Rain began to fall over the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, north of Los Angeles, as the service ended and a military honor guard carried the flower-bedecked mahogany casket from the memorial gathering beneath a large white tent to a nearby grave site on the grounds.
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Others expected include television news veterans Katie Couric, Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer, as well as such showbiz figures as Anjelica Huston, Wayne Newton, Gary Sinise and Mr. T, who was a supporter of Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug campaign.
The former first lady’s funeral opened with a musical prelude by the Santa Susana High School Advanced Women’s Choir and Abbe Road A Cappella, and an instrumental section by the First Marine Division Band, Marine Corps Camp Pendleton.
Hello, everybody. This past week, we lost an American icon and one of the most influential figures of her time – former First Lady Nancy Reagan.
However Mrs Reagan rejected a desperate plea from her friend, Rock Hudson, in 1985 to get him transferred to a French hospital for AIDS treatment, nine weeks before he died.
What she said didn’t. “But yet, she was the first lady of the greatest country on Earth”.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said Nancy and Ronald Reagan completed each other. “But he went through the rest of the massage, never said a word, and after the masseur left he said to my mother, ‘I don’t think we can have him back anymore.’ ‘Why, ‘ she asked him, ‘what happened?’ ‘Well, he kissed me'”.
Carlos Osorio/AP Hillary Clinton drew criticism for praising the Reagan administration’s response to the AID crisis. First lady Michelle Obama, she sat right next to president George W. Bush and former first lady laura bush.
Californians like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and current Gov. She could a bit excessive. The Reagans married in 1952, when he was 41 and she was 31. Nancy saved them all in a shopping bag in her closet, Baker said. Reagan died in June 2004.
Among those slated to speak are her and President Reagan’s two children, Patti Davis and Ron Reagan, as well as former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and former Reagan Chief of Staff James Baker. The ranch was sold when the ex- president was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994.
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The Reagan Library is scheduled to reopen to the public at 10 a.m. Sunday.
