Nancy Reagan
Acting • Born 1921-07-06 – Died 2016-03-06
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.
Filmography
80 credits
The Dark Wave
Movie • 1956
Family Fundamentals
Movie • 2002
Self - First Lady (archive footage)
Shadow on the Wall
Movie • 1950
Dr. Caroline Canford
Donovan's Brain
Movie • 1953
Janice Cory
Zappa
Movie • 2020
Self (archive footage)
The Next Voice You Hear...
Movie • 1950
Mary Smith
Anxiety. Thoughts of an Old Man
Movie • 1984
Self (archive footage)
Hellcats of the Navy
Movie • 1957
Nurse Lt. Helen Blair
The New Air Force One: Flying Fortress
Movie • 2021
Self (archive footage)
It's a Big Country
Movie • 1951
Miss Coleman
Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven
Movie • 2007
Self
Talk About a Stranger
Movie • 1952
Marge Fontaine
Crash Landing
Movie • 1958
Helen Williams
East Side, West Side
Movie • 1949
Helen Lee
Remembering Reagan at His Ranch
Movie • 2004
(archive footage)
Shadow in the Sky
Movie • 1952
Betty Hopke (as Nancy Davis)
Night Into Morning
Movie • 1951
Mrs. Katherine Mead
How to Win the TV Debate
Movie • 2010
Self (archive footage)
The Road to Mass Incarceration
Movie • 2018
Self (archive footage)
Ronald Reagan: An American Journey
Movie • 2011
Self
La Coupe Stanley à Montréal en 1993
Movie • 2008
Self (archive footage)
HyperNormalisation
Movie • 2016
Self (archive footage)
The Making of Trump
Movie • 2015
Self (archive footage)
Portrait of Jennie
Movie • 1948
Teenager in Art Gallery
The Reagan Show
Movie • 2017
Self (archive footage)
All the Presidents' Wives
Movie • 2008
Self
Reagan
Movie • 1998
Self
Inside the White House
Movie • 1996
Self (archive footage)
The Presidents' Gatekeepers
Movie • 2013
Self (archive footage)
Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To
Movie • 1990
(archive footage)
Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
Movie • 2010
Self (archive footage)
Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web
Movie • 2017
Self (archive footage)
Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
Movie • 1990
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
Movie • 1987
Self
The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special
Movie • 1988
Herself
Kill the Messenger
Movie • 2014
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
The Doctor and the Girl
Movie • 1949
Mariette Corday
Reversing Roe
Movie • 2018
Self (archive footage)
Get Me Roger Stone
Movie • 2017
Self (archive footage)
How to Win the US Presidency
Movie • 2016
Self (archive footage)
Our Nixon
Movie • 2013
Self (archive footage)
Reagan
Movie • 2011
Self (archive footage)
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn
Movie • 2019
Self (archive footage)
The Way I See It
Movie • 2020
Self (archive footage)
The House I Live In
Movie • 2012
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Stand-up Reagan
Movie • 2004
Self (archive footage)
Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics
Movie • 2010
Self (archive footage)
The Chemical People
Movie • 1983
13th
Movie • 2016
Self (archive footage)
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
Movie • 2021
Self (archive footage)
Joan Rivers at the BBC
Movie • 2024
Self (archive footage)
A Child is Born: A Christmas Story Presented by Ronald Reagan
Movie • 1956
Wife
Grass
Movie • 1999
Self (archive footage)
Tupac: Resurrection
Movie • 2003
Self (archival)
American Made
Movie • 2017
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Hollywood: No Sex, Please!
Movie • 2018
Henry Fonda for President
Movie • 2025
Self (archive footage)
Diff'rent Strokes
TV • 1978
General Electric Theater
TV • 1953
Evelyn Kent
The Tall Man
TV • 1960
Sarah Wiley
87th Precinct
TV • 1961
Diane King
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
TV • 1951
Nan Gage
Climax!
TV • 1954
Carol Peterson
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
TV • 1956
Amy Lawson
The Queen at 80
TV • 2006
Self
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
TV • 2023
Self (archive footage)
General Electric Theater
TV • 1953
General Electric Theater
TV • 1953
Betty Anderson
General Electric Theater
TV • 1953
Vicky Carlisle
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
TV • 1951
Helen
Narcos
TV • 2015
Self (archive footage)
Entertainment Tonight
TV • 1981
Self
The '80s: The Decade That Made Us
TV • 2013
Self (archive footage)
Apostrophes
TV • 1975
Self
The Family
TV • 2019
Self (archive footage)
Wagon Train
TV • 1957
Mrs. Baxter
First Ladies
TV • 2020
Self (archive footage)
Great Performances
TV • 1971
Self
The Reagans
TV • 2020
Self (archive footage)
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
TV • 1962
Self