Co-Starring At the White House

Nancy Reagan's clout and causes bring new respect

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She has not gained back the weight, but more than a year ago she snapped out of her malaise. Perhaps she realized that the whole country had never been against her; even in 1982, after all, a poll of Good Housekeeping readers found that Nancy Reagan was the second most admired woman. Even more important to the return of her equanimity, the high-pitched criticism quieted: the recession was ending and her posh style no longer seemed so callous. But the First Lady also changed tack, remodeling her public persona. The Reagans still see Sinatra and invite the likes of Dynasty Star Joan Collins to state dinners, but Zipkin and his dandyish ilk have been much less in evidence. The President's wife has devoted more time and effort to earnest, conventionally First Lady-like endeavors.

Nancy Reagan has quite deliberately altered the way she looks at Ronald Reagan in public. Her worshipful staring during his speeches had for years been regarded as prima-facie evidence of a Goody Two-Shoes phoniness. She claims that it was not a theatrical device, just her natural way of watching anyone speak. But the gaze is gone. "I am trying not to do it as much as I have done it in the past," she explains, "only because there was so much talk about it and it was kind of ridiculed." Campaigning last year seemed to convince her that she can venture out alone without making costly faux pas. She has learned to resist her tendency to hunker down and hide. These days, she says jauntily, "Ronnie always complains that when I go places and come back I never tell him anything--that he has to hear it from other people."

Rawhide and Rainbow, as the Secret Service code book calls them, are unapologetic lovers, affectionate in the extreme, at times almost treacly. They call each other by diminutives: he's "Ronnie" and often she's "Mommy." At their California ranch, they paddle together in a canoe named TruLuv that was a 25th-anniversary present from "Ronnie." Every July on Nancy's birthday, Reagan calls David Jones' Hollywood flower shop and has a bouquet sent to Edith Davis, his mother-in-law. Says the florist: "He thanks her for giving him Nancy." Last Election Day, when the First Lady was still wobbly from a bad bump on the head received two days earlier, the President fretted so much that he ignored early exit-poll results and wanted to cancel three important press interviews he had scheduled. At Camp David, the two former movie stars cozy up on a sofa in the dark, holding hands and sharing a bowl of popcorn as they watch good, wholesome films--lately, Local Hero and Phar Lap. Says one aide who has attended the Camp David cinema: "It's like looking at a pair of high school kids."

Reagan's boyish enthusiasm is part of his public appeal, and that gee-whiz attitude begins at home. As the President told TIME in an interview, "When something unusual happens, or something important in my life, or something that I hear about, the first thing in my mind is, 'Wait till I tell Nancy!' It's that way between us." Even political decisions are cast in romantic terms. Of the period a year ago, when Reagan wanted her to go along with his desire to seek re-election, she says, "I guess he was wooing me."

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