Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins; July 6, 1921 – March 6, 2016) was an American film actress and the wife of Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States. She was the First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. She was born in New York City. After her parents separated, she lived in Maryland with an aunt and uncle for several years. When her mother remarried in 1929, she moved to Chicago and later took the name Davis from her stepfather. As Nancy Davis, she was a Hollywood actress in the 1940s and 1950s.
Philippe Halsman (1906 – 1979) was a Latvian-born American portrait photographer. Born to a Jewish family in Riga, Halsman studied electrical engineering in Dresden. In 1930 Halsman relocated to Paris and began his career as a portrait photographer. In 1932 he opened his first studio and merely two years later his work began appearing in magazines such as Vogue. In 1941 Halsman met the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and they began to collaborate in the late 1940s. In 1942 he found work with Life Magazine photographing hat designs and went on to photograph many celebrities. In 1951 Halsman was commissioned by NBC to photograph various popular comedians of the time.
