Nancy Reagan
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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.
Photos
Movies (66)
Al descubierto: Mr. T
2026 · Self (archive footage)
Breakdown: 1975
2025 · (archive footage)
Henry Fonda for President
2025 · Self (archive footage)
Joan Rivers at the BBC
2024 · Self (archive footage)
Commitment to Life
2023 · Self (archive)
The New Air Force One: Flying Fortress
2021 · Self (archive footage)
Crack: Cocaína, corrupción y conspiración
2021 · Self (archive footage)
Zappa
2020 · Self (archive footage)
The Way I See It
2020 · Self (archive footage)
Tirano. Cobarde. Víctima. La historia de Roy Cohn
2019 · Self (archive footage)
Caso Roe: El aborto en los EE. UU.
2018 · Self (archive footage)
The Road to Mass Incarceration
2018 · Self (archive footage)
Hollywood: No Sex, Please!
2018
Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web
2017 · Self (archive footage)
Barry Seal: Sólo en América
2017 · Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Get Me Roger Stone
2017 · Self (archive footage)
The Reagan Show
2017 · Self (archive footage)
HyperNormalisation
2016 · Self (archive footage)
Enmienda XIII
2016 · Self (archive footage)
How to Win the US Presidency
2016 · Self (archive footage)
The Making of Trump
2015 · Self (archive footage)
Maten al mensajero (Kill the Messenger)
2014 · Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
The Presidents' Gatekeepers
2013 · Self (archive footage)
Our Nixon
2013 · Self (archive footage)
The House I Live In
2012 · Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Vito
2011 · Self (archive footage)
Reagan
2011 · Self (archive footage)
Ronald Reagan: An American Journey
2011 · Self
Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics
2010 · Self (archive footage)
How to Win the TV Debate
2010 · Self (archive footage)
Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
2010 · Self (archive footage)
All the Presidents' Wives
2008 · Self
La Coupe Stanley à Montréal en 1993
2008 · Self (archive footage)
Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven
2007 · Self
Stand-up Reagan
2004 · Self (archive footage)
Remembering Reagan at His Ranch
2004 · (archive footage)
Tupac: Resurrection
2003 · Self (archival)
Guts and Glory
2002 · Self (archive footage)
Family Fundamentals
2002 · Self - First Lady (archive footage)
Grass
1999 · Self (archive footage)
Reagan
1998 · Self
Inside the White House
1996 · Self (archive footage)
Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
1990 · Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To
1990 · (archive footage)
I Don't Even Like Apple Pie...
1989 · Self (archive footage)
The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special
1988 · Herself
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
1987 · Self
All Star Party for 'Dutch' Reagan
1985 · Self
Anxiety. Thoughts of an Old Man
1984 · Self (archive footage)
The Chemical People
1983
The Killing of America
1981 · Self (archive footage)
Command Performance: The Stars Salute the President
1981 · Self
Crash Landing
1958 · Helen Williams
Hellcats of the Navy
1957 · Nurse Lt. Helen Blair
A Child is Born: A Christmas Story Presented by Ronald Reagan
1956 · Wife
The Dark Wave
1956
Donovan's Brain
1953 · Janice Cory
Shadow in the Sky
1952 · Betty Hopke (as Nancy Davis)
Talk About a Stranger
1952 · Marge Fontaine
It's a Big Country
1951 · Miss Coleman
Night Into Morning
1951 · Mrs. Katherine Mead
The Next Voice You Hear...
1950 · Mary Smith
Shadow on the Wall
1950 · Dr. Caroline Canford
East Side, West Side
1949 · Helen Lee
The Doctor and the Girl
1949 · Mariette Corday
Portrait of Jennie
1948 · Teenager in Art Gallery
TV shows (21)
America Who Are You?
2026 · Self (archive footage)
La historia de Brooke Shields
2023 · Self (archive footage)
The Reagans
2020 · Self (archive footage)
First Ladies
2020 · Self (archive footage)
The Family
2019 · Self (archive footage)
Narcos
2015 · Self (archive footage)
The '80s: The Decade That Made Us
2013 · Self (archive footage)
Secret Service Secrets
2012 · Nancy Reagan
The Queen at 80
2006 · Self
Entertainment Tonight
1981 · Self
Diff'rent Strokes
1978
Apostrophes
1975 · Self
Great Performances
1971 · Self
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962 · Self
87th Precinct
1961 · Diane King
The Tall Man
1960 · Sarah Wiley
Wagon Train
1957 · Mrs. Baxter
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
1956 · Amy Lawson
Climax!
1954 · Carol Peterson
General Electric Theater
1953 · Evelyn Kent, Betty Anderson, Vicky Carlisle
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
1951 · Nan Gage, Helen