugs is ... the first step in solving the problem." The phrase proliferated in the popular culture of the 1980s, and was eventually adopted as the name of club organizations and school anti-drug programs.
In 1985, Reagan expanded the campaign to an international level by inviting the First Ladies of various nations to the White House for a conference on drug abuse. Although the bill was criticized, Reagan considered it a personal victory. labelled Reagan's approach to promoting drug awareness as simplistic, and argued that the program did not give adequate attention to various social issues associated with increased rates of drug use, including unemployment, poverty, and family dissolution. On March 30 of that year, President Reagan and three others were shot by the attempted assassin 25-year old John Hinckley Jr as they left the Washington Hilton hotel. Nancy was alerted and arrived at George Washington University Hospital, where the President was hospitalized. She recalled having seen "emergency rooms before, but I had never seen one like this – with my husband in it." She was escorted into a waiting room, and when granted access to see her husband, he quipped to her, "Honey, I forgot to duck", borrowing the defeated boxer Jack Dempsey's jest to his wife.
An early example of the first lady's protective nature occurred when Senator Strom Thurmond entered the president's hospital room that day in March, passing the Secret Service detail by claiming he was the President's "close friend", presumably to acquire media attention. Nancy was outraged and demanded that he leave. As it happened, the day after her husband was shot, she fell off a chair while trying to take down a picture to bring to him in the hospital; she suffered several broken ribs, but was determined to not reveal it publicly.
Astrological consultations
thumb|right|"The Gaze": Reagan watches as her husband is sworn in for a second term by Chief Justice [[Warren E. Burger|Warren Burger, on January 20, 1985]]
During the Reagan administration, Nancy Reagan consulted a San Francisco astrologer, Joan Quigley, who provided advice on which days and times would be optimal for the president's safety and success. Quigley began her work at the White House after the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981. Nancy Reagan was told by Merv Griffin that Quigley had predicted that day would be dangerous for President Reagan, causing her to become a regular astrological consultant for the administration. Quigley previously worked on the Reagan campaign prior to serving as their astrological consultant. She volunteered for their campaign in 1980, as she was impressed by his astrological chart. Private lines were set up in the White House and Camp David to assist in phone calls between Nancy Reagan and Joan Quigley, which occurred multiple times a day, and she was paid $3,000 a month for her work.
White House chief of staff Donald Regan grew frustrated with this regimen, which created friction between him and the first lady. This friction escalated with the revelation of the Iran–Contra affair, an administration scandal, in which the first lady felt Regan was damaging the president. She thought he should resign, and expressed this to her husband, although he did not share her view. Regan wanted President Reagan to address the Iran-Contra matter in early 1987 by means of a press conference, though the first lady refused to allow her husband to overexert himself due to a recent prostate surgery and astrological warnings. She became so angry with Regan that he hung up on her during a 1987 telephone conversation. According to the recollections of ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson, when the President heard of this treatment, he demanded—and eventually received—Regan's resignation. Vice President George H. W. Bush is also reported to have suggested to her to have Regan fired.
In his 1988 memoir, For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington, Regan wrote the following about Nancy Reagan's consultations with an astrologer:
Donald Regan's memoir went on to cause political discourse, as well as scrutiny of the astrological community, as he exposed the "most closely guarded secret" of the Reagan administration. Although he did not know Quigley's name at the time, he wrote extensively on her role in the White House. She added, "Astrology was simply one of the ways I coped with the fear I felt after my husband almost died ... Was astrology one of the reasons [further attempts did not occur]? I don't really believe it was, but I don't really believe it wasn't."
thumb|upright|left|Nancy and Ronald Reagan together in the Oval Office, 1985
Influence in the White House
Nancy Reagan wielded a powerful influence over President Reagan. Following the assassination attempt, she strictly controlled access to the president;
Beginning in 1985, she strongly encouraged her husband to hold "summit" conferences with Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, and suggested they form a personal relationship beforehand. The two women usually had tea and discussed differences between the USSR and the United States. Visiting the United States for the first time in 1987, Gorbacheva irked Reagan with lectures on subjects ranging from architecture to socialism, reportedly prompting the American president's wife to quip, "Who does that dame think she is?"
Press framing of Reagan changed from that of just helpmate and protector to someone with hidden power. As the image of her as a political interloper grew, she sought to explicitly deny that she was the power behind the throne. She wrote in her memoirs, "I don't think I was as bad, or as extreme in my power or my weakness, as I was depicted," but went on, "However the first lady fits in, she has a unique and important role to play in looking after her husband. And it's only natural that she'll let him know what she thinks. I always did that for Ronnie, and I always will." Her chief of staff James Rosebush's 1988 book First Lady, Public Wife explored the role of the First Lady as a demanding and rigorous job.
Breast cancer
In October 1987, a mammogram detected a lesion in Reagan's left breast and she was subsequently diagnosed with breast cancer. She chose to undergo a mastectomy rather than a lumpectomy, and the breast was removed on October 17, 1987. Ten days after the operation, her 99-year-old mother, Edith Luckett Davis, died in Phoenix, Arizona, leading Reagan to dub the period "a terrible month".
After the surgery, more women across the country had mammograms, which exemplified the influence that the first lady possessed.
Later life (1989–2016)
Though Reagan was a controversial first lady, 56 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of her when her husband left office on January 20, 1989, with 18 percent having an unfavorable opinion, and the balance not giving an opinion. Compared to fellow first ladies when their husbands left office, Reagan's approval was higher than those of Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton, Melania Trump, and Jill Biden. However, she was less popular than Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama, and her disapproval rating was double that of Carter's. dividing their time between Bel Air and the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California. Ronald and Nancy regularly attended the Bel Air Church as well. After leaving Washington, Reagan made numerous public appearances, many on behalf of her husband. She continued to reside at the Bel Air home, where she lived with her husband until he died on June 5, 2004.
Reagan's official White House portrait was painted by Aaron Shikler and unveiled at the White House in 1989. It depicts her in a red dress standing against the doors of the State Dining Room.
Early post–White House activities
In late 1989, the former first lady established the Nancy Reagan Foundation, which aimed to continue to educate people about the dangers of substance abuse. The Foundation teamed with the BEST Foundation For A Drug-Free Tomorrow in 1994, and developed the Nancy Reagan Afterschool Program. She continued to travel around the United States, speaking out against drug and alcohol abuse.