Former first lady Nancy Reagan has died. She was 94.

Former first lady Nancy Reagan, actress and the wife of the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan,who joined her husband on a storybook journey from Hollywood to the White House, died Sunday, according to John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation.

She was 94.

As first lady during Ronald Reagan's eight years in the White House, she was known as the "Just say no" spokeswoman of anti-drug campaigns, and as a fierce protector of her husband, both personally and politically. When Ronald Reagan was shot in a 1981 assassination attempt, Nancy Reagan never left the hospital where the president was treated until he was released, according to Nancy Reagan's press secretary, Sheila Tate.

After she and her husband left Washington, she became his protector again as he struggled with Alzheimer's disease until his death in 2004.

She was born Anne Frances Robbins in New York City on July 6, 1921. Her mother and father separated before her birth.

Her mother, Edith, toured with a theater company while Nancy lived with an aunt and uncle. Her mother married a Chicago neurosurgeon named Loyal Davis when the future first lady was young. He adopted her and she settled down in Chicago, before she adopted the stage name Nancy Davis and headed west to Hollywood to become an actress.

"She told me that MGM was like a big family, that when she signed with MGM, she became part of that family. They took care of her," Tate said.

"She wasn't afraid even at her age to go out there by herself because she was surrounded by people to help her."

As part of the MGM stable, Nancy Davis made 11 films from 1949 until 1956, but her career almost ended before it began. Her name appeared on a list of people thought to have been Communist sympathizers in 1949.

"She got a mailing that was for another Nancy Davis, and this other Nancy Davis was in connection with one of those Hollywood blacklists that were going on in the Hollywood red-hunting days," biographer Lou Cannon said.

Upset, she turned to a friend for help and he set up a meeting with the president of the Screen Actors Guild, a dashing leading man named Ronald Reagan.

It would be the start of one of Hollywood's and Washington's most enduring love stories. In fact, her final screen appearance was playing opposite her future husband in a movie called "Hellcats of the Navy."

The two wed on March 4, 1952, in a private ceremony at a small church near Los Angeles. She began her role as a wife of a politician when her husband won the 1966 gubernatorial race in the nation's largest state of California.

But many closest to the couple said her adoration for her husband was not an act.

"It was for real, that wasn't an actress, the adoration they had for each other," former White House Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein said.