Former American first lady Nancy Reagan died Sunday morning at her home in Los Angeles. She was 94. The cause of death was congestive heart failure, a spokesman for the family said.
Nancy Davis Reagan was the First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. She was born in New York City. After her parents separated, she lived up in Maryland with an aunt and uncle. She worked as an actress in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, starring in films like The Next Voice You Hear…, Night Into Morning, and Donovan’s Brain. In 1952, she married then president of the Screen Actors Guild Ronald Reagan.
“My life began with Ronnie,” she told Vanity Fair magazine in 1998.
When Ronald Reagan served as governor of California from 1967 to 1975, Nancy Reagan took an interest in the welfare of Vietnam veterans, visiting the wounded and engaging in projects concerning POWs.
As first lady, Nancy Reagan primarily devoted herself to anti-drug education and the prevention of drug abuse among young people. By 1988, more than 12,000 “just say no” clubs had been formed internationally, according to the Reagan Foundation.
President Reagan and Nancy were both deeply interested in astrology, and former White House officials said Mrs. Reagan’s astrological divinations influenced the scheduling of important presidential events. A California astrologer said she had been consulted by the Reagans regarding key White House decisions, but President Reagan insisted astrology did not influence policy.
When Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994, the couple formed the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute in Chicago, an affiliate of the Alzheimer’s Association. Nancy devoted the next decade to caring for her ailing husband. She became an advocate for stem cell research in the hopes of finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, which put her at odds with the GW Bush Republican Party.
She is survived by two children, Patti Davis and Ronald Reagan Jr.