Nancy Reagan

Biography

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.

Known For

The Dark Wave

Self - First Lady (archive footage)

Family Fundamentals

Dr. Caroline Canford

Shadow on the Wall

Janice Cory

Donovan's Brain

Self (archive footage)

Zappa

Mary Smith

The Next Voice You Hear...

Self (archive footage)

Тревога. Раздумья старого человека

Nurse Lt. Helen Blair

Hellcats of the Navy

Self (archive footage)

The New Air Force One: Flying Fortress

Miss Coleman

It's a Big Country

Self

Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven

Marge Fontaine

Talk About a Stranger

Helen Williams

Crash Landing

Helen Lee

East Side, West Side

(archive footage)

Remembering Reagan at His Ranch

Self (archive footage)

Casino Jack and the United States of Money

Betty Hopke (as Nancy Davis)

Shadow in the Sky

Self (Archival Footage)

Tyranny of the Status Quo: Bureaucrats

Self (Archival Footage)

Tyranny of the Status Quo: Beneficiaries

Self (Archival Footage)

Tyranny of the Status Quo: Politicians

Mrs. Katherine Mead

Night Into Morning

Self (archive footage)

How to Win the TV Debate

Self

The Road to Mass Incarceration

Self

Ronald Reagan: An American Journey

Self (archive footage)

La Coupe Stanley à Montréal en 1993

Self (archive footage)

The Killing of America

Self (archive footage)

HyperNormalisation

Self (archive footage)

The Making of Trump

Teenager in Art Gallery

Portrait of Jennie

Self (archive footage)

The Reagan Show

Self

All the Presidents' Wives

Self

Reagan

Self (archive footage)

Inside the White House

Self (archive footage)

The Presidents' Gatekeepers

(archive footage)

Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To

Self (archive footage)

Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime

Herself (archive footage)

Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol

Self

James Stewart: A Wonderful Life

Herself

The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Kill the Messenger

Mariette Corday

The Doctor and the Girl

Self (archive footage)

Reversing Roe

Self (archive footage)

Get Me Roger Stone

Self (archive footage)

How to Win the US Presidency

Self

Our Nixon

Self (archive footage)

Reagan

Self (archive footage)

Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn

Self (archive footage)

The Way I See It

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

The House I Live In

Self (archive footage)

Stand-up Reagan

Self (archive footage)

Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics

The Chemical People

Self (archive footage)

13th

Self (archive footage)

Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy

Self (archive footage)

Joan Rivers at the BBC

Wife

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

Self (archive footage)

Grass

Self (archival)

Tupac: Resurrection

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

American Made