Ronald Reagan Is Dead

To ever-admiring wife Nancy, Ronald Reagan's résumé was something to behold. "I mean, sports announcer, pictures, governor, President," she once said. "It's incredible."

The incredible run of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the B-movie actor turned statesman, global leader and 40th President of the United States, ended Saturday. He died shortly after 1 p.m. at his Bel-Air, California, home, where family members had gathered in recent days as his health worsened. The official cause of death was pneumonia. He was 93.

According to broadcast reports, Reagan's body was expected to be transported to his namesake library and museum in Simi Valley, north of Los Angeles, and then flown to Washington, D.C., to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

While his funeral was expected to be at the National Cathedral, his remains will be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library, CNN said.

Reagan had been saying his "long good-bye," as Nancy Reagan put it once to CNN, since disclosing in November 1994 that he was afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, the neurological disorder that eventually robs sufferers of their movement, their memories and, indeed, themselves.

"I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life," Reagan, then 83, wrote in an open letter to his "fellow Americans" announcing his condition.

Long before there was a Governor Schwarzenegger or a Governor Ventura, Reagan succeeded wildly in debunking the notion that actors could not be taken seriously in politics. He took a screen career that plumbed the depths of Bedtime for Bonzo, and parlayed the residual celebrity into the California governorship and, later, the U.S. presidency.

It has been said, and not loosely considering the quality of fare such as Bonzo, that Commander in Chief was Reagan's greatest role. Two decades removed from his election to the White House, he remained an icon beloved by admirers, and grudgingly admired by detractors who could not dismiss, nor sometimes explain, the appeal of the one called the "Great Communicator."

In 2003, CBS experienced the full wrath of the Reagan faithful, when it scheduled a miniseries, ostensibly a love story about Ronald and Nancy Reagan, for the November sweeps. Conservatives and the former President's family blasted The Reagans sight unseen. Weeks before it was to air, CBS pulled the show, declaring it an "[un]balanced portrayal," and passing it off to cable's Showtime.

It's unlikely Reagan, having years before been forced from the public eye by Alzheimer's, knew anything of the controversy. It's likely a healthier Reagan would have had a good line about the matter. Whether it be a quip at a debate, or a message to a nation grieving from a space-shuttle disaster, Reagan was a master of the right thing to say. In a departure of the usual order of things, he had better dialogue in the real world, than on the movie set.

As an actor, Reagan appeared in more than 50 films, beginning with the 1937 murder mystery Love Is on the Air. By 1943, on the strength of the wartime rouser This Is the Army and the 1942 small-town melodrama Kings Row, he was, in spite of his latter-day reputation as a strictly B-list player, Hollywood's number one box-office draw.

But, as Edmund Morris' 1999 biographical portrait, Dutch, pointed out, Reagan had no sooner reached the peak of his Hollywood career when he peaked. Serving in the real Army through 1945--he was stationed stateside; poor vision made him ineligible for overseas combat--he was thirtysomething and at loose ends upon returning to civilian life. Unmemorable stuff such as Bonzo ensued.

If he wasn't an especially blessed movie star, Reagan made the most of his opportunities. From Kings Row, he extracted the line, "Where's the rest of me?," for the title of his 1965 autobiography; from Knute Rockne, All American, he borrowed his character's "Win one for the Gipper" message to rally the political troops.

Stories of him being considered, or even offered what would become the famed Humphrey Bogart role in Casablanca, were nothing more than stories--the source being an item planted in the Hollywood Reporter by Warner Bros. to keep the name of Reagan, then starring in the studio's King's Row, in bold print, according to the hoax-busting Website, Urban Legends Reference Pages (www.snopes.com).

Of all his roles, it was Notre Dame great George "Gipper" Gipp, a man who remained determined in the face of adversity, with whom the famously optimistic Reagan most identified.

"I'd been a sports announcer, and Iíd told the story of George Gipp on the air on a sports program," Reagan told interviewer Gene Griessman. "I knew the lines without having to memorize them."

Born Feb. 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, the young Reagan worked as a sportscaster for baseball's Chicago Cubs before winning a screen test with Warner Brothers in 1937.

He had two Hollywood marriages--the first, to Jane Wyman dissolved in 1948, around the time she won the Oscar for Johnny Belinda; the second, to Hellcats of the Navy costar Nancy Davis endured--famously so. The couple wed in 1952 and became inseparable for the next six decades. The new Mrs. Reagan perfected the Adoring Political Spouse Gaze as she stood by her man from Sacramento, California, to Washington, D.C.

Reagan's vote-getting ability was first tested in Hollywood, where he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947. He served until 1952, and again from 1959-60. The onetime Democrat presided over the union during the Red Scare-fueled Congressional hearings that left actors, writers and directors unemployable and blacklisted.

When his second-rung film career petered out, Reagan found new life on TV, starting in 1954, as genial host of General Electric Theater. He remained in prime time until 1965, when he left his hosting duties on Death Valley Days, published his autobiography and set himself up for a run for the California governorship. A year later, he defeated Democratic incumbent Edmund G. Brown to take the state house, the first landslide election for the Republican party's new star. He won a second gubernatorial term in 1970.

Reagan mounted unsuccessful bids for the White House in 1968 and 1976, before shellacking Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Sworn in as the nation's oldest President at age 69 in 1981, Reagan enjoyed a popular two-term Oval Office run. By the conservative faithful, he was the man who tore down the Soviet Iron Curtain, and whose fiscal plan, coined Reaganomics, helped bankroll the high-flying 1980s. By the loyal opposition, he was the man who, short version, tried to sell the concept of catsup as a vegetable.

The Oval Office's first divorcee, Reagan played the role of father to four children. Michael Reagan, adopted with Jane Wyman, became a radio talk-show host. Patti Davis, his eldest child by Nancy Reagan, dabbled in acting, penned Daddy Dearest-esque novels, and finally reconciled with her parents. Ron Reagan Jr., also with Nancy Reagan, joined the ballet, danced in his underwear for a Saturday Night Live takeoff on Risky Business, and followed his father's footsteps as a TV host.

Eldest daughter Maureen Reagan, with Wyman, was the only offspring to follow the footsteps into politics. After some minor TV and film work, she became a somewhat major voice in California, and launched unsuccessful bids for Congress and the U.S. Senate. She died in 2001, at age 60, of melanoma. Her father did not attend her funeral. "He would be confused. With what he's got going on in his own life, attending would do more harm," Michael Reagan told the Associated Press at the time.

Prior to being stricken with Alzheimer's, Reagan was remarkably resilient. During his White House years alone, he survived a 1981 assassin's bullet, and surgeries for colon, prostrate and skin cancer.

Reagan's post-White House career was only briefly carried out in public. Following some high-profile and high-paying speech-making gigs, Reagan retreated to his California residences, fading away as the ravages of Alzheimer's became more pronounced. In 2001, at age 89, he suffered a broken hip in a fall at home. At one point, Reagan was in the same hospital as daughter Maureen.

In February 2001, he turned 90, becoming, at the time, one of only three U.S. presidents to reach that milestone. (Former President Ford added to the exclusive club's ranks in July 2003.)

Reagan's landmark birthday was marked in private. A man who charmed Hollywood and conquered Washington no longer took visitors.

Said Nancy Reagan to CNN's Larry King in 2001: "I think Ronnie would want people to remember him as he was."