This portrait of Nancy Reagan by Aaron Shikler shows in detail that when it came to her love for Ronald, she was serious.

Born Anne Frances Robbins, Nancy Davis Reagan was a lot of things before she was the First Lady. She was the daughter of an actress and an absentee father. She was the adopted daughter of a neurosurgeon, which is when her high-society ways fully flowered. She was an English and drama major at Smith College. She was a famous actress and then she was the wife of Ronald Reagan, which according to her, is when her life really started. The romance between Ronald and Nancy Reagan was nothing short of disgustingly sweet. They met when Nancy’s name accidentally ended up on a blacklist of communist sympathizers in Hollywood. To clear up the matter she had to go the the president of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan. Nancy recalled the experience:“I don’t know if it was exactly love at first sight, but it was pretty close.” Anyways, the two bonded over their hatred of commies and the rest is history. They dated for like, two seconds before they got married and from that point on, Ronald said his age was however long he had know Nancy (i.e. second anniversary = 2 years old). Nancy called him “Ronnie” and he called her either “Nancy Pants” or “Mommy.” (Where you at, Freud?) Seven months after their wedding, their daughter Patti was born and Nancy immediately stopped acting in order to raise the children and stepchildren from Ronnie’s previous marriage at home.

She spent most of her life supporting Ronnie in whatever way she could, which sometimes made her the bad guy. When she moved the family out of the governor’s mansion because it was dubbed a “firetrap,” and into a fancy neighborhood in Sacramento, people thought she was a snob. In people’s defense this wasn’t untrue. She does have a salad named after her at the Bel Air Hotel if that’s any indication of her standards.They also though she was a snob when she renovated basically the entire White House just as word broke that the Agricultural Department was serving kids ketchup in school lunches and calling it a vegetable. Not great timing there. It also didn’t help that she was constantly in beautiful, designer clothes, as pictured in this portrait. When Nancy fired Chief of Staff, Donald Regan, people thought she was a big meanie. But what could she do? Ronald was famous for not being able to fire anyone, so she did what she had to do to support her husband, even if it made her look like a bully. It was a classic good cop/bad cop situation, except Nancy never got to play the good cop.