Nancy Davis Reagan, wife of the late President Ronald
Reagan, died Sunday at her home in Los Angeles. She was
94.
The former first lady will perhaps be best remembered for her
loyalty to her husband. She became fiercely protective of him
after a 1981 assassination attempt, and later stood by him as
Alzheimer's disease overtook him in his last years.
In a 1998 Vanity Fair article, she vocalized this loyalty: "When I
say my life began with Ronnie, well, it's true. It did," she said.
Nancy Reagan Through the Years
During her White House years, she sponsored a major drug
prevention crusade aimed at children and young adults. She
toured the U.S. and other nations as part of her "Just Say No"
campaign, traveling almost 250,000 miles.
As the first lady from 1981 to 1989, Reagan endured criticism
for bringing high fashion and a lavish lifestyle to the White
House in a time of recession . Some critics called her "Queen
Nancy."
After her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in
1994, Reagan became an outspoken advocate for Alzheimer's
research and formed the Ronald & Nancy Reagan Research
Institute in Chicago the following year.
Reagan, who died of heart failure, will be buried next to her
late husband at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi
Valley, California.
A 'Painful' Childhood
Born on July 6, 1921, in New York City, Nancy Reagan was the
only child of radio actress Edith Luckett and her husband,
Kenneth Robbins, the son of a once-well-to-do family who
worked as a car salesman. Robbins was a Princeton graduate,
but his daughter's memoir, "My Turn," says that he "wasn't
very ambitious." Nancy's parents soon separated and
divorced.
Nancy's interest in acting was sparked at an early age, as she
went from theater to theater with her mother and enjoyed
experimenting with stage clothes and makeup.
But life as a single working mother proved too difficult for
Luckett, who sent Nancy to live with her uncle and aunt,
Virginia and Audley Galbraith, in Bethesda, Maryland. Though
Nancy occasionally visited her mother during stopovers in
New York, she later recalled their separation as "a painful
period" in her childhood.

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