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Nancy later described longing for her mother during those years: "My favorite times were when Mother had a job in New York, and Aunt Virgie would take me by train to stay with her." After their separation, her mother traveled the country to pursue acting jobs and Robbins was raised in Bethesda, Maryland, for six years by her aunt, Virginia Luckett, and uncle, Audley Gailbraith, where she attended Sidwell Friends School for kindergarten through second grade. Her parents separated soon after her birth and were divorced in 1928. Robbins lived her first two years in Flushing, Queens, a neighborhood of New York City, in a two-story house on Roosevelt Avenue between 149th and 150th Streets. From birth, she was commonly called Nancy. Her godmother was silent-film-star Alla Nazimova. She was the only child of Kenneth Seymour Robbins (1892–1972), a farmer turned car salesman who had been born into a once-well-to-do family, and his actress wife, Edith Prescott Luckett (1888–1987). Davis gave her birth date as July 6, 1923, a date cited through most of her life. Young Reagan with her mother, actress Edith Luckett in January 1931.Īnne Frances Robbins was born on July 6, 1921, at Sloane Hospital for Women in Uptown Manhattan. Reagan remained active within the Reagan Library and in politics, particularly in support of embryonic stem cell research, until her death from congestive heart failure at age 94 in 2016. Nancy devoted most of her time to caring for her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994, until his death at the age of 93 on June 5, 2004. The couple returned to their home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, after Reagan's time in office. She generally had a strong influence on her husband and played a role in a few of his personnel and diplomatic decisions. More discussion of her role ensued following a 1988 revelation that she had consulted an astrologer to assist in planning the president's schedule after the attempted assassination of her husband in 1981. She championed causes opposed to recreational drug use when she founded the " Just Say No" drug awareness campaign, which was considered her major initiative as First Lady.
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Early in his first term, she was criticized largely due to her decisions both to replace the White House china, which had been paid for by private donations, and to accept free clothing from fashion designers. Reagan became First Lady of the United States in January 1981, following her husband's victory in the 1980 presidential election. Nancy Reagan was the first lady of California when her husband was governor from 1967 to 1975, and she began to work with the Foster Grandparents Program. He had two children from his previous marriage to Jane Wyman and he and Nancy had two children together.
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In 1952, she married Ronald Reagan, who was then president of the Screen Actors Guild. As Nancy Davis, she was a Hollywood actress in the 1940s and 1950s, starring in films such as The Next Voice You Hear., Night into Morning, and Donovan's Brain. When her mother remarried in 1929, she moved to Chicago and later was adopted by her mother's second husband. After her parents separated, she lived in Maryland with an aunt and uncle for six years. Nancy Davis Reagan ( / ˈ r eɪ ɡ ən/ born Anne Frances Robbins July 6, 1921 – March 6, 2016) was an American film actress and the first lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989, as the second wife of president Ronald Reagan.
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