Nancy Regan

Nancy Regan was born Anne France Robbins in 1921. She is the widow of the 40th President of USA.  Nancy was Hollywood actress in 1940s to 1950s. She married her husband Ronald Reagan who was also an actor during that period. She was the first lady of California before she became the first lady of the USA. She was campaigning for the drug awareness Just Say No, but when her husband got Alzheimer’s disease, she became an advocate to find the cure.

While reading the biography of Nancy Regan, there is nothing that showed that she will be an important woman later in life. She was born to Kenneth Robbins who was a salesman with Edith Luckett who was an aspiring actress. While young, they started to call her Nancy and her parents divorced when she reached the age of 6. From this time, she was cared by her uncle and aunt who were living in Maryland. She attended the Sidwell Friends School. In the year 1929, her mother remarried the prominent Chicago neurosurgeon in Chicago called Loyal Davis. In 1931, she went to live with her mother and she got a chance to live in the privilege and wealth. She attended the Girls Latin School.  She studied drama in Smith College and she got a Bachelors of Arts in the drama of 1943. Loyal adopted her officially and she changed her name to Davis.

When Nancy Regan finished college, she started to work like a sales Clerk in the Marshall Fields Department store of Chicago and afterwards she worked as a nurse’s aide.  When she got a help from some Friends of her mother, she started her career in acting. Her first role was in Ramshackle Inn movie. When she travelled to Hollywood, she got a 7 years contact from the MGM studios.

When Nancy Regan mistakenly thought her name is on the Hollywood blacklist, the list where people who were suspected to be communist sympathizers were listed, she contacted Ronald Reagan for help. Reagan was that time, the president of Screen Actor Guild and they were both attracted to each other from the first time. Reagan had already divorced Jane Wyman and he was still skeptical about a marriage.

At first Nancy Regan was a homemaker and a full time wife but after the birth of her first child, Patricia she went into acting again.  Afterwards, she appeared only in few television shows and she stopped to raise her family. She had 2 children and 2 from the first marriage of Reagan with Jane Wyman.  Nancy Regan was perceived as a snob since she refused to live in the Governor’s mansion when her husband was elected in California and she wanted an upgrade of the white house when she became the first lady.

When Ronald got sick with Alzheimer’s disease, she was his first care-giver and she made few appearances in public. After his death, she became an advocate for the research of the stem-cell.  She continues to bring the attention to the legacy of her husband up to now and she got many awards for it. Nancy is also known because of many quotes, she gave about life.

Related Biographies