Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Occupation after Marriage:
While her husband struggled for acting work, including a short stint as a Las Vegas performer, Nancy Reagan assumed the full-time work of mother and homemaker. She made three films after her marriage. Her last film, at Columbia in 1956, was Hellcats of the Navy, in which she and her husband appeared together. During Reagan's two terms as California Governor, she adopted several causes, including the welfare of returned and wounded Vietnam War veterans, fundraising and lobbying efforts on behalf of those Vietnam War servicemen who were either Prisoners of War or Missing In Act. As California's First Lady, she wrote a syndicated column and donated her salary to the National League of Families of American POW-MIA. She also regularly visited state institutions that cared for the elderly and physically and emotionally handicapped children; after observing a program that successfully brought these groups together as a form of therapy, the "Foster Grandparent Program," she promoted it throughout California and, eventually, the nation.
Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:
Although Nancy Reagan preferred to campaign with her husband rather than on her own, during the 1980 primaries she began to make her own appearances and make remarks that reflected her husband's views on issues; it reflected a growing role of candidates' spouses and was similar to the one Rosalynn Carter was simultaneously playing in the primaries. In the 1984 presidential campaign, Nancy Reagan was especially helpful during the last of a several televised debates. After concluding that the President had done poorly in a previous debate, she urged his advisors to no ask him to memorize endless statistics. They did as she suggested and he proved more effective in the ensuing debate. Inauguration day 1981 was the first one held on the west front of the Capitol Building, a decision favored by the Reagans since it meant the ceremony was facing the rest of the nation, as opposed to those of the past which faced towards the ocean. Inauguration day 1984 marked two swearing-in ceremonies, neither of which were held on the Capitol Building steps; the first was traditionally considered "private" since it fell on a Sunday was held in the Grand Foyer of the White House and the "public" one held the following day was forced inside the Capitol Building Rotunda due to extremely cold temperatures, the first ever held at that site. Although the Reagans did not follow the Carter precedent of walking down Pennsylvania, it was a tradition that was resumed by their successors. Media attention focused on the high cost of the 1981 Inauguration and the private "candlelight" dinners for wealthy underwriters of the events, as a marked contrast to the Carter inaugural which had Inaugural Ball tickets selling for $25 to guests.
First Lady:
1981, January 20 - 1989, January 20
59 years old
When Nancy Reagan first became First Lady, her focus was on creating a home in the White House; rather than use government funds to redecorate as well as renovate the floors, doors and other hardware, she sought private funds to underwrite the work. In preparation for the required entertaining, she also carefully tested the meals that were to be served and also told U.S. New & World Report that she hoped to have new china ordered since there had been much breakage in the fifteen years since the Johnson set had been inaugurated. The combination of the redecorating, new china set, more formalized entertaining style than the Carters, in addition to her attendance of the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana of England in 1981, and her acceptance of free clothing from designers (thus unwittingly violating the new Ethics in Government Act of 1978) led to the creation of a public relations dilemma. Contrasted in print and broadcast news with the 1981 economic recession, high unemployment and homeless families, the so-called "Queen Nancy" caricature was created and even occasionally invoked by Democrats as a means of criticizing the Administration. In addition, much as there had been some suggestion of a regional bias against the Carters' southern background in the national media, primarily generated from the eastern seaboard, there was suggestion of a bias against the Reagans' lifestyle and friends from the entertainment industry in California.
