Former US first lady Nancy Reagan dies, aged 94

FORMER US first lady Nancy Reagan has died in California at the age of 94.

Former US First Lady Nancy Reagan at the unveiling of a statue of her husband Ronald Reagan. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

Her assistant, Allison Borio, said Mrs Reagan died on Sunday at her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, of congestive heart failure.

Her marriage to Ronald Reagan lasted 52 years until his death in 2004.

A former actress, she was Mr Reagan’s closest adviser and fierce protector on his journey from actor to governor of California to president of the United States.

Nancy Reagan and her husband, US President Ronald Reagan, in 1988. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

She rushed to his side after he was shot in 1981 by a would-be assassin, and later endured his nearly decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

In recent years she broke with fellow Republicans in backing stem cell research as a way to possibly find a cure for Alzheimer’s.

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