Former first lady Nancy Reagan dies at 94 in California

Former US first lady Nancy Reagan has died in California at the age of 94.

According to a spokesperson from her office, Nancy Reagan died Sunday morning of congestive heart failure.

She will be buried next to her husband at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

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Nancy Reagan was also a driven and powerful political operator in her own right.

Having caught the acting bug from her mother, young Nancy pursued the profession in NY and Hollywood, where she met with fellow actor Ronald Reagan. NBC’s Bruce Hall takes a look at her life.

In a foretelling of her future, while in high school, Davis was cast as the lead in the play First Lady as the wife of a presidential candidate who goes on to win the election.

“Later, in her long goodbye with President Reagan, she became a voice on behalf of millions of families going through the depleting, aching reality of Alzheimer’s, and took on a new role, as advocate, on behalf of treatments that hold the potential and the promise to improve and save lives”, the Obama’s said. Her lavish lifestyle – in the midst of a recession and with her husband’s administration cutting spending on the needy – inspired the mocking moniker “Queen Nancy”. She made 11 films in all, her last being “Hellcats of the Navy” in 1956, which was the only film she and her husband appeared in together.

Her husband, who affectionately called her “Mommy” while she called him “Ronnie”, died in 2004 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s.

Edith toured the country as an actress, marrying prominent neurosurgeon Loyal Davis, and settling the family in Chicago.

In her statement, Reagan concluded by saying, “Countless people, suffering from many different diseases, stand to benefit from the answers stem cell research can provide”.

They married in 1952 after Reagan divorced his first wife, actress Jane Wyman, beginning a marriage that has been described as a love story to rival any that the couple acted out on the silver screen. They tell me things.

The library said that Mrs. Reagan is survived by her brother, Dr. Richard Davis; her two children with Ronald Reagan – Patti Davis and Ronald Prescott Reagan – and her stepson, Michael Reagan, as well numerous nieces and nephews.

She was thrust into the political life when her husband ran for California governor in 1966 and won. Reagan replied “You just say no“.