Nancy Reagan
- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- July 6, 1921
- Died
- March 6, 2016 (aged 94)
- Birthplace
- New York City, New York, USA
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins; July 6, 1921 – March 6, 2016) was an American film actress and the wife of Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States. She served as the First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Davis' film career began with small supporting roles in two films that were released in 1949, The Doctor and the Girl with Glenn Ford and 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." In 1951, Davis appeared in Night into Morning, her favorite screen role, a study of bereavement starring Ray Milland. 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." MGM released Davis from her contract in 1952; she sought a broader range of parts, but also married Reagan, keeping her professional name as Davis, and had her first child that year. She soon starred in the science fiction film Donovan's Brain (1953); 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 next-to-last movie, Hellcats of the Navy (1957), she played nurse Lieutenant Helen Blair, and appeared in a film 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 satisfactorily, and "does well with what she has to work with." Author Garry Wills has said that Davis was generally underrated as an actress because her constrained part in Hellcats was her most widely seen performance. In addition, Davis downplayed her Hollywood goals: promotional material from MGM 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, Crash Landing (1958), Davis appeared for a brief time as a guest star in television dramas, such as the Zane Grey Theatre episode "The Long Shadow" (1961), where she played opposite Ronald Reagan, as well as Wagon Train and The Tall Man, until she retired as an actress in 1962.
Known For
Photos
Filmography
Untold Mr. T: I Pity the Fool
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
America Who Are You?
TV · as Self (archive footage) · 2 eps
Henry Fonda for President
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Breakdown: 1975
Movie · as (archive footage)
Joan Rivers at the BBC
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Commitment to Life
Movie · as Self (archive)
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
TV · as Self (archive footage) · 1 ep
The New Air Force One: Flying Fortress
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Zappa
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
The Way I See It
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
First Ladies
TV · as Self (archive footage) · 2 eps
The Reagans
TV · as Self (archive footage) · 4 eps
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
The Family
TV · as Self (archive footage) · 1 ep
The Road to Mass Incarceration
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Reversing Roe
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Hollywood: No Sex, Please!
Movie
The Reagan Show
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Get Me Roger Stone
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
American Made
Movie · as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
HyperNormalisation
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
How to Win the US Presidency
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
13th
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
The Making of Trump
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Narcos
TV · as Self (archive footage) · 1 ep
Kill the Messenger
Movie · as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
The Presidents' Gatekeepers
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Our Nixon
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
The '80s: The Decade That Made Us
TV · as Self (archive footage) · 1 ep
The House I Live In
Movie · as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Secret Service Secrets
TV · as Nancy Reagan · 3 eps
Ronald Reagan: An American Journey
Movie · as Self
Reagan
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Vito
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
How to Win the TV Debate
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
La Coupe Stanley à Montréal en 1993
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
All the Presidents' Wives
Movie · as Self
Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven
Movie · as Self
The Queen at 80
TV · as Self · 1 ep
Remembering Reagan at His Ranch
Movie · as (archive footage)
Stand-up Reagan
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Tupac: Resurrection
Movie · as Self (archival)
Family Fundamentals
Movie · as Self - First Lady (archive footage)
Guts and Glory
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Grass
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Reagan
Movie · as Self
Inside the White House
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To
Movie · as (archive footage)
Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
Movie · as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
I Don't Even Like Apple Pie...
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special
Movie · as Herself
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
Movie · as Self
All Star Party for 'Dutch' Reagan
Movie · as Self
Anxiety. Thoughts of an Old Man
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
The Chemical People
Movie
The Killing of America
Movie · as Self (archive footage)
Command Performance: The Stars Salute the President
Movie · as Self
Entertainment Tonight
TV · as Self · 2 eps
Diff'rent Strokes
TV · 1 ep
Apostrophes
TV · as Self · 1 ep
Great Performances
TV · as Self · 1 ep
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
TV · as Self · 1 ep
87th Precinct
TV · as Diane King · 1 ep
The Tall Man
TV · as Sarah Wiley · 1 ep
Crash Landing
Movie · as Helen Williams
Hellcats of the Navy
Movie · as Nurse Lt. Helen Blair
Wagon Train
TV · as Mrs. Baxter · 1 ep
The Dark Wave
Movie
A Child is Born: A Christmas Story Presented by Ronald Reagan
Movie · as Wife
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
TV · as Amy Lawson · 1 ep
Climax!
TV · as Carol Peterson · 1 ep
Donovan's Brain
Movie · as Janice Cory
General Electric Theater
TV · as Evelyn Kent, Betty Anderson, Vicky Carlisle · 1 ep
Talk About a Stranger
Movie · as Marge Fontaine
Shadow in the Sky
Movie · as Betty Hopke (as Nancy Davis)
It's a Big Country
Movie · as Miss Coleman
Night Into Morning
Movie · as Mrs. Katherine Mead
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
TV · as Nan Gage, Helen · 1 ep
Shadow on the Wall
Movie · as Dr. Caroline Canford
The Next Voice You Hear...
Movie · as Mary Smith
East Side, West Side
Movie · as Helen Lee
The Doctor and the Girl
Movie · as Mariette Corday
Portrait of Jennie
Movie · as Teenager in Art Gallery