Ronald Reagan at 100: A look back

Former president Ronald Reagan would turn 100 on Feb. 6 if he were alive today. A look back at the man whose legacy still shapes U.S. politics.

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Ronald Reagan at age 4 with his parents, Jack and Nelle, and brother, Neil.

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In 1940 Reagan starred as football player George Gipp in the film "Knute Rockne - All American." Reagan had been an enthusiastic player in high school and at Eureka College, where he was valued more for scrappiness than skills. Four decades later, the film character's nickname was revived by political reporters, who routinely called Reagan "the Gipper."

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Reagan graduated from college in 1932, during the Great Depression, and landed a $10-a-game job broadcasting University of Iowa home football games. In 1933 Reagan moved to WHO, a 50,000-watt radio station in Des Moines, where he became a well-known sports announcer, re-creating play-by-play accounts of Chicago Cubs baseball games from telegraph wire reports.

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In 1943 Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman, celebrate Reagan's starring role in the Irving Berlin musical, "This Is the Army," with dinner at the famous Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. During World War II, Reagan starred in training films while serving as a captain in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945.

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Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman, met while working on a film in 1938. They married Jan. 26, 1940, and a year later, their daughter, Maureen Elizabeth (pictured) was born. In 1945, they adopted a son, Michael Edward. Another child was born four months premature in 1947 and died the same day. Wyman filed for divorce from Reagan in May 1948, saying that he had become "very political" and that she did not share his interests.

/ Reagan family photo

In 1953 Reagan played a frontier marshal in the movie "Law and Order." During the 1950s, Reagan was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, then led a successful strike against leftist movie producers and helped implement a blacklist that prevented suspected communists from working in movies. However, Reagan opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee, which he said smeared liberals who had unwittingly joined leftist organizations.

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Reagan and his second wife, the former actress Nancy Davis, have dinner at the Coconut Grove in Hollywood in April 1957. The Reagans met in Hollywood in 1951. Nancy Davis said later that she knew immediately that Reagan was "the man I wanted to marry." They were married March 4, 1952, and Davis quit acting when their daughter, Patricia Ann, was born later that year. In 1958 Nancy Reagan gave birth to their second child, Ronald Prescott.

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Ronald Reagan shares a laugh with Marilyn Monroe in 1959. In all, Reagan made more than 50 feature films in Hollywood. By the mid-1950s, Reagan had begun working in television, hosting a popular Sunday night series, "General Electric Theater." As part of his TV contract, Reagan spent 10 weeks a year touring GE plants and delivering motivational speeches, which helped hone his public speaking.

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Dec. 11, 1980

Washington Post Publisher Katharine Graham greets soon-to-be first lady Nancy and President-Elect Ronald Reagan at a party she gave for them at her Georgetown home. Reagan, a conservative Republican, had been elected the month before, defeating Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

Harry Naltchayan / The Washington Post

The former president and first lady share a tender moment during the early years of Reagan's retirement. By 1993, however, Reagan began exhibiting the first signs of Alzheimer's disease. Doctors diagnosed the disease during Reagan's annual physical in 1994. Nancy, with the aid of a private nurse and the Secret Service, cared for the former president at their home in Los Angeles and at their ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif.

Michael Evans / White House

Feb. 6, 2000

Nancy Reagan gives her husband a kiss for his 89th birthday. The two-term president died June 5, 2004, at age 93. His presidential legacy includes, most notably, his work to end communism in Europe and his political leadership in reviving Republican conservatism.

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Aug. 18, 2001

Nancy Reagan and daughter Patti Davis arrive for the funeral of Reagan's daughter Maureen Reagan at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento. Maureen, 60, had died on Aug. 8, 2001, after a nine-month battle with skin cancer that spread to her brain. The former president, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was unable to attend his oldest daughter's funeral.

Susan Ragan / Reuters

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