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Nancy Reagan

Nancy Reagan

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

2024

as Self (archive footage)

Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields

2023

as Self (archive footage)

The New Air Force One: Flying Fortress

2021

as Self (archive footage)

Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy

2021

as Self (archive footage)

Zappa

2020

as Self (archive footage)

The Reagans

2020

as Self (archive footage)

First Ladies

2020

as Self (archive footage)

The Way I See It

2020

as Self (archive footage)

Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn

2019

as Self (archive footage)

The Family

2019

as Self (archive footage)

Reversing Roe

2018

as Self (archive footage)

The Road to Mass Incarceration

2018

as Self

Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web

2017

as Herself (archive footage)

Get Me Roger Stone

2017

as Self (archive footage)

The Reagan Show

2017

as Self (archive footage)

HyperNormalisation

2016

as Self (archive footage)

13th

2016

as Self (archive footage)

How to Win the US Presidency

2016

as Self (archive footage)

The Making of Trump

2015

as Self (archive footage)

Narcos

2015

as Self (archive footage)

Kill the Messenger

2014

as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

The Presidents' Gatekeepers

2013

as Self (archive footage)

The '80s: The Decade That Made Us

2013

as Self (archive footage)

Our Nixon

2013

as Self

The House I Live In

2012

as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Reagan

2011

as Self (archive footage)

Ronald Reagan: An American Journey

2011

as Self

Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics

2010

as Self (archive footage)

Casino Jack and the United States of Money

2010

as Self (archive footage)

How to Win the TV Debate

2010

as Self (archive footage)

Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime

2010

as Herself/archival footage

All the Presidents' Wives

2008

as Self

La Coupe Stanley à Montréal en 1993

2008

as Self (archive footage)

Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven

2007

as Self

The Queen at 80

2006

as Self

Stand-up Reagan

2004

as Self (archive footage)

Remembering Reagan at His Ranch

2004

as (archive footage)

The State Funeral of Ronald Reagan

2004

as Self

Family Fundamentals

2002

as Self - First Lady (archive footage)

Reagan

1998

as Self

Inside the White House

1996

as Self (archive footage)

The State Funeral of Richard Nixon

1994

as Self

Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol

1990

as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To

1990

as (archive footage)

James Stewart: A Wonderful Life

1988

as Self

The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special

1988

as Herself

The Second Inauguration of Ronald Reagan

1985

as Self

Anxiety. Thoughts of an Old Man

1984

as Self (archive footage)

Tyranny of the Status Quo: Beneficiaries

1984

as Self (Archival Footage)

Tyranny of the Status Quo: Bureaucrats

1984

as Self (Archival Footage)

Tyranny of the Status Quo: Politicians

1984

as Self (Archival Footage)

The Chemical People

1983

The Killing of America

1981

as Self (archive footage)

The Inauguration of Ronald Reagan

1981

as Self

Diff'rent Strokes

1978

Great Performances

1971

as Self

87th Precinct

1961

as Diane King

The Tall Man

1960

as Sarah Wiley

Crash Landing

1958

as Helen Williams

Wagon Train

1957

as Mrs. Baxter

Hellcats of the Navy

1957

as Nurse Lt. Helen Blair

A Child is Born: A Christmas Story Presented by Ronald Reagan

1956

as Wife

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre

1956

as Amy Lawson

The Dark Wave

1956

Climax!

1954

as Carol Peterson

Donovan's Brain

1953

as Janice Cory

General Electric Theater

1953

as Evelyn Kent

General Electric Theater

1953

General Electric Theater

1953

as Betty Anderson

General Electric Theater

1953

as Vicky Carlisle

Shadow in the Sky

1952

as Betty Hopke (as Nancy Davis)

Talk About a Stranger

1952

as Marge Fontaine

It's a Big Country

1951

as Miss Coleman

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

1951

as Nan Gage

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

1951

as Helen

Night Into Morning

1951

as Mrs. Katherine Mead

The Next Voice You Hear...

1950

as Mary Smith

Shadow on the Wall

1950

as Dr. Caroline Canford

East Side, West Side

1949

as Helen Lee

The Doctor and the Girl

1949

as Mariette Corday

Portrait of Jennie

1948

as Teenager in Art Gallery