{"id":71879,"date":"2016-03-07T23:59:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T04:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=71879"},"modified":"2016-03-08T02:10:23","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T07:10:23","slug":"former-first-lady-nancy-reagan-dies-at-94-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/03\/07\/former-first-lady-nancy-reagan-dies-at-94-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Former first lady Nancy Reagan dies at 94 in California"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Official<\/a>
Official White House photo of Nancy Reagan, wife of former President of the United States Ronald Reagan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LOS ANGELES \u2013 Nancy Reagan, the helpmate, backstage adviser and fierce protector of Ronald Reagan in his journey from actor to president \u2013 and finally during his 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease \u2013 has died. She was 94.<\/p>\n

The former first lady died Sunday at her home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles of congestive heart failure, assistant Allison Borio told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Her best-known project as first lady was the \u201cJust Say No\u201d campaign to help kids and teens stay off drugs.<\/p>\n

When she swept into the White House in 1981, the former Hollywood actress partial to designer gowns and pricey china was widely dismissed as a pre-feminist throwback, concerned only with fashion, decorating and entertaining. By the time she moved out eight years later, Mrs. Reagan was fending off accusations that she was a behind-the-scenes \u201cdragon lady\u201d wielding unchecked power over the Reagan administration \u2013 and doing it based on astrology to boot.<\/p>\n

All along she maintained that her only mission was to back her \u201cRonnie\u201d and strengthen his presidency.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Reagan carried that charge through the rest of her days. She served as a full-time caretaker as Alzheimer\u2019s melted away her husband\u2019s memory. After his death in June 2004 she dedicated herself to tending his legacy, especially at his presidential library in California, where he had served as governor.<\/p>\n

She also championed Alzheimer\u2019s patients, raising millions of dollars for research and breaking with fellow conservative Republicans to advocate for stem cell studies. Her dignity and perseverance in these post-White House roles helped smooth over the public\u2019s fickle perceptions of the former first lady.<\/p>\n

The Reagans\u2019 mutual devotion over 52 years of marriage was legendary. They were forever holding hands. She watched his political speeches with a look of such steady adoration it was dubbed \u201cthe gaze.\u201d He called her \u201cMommy,\u201d and penned a lifetime of gushing love notes. She saved these letters, published them as a book, and found them a comfort when he could no longer remember her.<\/p>\n

After Reagan was shot by John Hinckley just three months into his presidency, he was said to have famously wisecracked to her, \u201cHoney, I forgot to duck.\u201d<\/p>\n

In announcing his Alzheimer\u2019s diagnosis in 1994, Reagan wrote, \u201cI only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience.\u201d Ten years later, as his body lay in state in the U.S. Capitol, Mrs. Reagan caressed and gently kissed the flag-draped casket.<\/p>\n

In a statement Sunday, U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama spoke of the Reagan\u2019s journey with Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater, in her long goodbye with President Reagan, she became a voice on behalf of millions of families going through the depleting, aching reality of Alzheimer\u2019s, and took on a new role, as advocate, on behalf of treatments that hold the potential and the promise to improve and save lives,\u201d the Obama\u2019s said.<\/p>\n

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney called Reagan\u2019s death a \u201cgreat loss\u201d and said she played \u201ca marvellous role\u201d in her husband\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought she was probably the most valuable and influential counsellor that her husband had,\u201d Mulroney said in a phone interview Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really didn\u2019t think that he would have made it to the presidency without her.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the newly arrived first lady, Mrs. Reagan raised more than $800,000 from private donors to redo the White House family quarters and to buy a $200,000 set of china bordered in red, her signature colour. She was criticized for financing these pet projects with donations from millionaires who might seek influence with the government, and for accepting gifts and loans of dresses worth thousands of dollars from top designers. Her lavish lifestyle \u2013 in the midst of a recession and with her husband\u2019s administration cutting spending on the needy \u2013 inspired the mocking moniker \u201cQueen Nancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But her admirers credited Mrs. Reagan with restoring grace and elegance to the White House after the austerity of the Carter years.<\/p>\n

Her substantial influence within the White House came to light slowly in her husband\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Although a feud between the first lady and chief of staff Donald Regan had spilled into the open, the president dismissed reports that it was his wife who got Regan fired. \u201cThe idea that she is involved in governmental decisions and so forth and all of this, and being a kind of dragon lady \u2013 there is nothing to that,\u201d a visibly angry Reagan assured reporters.<\/p>\n

But Mrs. Reagan herself and other insiders later confirmed her role in rounding up support for Regan\u2019s ouster and persuading the president that it had to be done, because of the Iran-Contra scandal that broke under Regan\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n

She delved into policy issues, too. She urged Reagan to finally break his long silence on the AIDS crisis. She nudged him to publicly accept responsibility for the arms-for-hostages scandal. And she worked to buttress those advisers urging him to thaw U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, over the objections of the administration\u2019s \u201cevil empire\u201d hawks.<\/p>\n

Near the end of Reagan\u2019s presidency, ex-chief of staff Regan took his revenge with a memoir revealing that the first lady routinely consulted a San Francisco astrologer to guide the president\u2019s schedule. Mrs. Reagan, who had a longtime interest in horoscopes, maintained that she used the astrologer\u2019s forecasts only in hopes of predicting the safest times for her husband to venture out of the White House after the assassination attempt.<\/p>\n

Anne Frances Robbins, nicknamed Nancy, was born on July 6, 1921, in New York City. Her parents separated soon after she was born and her mother, film and stage actress Edith Luckett, went on the road. Nancy was reared by an aunt until 1929, when her mother married Dr. Loyal Davis, a wealthy Chicago neurosurgeon who gave Nancy his name and a socialite\u2019s home. She majored in drama at Smith College and found stage work with the help of her mother\u2019s connections.<\/p>\n

In 1949, MGM signed 5-foot-4, doe-eyed brunette Nancy Davis to a movie contract. She was cast mostly as a loyal housewife and mother. She had a key role in \u201cThe Next Voice You Hear …,\u201d an unusual drama about a family that hears God\u2019s voice on the radio. In \u201cDonovan\u2019s Brain,\u201d she played the wife of a scientist possessed by disembodied grey matter.<\/p>\n

She met Ronald Reagan in 1950, when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild and she was seeking help with a problem: Her name had been wrongly included on a published list of suspected communist sympathizers. They discussed it over dinner, and she later wrote that she realized on that first blind date \u201che was everything that I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

They wed two years later, on March 4, 1952. Daughter Patti was born in October of that year and son Ron followed in 1958. Reagan already had a daughter, Maureen, and an adopted son, Michael, from his marriage to actress Jane Wyman. (Later, public spats and breaches with her grown children would become a frequent source of embarrassment for Mrs. Reagan.)<\/p>\n

She was thrust into the political life when her husband ran for California governor in 1966 and won. She found it a surprisingly rough business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe movies were custard compared to politics,\u201d Mrs. Reagan said.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown released a statement on behalf of all Californians.<\/p>\n

\u201cNancy Reagan lived a remarkable life and will be remembered for her strength and grace,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2013 Nancy Reagan, the helpmate, backstage adviser and fierce protector of Ronald Reagan in his journey from actor …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":71880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,9094,16,17],"tags":[1080],"class_list":["post-71879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-human-interest","category-news","category-news-w","tag-ap","mauthors-christopher-weber","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}