With her intended work on the house and the patterns set for entertaining completed, Nancy Reagan began to focus in mid-1982 on the public issues and projects about which she intended to raise consciousness. Although she continued her support of the Foster Grandparents program, Nancy Reagan’s primary project was promotion of drug education and prevention programs for children and young adults. To this end, she traveled nearly 250,000 miles throughout the U.S. and several nations to visit prevention programs and rehabilitation centers to talk with young people and their parents, appeared on television talk shows, taped public service announcements, and wrote guest articles. At one California school, when Nancy Reagan had asked the children what the best and most immediate response should be when they were offered drugs, there were shouts of "just say no." The catch-phrase "just say no" soon proliferated through the popular culture of the 1980's, eventually adopted as the name of a loose organization of clubs formed in grammar, middle and high schools in which young people pledged not to experiment with the harmful drugs. In April 1985 Mrs. Reagan expanded her drug awareness campaign to an international level by inviting the wives of world leaders to attend a White House conference she hosted on youth drug abuse. In October of that year, during the U.N.'s 40th anniversary, she hosted thirty international First Ladies for a second such gathering. When President Reagan signed the October 27, 1986 "National Crusade for a Drug Free America" anti-drug abuse bill into law, she considered it a personal victory and made an unprecedented joint address to the nation with him on the problem. In October 1988, she became the first First Lady to address the U.N. General Assembly, speaking on international drug interdiction and trafficking laws.
Perhaps Nancy Reagan's largest and most important work as First Lady, however, was her role as the President's personal protector. Part of this role grew out of the March 30, 1981 assassination attempt on his life. Forever afterwards, Nancy Reagan made it her concern to know his schedule: in what public venues would he be speaking, before what groups, at what time, as well as with whom he would be privately meeting. In time, her concern to protect her husband's personal well-being led her to consult an astrologer to attempt to discern precisely what days and at what times would be optimum for safety and success, and which slots were to be avoided because potential dangers as reflected in the astrological readings. Both Reagans admitted that the President had a tendency to trust all those who worked for him, while the First Lady tended to perceive those who, in her words, might "end run him," essentially using their positions to further their personal careers or agendas rather than that of the President and the Administration. The President's long-time aide Michael Deaver also served as a trusted and important advisor to Nancy Reagan and he often approached her when he felt a problem might be developing. To this end, Nancy Reagan effectively supported or advised the firing of various personnel, including the likes of National Security Council member William P. Clark, and the hiring of others such as Secretary of State George Schultz. After Nancy Reagan witnessed the bold control exercised by Chief of Staff Donald Regan following President Reagan's 1985 cancer surgery, and then the fall-out he generated in mishandling the Administration's reaction to the Iran-Contra scandal, she felt that the President would be better served with a replacement. In 1987, a media firestorm ensued, New York Times columnist William Safire being the most pointed in his criticism of Nancy Reagan's prerogatives and comparing her to "an incipient Edith Wilson." The deposed Chief of Staff reacted by publishing a sensational memoir in which he disclosed her request that astrology be used in the president's official scheduling; no such personal revelations had previously been cast against an incumbent First Lady before to the degree that they were by Regan.
Although Nancy Reagan rarely ventured into specific policy, it was she who defied the conventional wisdom in the Reagan Administration State Department to promote the idea of the President forming first a personal relationship with the new Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev when he assumed power in 1985. She did so she recalled, simply because it made no sense to her that the two leaders were not at least in open dialogue with each other. The resulting friendship and then political negotiations resulted in the 1987 INF Treaty, which called for a mutual destruction of intermediate range nuclear missiles. The treaty proved to be a crowning moment for the Administration and was later considered by many to be an important step in the end of Soviet communism and the shift to democracy of several Soviet satellite nations. Nancy Reagan's devotion to seeing this through, as well as other aspects of her husband's legacy were made all the more dramatic in light of the fact that she underwent breast cancer surgery and shortly thereafter endured the death of her mother, all just prior to the treaty signing.
Post-Presidential Life:
After publishing her memoirs entitled My Turn, in 1989, she established the Nancy Reagan Foundation, to support educational drug prevention after-school programs; it merged with the Best Foundation for a Drug-Free Tomorrow, out of which emerged the Nancy Reagan Afterschool Program, a drug prevention and life-skills program for youth. When her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994, they together created and funded the Ronald & Nancy Reagan Research Institute in Chicago, Illinois for research into the illness, an affiliate of the National Alzheimer’s Association. Over the next decade her public activities were largely limited to the Los Angeles area, since she was the primary caregiver to the former president. One notable exception was the 1996 Republican National Convention in nearby San Diego, California, thus making her only the second former First Lady - and the first of her party - to do so (see "Post-Presidential Life" for Eleanor Roosevelt). After former President Reagan's death in June 2004, she became an outspoken public advocate for stem cell research, a scientific effort that promised hope for patients of Alzheimer's and other illnesses, despite the fact that her view was in direct opposition to that of the incumbent Republican president. She resides in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, California.
