Former US First Lady Nancy Reagan Dies At 94 Sunday March 06,2016

Nancy Reagan, a former film actress whose crowning role was that of the protective and adoring political wife, died March 6,2016 at her Bel Air home in Los Angeles. She was 94.

The cause was congestive heart failure, her office announced.

Born Anne Frances "Nancy" Robbins on July 6, 1921, in New York, she was the only child of car salesman Kenneth Seymour Robbins and Edith Luckett, an actress. Her father had left before she was born and she rarely saw him in subsequent years.

To find work as an actress, Nancy's mother left her for a half-dozen years to be raised in Bethesda, Md., by her aunt Virginia and uncle Audley Gailbraith. She attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington briefly

As Nancy Davis, she had roles in 11 feature films from 1949 to 1956. Among her early roles was that of a psychiatrist in "Shadow on the Wall." Other films included "The Next Voice You Hear" and "East Side, West Side." She appeared opposite her husband only once, and that was in her last film, 1957's "Hellcats of the Navy."

Nancy and Ronald Reagan met as actors and started alongside each other in the 1957 film Hellcats Of The Navy (pictured)

She met Ronald Reagan when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild. Another actress by the same name had appeared on the Hollywood blacklist, and Nancy Davis was concerned about being confused with her. Davis asked a mutual friend to introduce her to Reagan to sort out the confusion. She admitted later that she had set her sights on him, pretty quickly folding her existence into his. He was an avid horse rider, and she took up riding during their courtship.

On March 4, 1952, they were married in a small ceremony at the Little Brown Church near Los Angeles. Ronald Reagan's best man was film star William Holden. Their first child, Patricia Ann, was born seven months later. Their second child, Ron, came along in 1958.

Ronald Reagan came to the marriage with two children from his marriage to actress Jane Wyman, the late Maureen Reagan, and Michael Reagan. Throughout his presidency and after, as Ronald and Nancy Reagan advocated family values, their relationship with their own children was a running drama, creating the public impression of a highly dysfunctional family.

As first lady from 1981 to 1989, Reagan appointed herself the primary guardian of her husband's interests and legacy, a bad cop to his good cop, which often put her at odds with his senior staff

 

"She defined her role as being a shield for the emotional and physical well-being of the president,'' said Carl Sferrazza Anthony, National First Ladies Library historian. "I believe she would see her legacy as having helped forge her husband's legacy."

Always working behind the scenes, she interposed herself in the hiring and firing of senior staff at the most pivotal junctures; she insisted over the objections of some senior advisers that he publicly apologize for the government's secret arms sales to Iran, a scandal that rocked his presidency; and she bucked the right-leaning ideologues in the administration in pushing for improved relations with the Soviet Union, conspiring with the secretary of state to make it happen.

Her most prominent initiative as first lady was the "Just Say No" drug awareness campaign, aimed at preventing and reducing recreational drug use among young people'

The pair celebrate the former President's birthday in 1993 with an enormous cake

President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan leave The White House for the president's second inauguration ceremony on January 20, 1985

 

Nancy Reagan receives a standing ovation before being given the Congressional Gold Medal award at the US Capitol in Washington in May 2002

Ronald Reagan, the 40th US president, suffered from Alzheimer's disease after leaving the White House and went into a long decline, cared for by his wife until his death in 2004.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan kisses the casket one last time as President Reagan's body lies in state at Capitol in 2004

 

Even after her husband died in 2004, Mrs Reagan carried on her activism. As she battled with her own problems - such as a broken pelvis in 2008 and three broken ribs in 2012 - she continued advocating stem cell research (she is pictured outside her apartment in 2012)

US President Barack Obama Orders Flags At Half-Staff for Nancy Reagan

US President Barack Obama ordered flags lowered to half-staff Monday  March 07,2016at the White House and all federal buildings in honor of late former first lady Nancy Reagan.

Reagan, who died on Sunday at age 94, will be buried in a private ceremony on Friday March 11,2016 alongside her husband former president Ronald Reagan at his presidential library overlooking Simi Valley, California.

She will "lie in repose" Wednesday and Thursday at the presidential library and members of the public will be able to pay their respects at that time, the library said.