Nancy Reagan, whose fierce devotion to President Ronald Reagan helped make her one of America’s most influential and controversial first ladies, died Sunday at her longtime family home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. She was 94.
The cause was congestive heart failure, her office said in a statement.
“She is once again with the man she loved,” her stepson Michael Reagan wrote on Twitter.
The former Broadway and Hollywood actress brought fashion and flair to the White House, where she acted as her Republican husband’s closest confidante and adviser in his two terms in office from 1981 through 1989.
“She took on the tough jobs that Reagan couldn’t or wouldn’t handle: particularly staff decisions that were sure to make enemies,” former Reagan aide Michael Deaver wrote in the 2004 memoir “Nancy: A Portrait of My Years with Nancy Reagan.”
Her anti-drug stance led to the government’s “Just Say No” campaign, a guest appearance on the TV’s “Diff’rent Strokes” and her husband’s signing of a 1986 law known as the National Crusade for a Drug Free America.
With a closet full of designer clothing — much in a crimson hue that became known as “Reagan Red” — she became a style icon whose fans included Princess Diana.
But her taste for finery — which led her to redecorate the White House and spend $200,000 in contributions on new china during an economic recession — sparked outrage from critics who dubbed her “Queen Nancy.”
She was also criticized following the revelation in 1988 that she consulted a psychic to ensure her husband’s safety after the 1981 assassination attempt in which he was shot.
The fallout forced President Reagan to declare, “No policy or decision in my mind has ever been influenced by astrology.”
She met Ronald Reagan in 1950. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild at the time, and she was seeking help because her name was mistakenly included on a blacklist of suspected communist sympathizers.
They wed March 4, 1952, and she gave birth to daughter Patti the next October and son Ron in 1958. Both children became political liberals, with Patti taking her mother’s maiden name, Davis, to distance herself from her dad.
Reagan already had a daughter, Maureen, and an adopted son, Michael, from his previous marriage to the actress Jane Wyman — which ended in divorce.
Nancy and her hubby made one movie together, 1957’s “Hellcats of the Navy.”
In her 2011 autobiography, Nancy wrote, “Some women have never forgiven me . . . for saying that my life really began when I married Ronnie. But for as long as I can remember, I have wanted to
belong to somebody and to have somebody belong to me.”
The couple was frequently seen holding hands in public, with the president calling her “Mommy” and writing her dozens of love letters that were the subject of a 2000 best-seller.
He died in 2004 at age 93 after a decadelong battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Nancy, meanwhile, was known for casting an adoring look at Reagan during his political speeches. It was dubbed “The Gaze.”
But author Kitty Kelley’s 1991 “Nancy Reagan: An Unauthorized Biography” painted an unflattering portrait, claiming she had a long-running affair with Frank Sinatra that began when her husband
was California’s governor.
The book said the relationship continued past Ronald Reagan’s election as president, with the singer secretly visiting Nancy for lengthy “lunches” at the White House.
Her death followed years of declining health. She underwent a mastectomy in 1987 after a battle with breast cancer and was hospitalized in 2008 after fracturing her pelvis and sacrum in a fall at her home.
Plans call for a public memorial at the Reagan Presidential Library before her funeral and burial next to her beloved hubby.