Nancy Reagan

First Lady Biography: Nancy Reagan:
Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins; July 6, 1921) is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was an influential First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989.Nancy was born in New York City; 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 Hollywood 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.
Father:
Kenneth Seymour Robbins, born 1894, February 23, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, used car salesman; married secondly, Patricia Brinckerhoff Cross in 1928; died, 1972, February 2, New Jersey
Mother:
Edith P. Luckett, born 1888, July 16, Washington, D.C.; married first to Kenneth Robbins, 1916, June 27; married secondly to Loyal Davis, 1929, May 20; worked after marriage as actress, playing a socialite and a maid on an NBC radio soap opera program "The Betty and Bob Show." A Democrat, she was a close friend of Chicago mayor Ed Kelley; died, 1987, October 26, Phoenix, Arizona .
Ancestry:
English, Spanish; The most recent of Nancy Reagan's ancestors to immigrate to the United States was eight generations before her, in the line of her paternal grandmother, John Moseley, born in Dorchester, England in 1638. All of her traced ancestors came from England. On a presidential state visit to Spain during which she tried a few flamenco dance steps, Mrs. Reagan told Washington Post reporter Donnie Radcliffe that there was a claim of Spanish ancestors in her family tree.
Birth Order:
Nancy Reagan is an only child. She has a stepbrother, Richard Davis (born 1927), from the first marriage of her adoptive father Loyal Davis.
Within sixty days, Nancy Reagan redecorated the family quarters using over $822,000 in private donation funds.
Physical Appearance:
5' 4", brown hair, hazel eyes
Religious Affiliation:
Presbyterian
Education:
Sidwell Friends School, Washington, D.C. 1925-1928; Girl's Latin School, Chicago, Illinois, 1929-1939; Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1939-1943, bachelor's degree in dramatic arts.
Marriage:
30 years old, married 1952, March 6 to Ronald Reagan, born 1911, February 6, Tampico, Illinois, Screen Actors Guild president, film and television actor, former radio sports announcer at the Little Brown Church, North Hollywood. After a honeymoon at the Mission Inn, in Riverside, California and Phoenix, Arizona, the Reagans lived in a series of homes, settling in a modern home in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles, built and provided for by General Electric, the company for whom Ronald Reagan served as a national spokesman. The GE house was outfitted with all of the company's state-of-the-art technology.
Husband's First Marriage:
Ronald Reagan first married on 1940, January 26 to Sarah Jane Mayfield ("Jane Wyman"), born 1914, January 4.
Children:
One son, one daughter; Patricia Ann Reagan ("Patti Davis"), born 1952, October 22; Ronald Prescott Reagan, born 1958, May 20Stepchildren: From Ronald Reagan's marriage to Jane Wyman; Maureen Reagan, born 1941, January 4, 1941, died 2001, August 8; Michael Reagan, born 1945, March 18 (adopted).
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.Former First Lady Nancy Reagan has remained highly active in both public and private. She engages in a full life with her friends and family in California, despite a 2008 fall requiring hospitalization, from which she fully recovered. She has grown especially close to her daughter Patti Davis, as poignantly recounted in the latter’s 2009 book, The Lives Our Mothers Leave Us.
Filmography:
* The Doctor and the Girl (1949)
* East Side, West Side (1949)
* Shadow on the Wall (1950)
* The Next Voice You Hear... (1950)
* Night Into Morning (1951)
* It's a Big Country (1951)   
* Talk About a Stranger (1952)
* Shadow in the Sky (1952)
* Donovan's Brain (1953)
* The Dark Wave (1956)
* Hellcats of the Navy (1957)
* Crash Landing (originally announced as Rescue at Sea) (1958)
Breast cancer:
In October 1987, a mammogram detected a lesion in Nancy Reagan's left breast and she was subsequently diagnosed with breast cancer. She chose to undergo a mastectomy rather than a lumpectomy and the breast was removed on October 17, 1987. Ten days after the operation, her mother, Edith Luckett Davis, died in Phoenix, Arizona, leading Nancy to dub the period "a terrible month".After the surgery, more women across the country had mammograms, an example of the influence the First Lady possesses.