Nancy Reagan

 
Well, so Nancy Reagan has died at age 94. I never liked her as an actress. Saw her in Donavan's Brain and The Next Voice You Hear and on a very special episode of Diff'rent Strokes. It wasn't her fault, but she had this big giant head.

Ronald Reagan addressed her as "Mommy".

She met Reagan when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild. Years later, she falsely claimed that there was another actress named Nancy Davis who was a member of the Communist Party, so Nancy went to Ronnie so as not to be blacklisted.

It was a lie. The other Nancy Davis was not in the Communist Party, and she pointed out that she had appeared in movies using the name Nancy Davis well before Nancy Reagan came along. Under the rules of the Screen Actors Guild, it was the then-future Mrs Reagan who had to change her name, but she was sleeping with the union's crooked president, so the original Nancy Davis was forced to adopt a new stage name.

Nancy was two months pregnant when she married Reagan.

Like Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan was a Goldwater supporter.

Her son, Ron, Jr., was best friends with Eric Douglas, the son of Kirk Douglas. They were going to take Eric along when they went to the ranch one weekend, but Eric saw the Goldwater bumper stickers on the Reagan family station wagon and said, "Boooo, Goldwater."

Nancy flew into a rage. She called Kirk Douglas's wife, Anne, to come pick him up, and the Reagan family drove away leaving Eric with the housekeeper. He was five-years-old. Rather impressive he could read the name "Goldwater".

During the Bush, Jr, years, you had to feel for Laura Bush having spent all those years married to an alcoholic and having that horrible mother-in-law. Laura was the only member of the First Family who didn't have a criminal record--her husband and daughters had all been convicted on drunk charges. But I could never work up any sympathy for Nancy Reagan.