Nancy Reagan
Born
July 6, 1921
Died
March 6, 2016 (94 years old)
Known For
Acting
Place of Birth
New York City, New York, USA
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.
Joan Rivers at the BBC
Self (archive footage)
2024
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
Self (archive footage) · (1 episode)
2023
The New Air Force One: Flying Fortress
Self (archive footage)
2021
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
Self (archive footage)
2021
Zappa
Self (archive footage)
2020
The Reagans
Self (archive footage) · (4 episodes)
2020
First Ladies
Self (archive footage) · (2 episodes)
2020
The Way I See It
Self (archive footage)
2020
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn
Self (archive footage)
2019
The Family
Self (archive footage) · (1 episode)
2019
Reversing Roe
Self (archive footage)
2018
The Road to Mass Incarceration
Self
2018
Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web
Herself (archive footage)
2017
American Made
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
2017
Get Me Roger Stone
Self (archive footage)
2017
The Reagan Show
Self (archive footage)
2017
HyperNormalisation
Self (archive footage)
2016
13th
Self (archive footage)
2016
How to Win the US Presidency
Self (archive footage)
2016
The Making of Trump
Self (archive footage)
2015
Narcos
Self (archive footage) · (1 episode)
2015
Kill the Messenger
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
2014
The Presidents' Gatekeepers
Self (archive footage)
2013
The '80s: The Decade That Made Us
Self (archive footage) · (1 episode)
2013
Our Nixon
Self
2013
The House I Live In
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
2012
Reagan
Self (archive footage)
2011
Ronald Reagan: An American Journey
Self
2011
Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics
Self (archive footage)
2010
Casino Jack and the United States of Money
Self (archive footage)
2010
How to Win the TV Debate
Self (archive footage)
2010
Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
Self (archive footage)
2010
All the Presidents' Wives
Self
2008
La Coupe Stanley à Montréal en 1993
Self (archive footage)
2008
Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven
Self
2007
The Queen at 80
Self · (1 episode)
2006
Stand-up Reagan
Self (archive footage)
2004
Remembering Reagan at His Ranch
(archive footage)
2004
Tupac: Resurrection
Self (archival)
2003
Family Fundamentals
Self - First Lady (archive footage)
2002
Grass
Self (archive footage)
1999
Reagan
Self
1998
Inside the White House
Self (archive footage)
1996
Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
1990
Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To
(archive footage)
1990
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
Self
1988
The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special
Herself
1988
Anxiety. Thoughts of an Old Man
Self (archive footage)
1984
Tyranny of the Status Quo: Bureaucrats
Self (Archival Footage)
1984
Tyranny of the Status Quo: Beneficiaries
Self (Archival Footage)
1984
Tyranny of the Status Quo: Politicians
Self (Archival Footage)
1984
The Chemical People
1983
Entertainment Tonight
Self · (2 episodes)
1981
The Killing of America
Self (archive footage)
1981
Diff'rent Strokes
(1 episode)
1978
Apostrophes
Self · (1 episode)
1975
Great Performances
Self · (1 episode)
1971
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Self · (1 episode)
1962
87th Precinct
Diane King · (1 episode)
1961
The Tall Man
Sarah Wiley · (1 episode)
1960
Crash Landing
Helen Williams
1958
Wagon Train
Mrs. Baxter · (1 episode)
1957
Hellcats of the Navy
Nurse Lt. Helen Blair
1957
A Child is Born: A Christmas Story Presented by Ronald Reagan
Wife
1956
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
Amy Lawson · (1 episode)
1956
The Dark Wave
1956
Climax!
Carol Peterson · (1 episode)
1954
Donovan's Brain
Janice Cory
1953
General Electric Theater
Evelyn Kent · (1 episode)
1953
General Electric Theater
(1 episode)
1953
General Electric Theater
Betty Anderson · (1 episode)
1953
General Electric Theater
Vicky Carlisle · (1 episode)
1953
Shadow in the Sky
Betty Hopke (as Nancy Davis)
1952
Talk About a Stranger
Marge Fontaine
1952
It's a Big Country
Miss Coleman
1951
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Nan Gage · (1 episode)
1951
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Helen · (1 episode)
1951
Night Into Morning
Mrs. Katherine Mead
1951
The Next Voice You Hear...
Mary Smith
1950
Shadow on the Wall
Dr. Caroline Canford
1950
East Side, West Side
Helen Lee
1949
The Doctor and the Girl
Mariette Corday
1949
Portrait of Jennie
Teenager in Art Gallery
1948