- GRANITE BAY, Calif.
(Reuters) - Maureen Reagan, the colorful and courageous daughter of former
U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the only one of his four children to follow
him into the political spotlight, died on Wednesday after a five-year battle
with cancer. She was 60.
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- Reagan, the daughter of Reagan's first wife actress Jane
Wyman, died at her home near Sacramento, surrounded by members of her family,
a family statement said.
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- A sometime actor in television commercials who became
a speaker, author and Republican activist unafraid of clashing with the
party conservatives her father once embraced, Reagan was first diagnosed
with malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, in 1996.
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- After a period of remission, the cancer returned late
last year and spread to several parts of her body including her brain.
Last month, after undergoing a final round of radiation treatment at a
Sacramento area hospital, she returned home.
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- The oldest of the four children of the actor-turned-California
governor and U.S. president, Reagan grew up in the shadow of her Hollywood
parents. Later she became a political analyst, talk show host and public
servant in her own right and in recent years -- after her father became
too ill with Alzheimer's to make public appearances -- became a passionate
advocate and articulate spokeswoman for the Chicago-based Alzheimer's Association.
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- The 90-year-old Ronald Reagan was unable to comment on
the death of his daughter due to his condition. But former first lady Nancy
Reagan issued an emotional statement calling Maureen Reagan ``a special
part of my life since I met Ronnie over 50 years ago.''
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- ``Like all fathers and daughters, there was a unique
bond between them. Maureen had his gift of communication, his love of politics,
and when she believed in a cause, she was not afraid to fight hard for
it. ... Ronnie and I loved Mermie very much. We will miss her terribly.''
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- During her father's eight years in office, Maureen Reagan
was celebrated for her work on behalf of women and the Republican Party.
She served a two-year term as co-chair of the Republican National Committee
Commission on the Status of Women, and as a board member of the Alzheimer's
Association.
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- President Bush and his wife Laura expressed their condolences,
noting her efforts for Alzheimer's research. ''Laura and I are deeply saddened
to learn of Maureen Reagan's death,'' the president said in a statement
from Crawford, Texas, where he is on vacation.
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- California Gov. Gray Davis, calling Reagan ``the very
spirit of vitality and optimism,'' said he hoped ``her family finds solace
in the extraordinary contribution she made to our country.''
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- Born Jan. 4, 1941, Maureen Reagan was the first child
of Reagan and his first wife, Oscar-winning actress Wyman. While as an
adult she embraced her father's celebrity and politics, her early life
was marked by the insecurity children of actors often suffer, according
to her 1989 autobiography, ``First Father, First Daughter: A Memoir.''
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- Her parents, who were featured players at Warner Bros.,
separated when she was 7 and her younger brother, Michael, was 3. It was
Ronald Reagan who broke the news to his daughter. Soon afterward she was
sent to a boarding school.
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- ``Part of me interpreted the decision to send me away
to school as a signal that I had done something unspeakably wrong or that
I no longer fit in at home. In a way, I didn't,'' she wrote.
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- In 1952, Ronald Reagan married actress Nancy Davis. They
had two children, Patti Davis and Ron Reagan.
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- FROM 'PARTRIDGE FAMILY' TO POLITICS
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- In her late teens and early 20s Maureen Reagan drifted
in an attempt to find herself. She dropped out of college, married briefly
and moved around the country. During the late 1960s and early 1970s she
tried her hand at acting, appearing in television commercials and such
popular shows as ``The Partridge Family'' and ``Marcus Welby, M.D.''
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- Eventually she fell into politics. She won approval from
the Republican Party to work on her father's campaigns, despite being known
as an outspoken feminist who disagreed with him on abortion and the Equal
Rights Amendment.
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- ``She brought an enthusiasm that was bigger than life
to everything she did,'' Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi
said in a statement. ``The loss of Maureen Reagan makes the world a much
quieter and more boring place.''
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- After an unsuccessful bid in California for a Republican
U.S. Senate nomination in 1982 she narrowly missed the GOP nomination for
a new House seat in 1992.
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- In ``Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,'' released in
1999, author Edmund Morris wrote that Maureen Reagan could not emulate
her famous parents, yet shared many of their gifts.
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- ``Had she Jane Wyman's graceful body, she might have
made a career in show business, since she sings and acts well,'' Morris
said. ``Had she Ronald Reagan's emotional discipline, she might be an assembly-woman
somewhere. She is fascinated by politics, and is, if anything, a better
speaker than he is.''
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- Reagan herself, in an interview last year with the Sacramento
Bee, said she spent her youth fighting for her own identity, but eventually
embraced her family's fame.
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- ``I said, now it's time for you to be somebody's kid.
It's OK because you're not in anybody's shadow anymore.''
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- After her father became too ill to function, she took
on his legacy as her life's work, serving on the Alzheimer's Association
board, acting as a trustee of her father's alma mater, Eureka College in
Illinois, and supporting the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, based
in Simi Valley, California.
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- To that end, she postponed medical treatments several
times to dedicate buildings and make speeches.
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- ``The Alzheimer's cause has had no better champion than
Maureen Reagan,'' Alzheimer's Association President Alan Stone said in
a statement.
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- Maureen Reagan served as the chief stand-in for her father
and for Mrs. Reagan and helped care for the former president.
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- Unlike her half-sister, Patti Davis, who has publicly
clashed with her parents, Maureen Reagan maintained a close relationship
with Wyman, Nancy Reagan, and her father. She was said to have phoned Wyman
daily and Mrs. Reagan weekly. In interviews she always seemed to gush about
her dad.
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- ``To me, he will always be this gorgeous bronze Adonis
when I was a little kid,'' she told the Bee. ``I just believe that we will
talk again.''
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- Reagan is survived by her husband, Dennis Revell, a daughter,
Rita, 15, her mother, Wyman, 83, her father, the former president, 90,
and her brother, Michael.
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