Acting career
Following her graduation, Davis held jobs in Chicago as a sales clerk in Marshall Field's department store and as a nurse's aide. With the help of her mother's colleagues in theatre, including Zasu Pitts, Walter Huston, and Spencer Tracy, she pursued a career as a professional actress. She first gained a part in Pitts' 1945 road tour of Ramshackle Inn, then settled in New York City. 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 Yul Brynner, after the show's producer told her, "You look like you could be Chinese."
After passing a screen test, she signed a seven-year contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios (MGM) in 1949; she later remarked, "Joining Metro was like walking into a dream world." Davis appeared in 11 feature films, usually typecast as a "loyal housewife", "responsible young mother", or "the steady woman". She kept her professional name as Nancy Davis even after marrying. Her film career began with minor roles in 1949's The Doctor and the Girl with Glenn Ford, and followed with East Side, West Side starring Barbara Stanwyck. She 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." A later critic admired the film's effort to convincingly portray Davis as pregnant—many other films from the time neglected to do so. In 1951, Davis appeared in her favorite screen role, Night Into Morning, a study of bereavement starring Ray Milland. The Times' Crowther said that Davis "does nicely as the fiancée who is widowed herself and knows the loneliness of grief," while another noted critic, The Washington Post's Richard L. Coe, said Davis "is splendid as the understanding widow." Davis left MGM in 1952, seeking a broader range of parts. She soon starred in the 1953 science fiction film Donovan's Brain; Crowther said that Davis, playing the role of a possessed scientist's "sadly baffled wife", "walked through it all in stark confusion" in an "utterly silly" film. In her last movie, Hellcats of the Navy (1957), she played nurse Lieutenant Helen Blair and shared the screen 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 well, and "does well with what she has to work with".
Noted author Garry Wills believes that Davis was underrated as an actress overall, because her constrained part in Hellcats was her most widely seen performance. Davis seems to have downplayed her Hollywood goals: MGM promotional material 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." Ronald Reagan biographer Lou Cannon nevertheless characterized her as a "reliable" and "solid" performer who held her own in performances with better-known actors. After her final film, she appeared in television dramas such as Wagon Train and The Tall Man until 1962, when she retired as an actress. During her career, she served on the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild for nearly 10 years. Decades later, Albert Brooks attempted to coax Reagan out of acting retirement by offering her the title role opposite himself in his 1996 film Mother. Reagan declined in order to care for her husband, and Debbie Reynolds played the part.
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins on July 6, 1921) is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and served as an influential First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Born in New York, her parents divorced soon after her birth and she grew up in Maryland, living with an aunt and uncle while her mother pursued acting jobs. As Nancy Davis, she was an actress in the 1940s and 1950s, starring in films such as Donovan's Brain, Night into Morning, and Hellcats of the Navy. In 1952 she married Ronald Reagan, who was then president of the Screen Actors Guild, and they had two children. Nancy was the First Lady of California when her husband was Governor from 1967 to 1975. In that capacity, she began work with the Foster Grandparents Program.
Nancy Reagan became First Lady of the United States in January 1981 following her husband's victory, but was criticised early in his first term largely due to her decision to replace the White House china. Nancy restored a Kennedy-esque glamour to the White House following years of lax formality, and her interest in high-end fashion garnered much attention, as well as criticism. She championed recreational drug prevention causes by founding the "Just Say No" drug awareness campaign, which was considered her major initiative as First Lady. Always protective of her husband, more controversy ensued when it was revealed in 1988 that she had consulted an astrologer to assist in planning the president's schedule after the 1981 assassination attempt on her husband.
The Reagans retired to their home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California in 1989. Nancy devoted most of her time to caring for her ailing husband, diagnosed in 1994 with Alzheimer's disease, until his death in 2004. Nancy Reagan has remained active within the Reagan Library and in politics, particularly in support of stem-cell research.
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