--- title: Nancy Reagan on Being First Lady: What She Said in 1985 description: The former First Lady, who has died at 94, spoke to TIME in 1985 about how she saw her role in the White House canonical: https://time.com/4248865/nancy-reagan-1985-cover-story/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-06T18:14:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T15:39:19.404Z article:section: History og:title: What Nancy Reagan Said About How to Be a 'Successful' First Lady og:description: "If you get a sureness about yourself and what you can do, you just go ahead and do it" og:url: https://time.com/4248865/nancy-reagan-1985-cover-story/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49c02cd62338d655/6988805f196cf4331703aa23/reagan.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Jan. 14, 1985 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Nancy Reagan Said About How to Be a 'Successful' First Lady twitter:description: "If you get a sureness about yourself and what you can do, you just go ahead and do it" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49c02cd62338d655/6988805f196cf4331703aa23/reagan.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Nancy Reagan Said About How to Be a 'Successful' First Lady  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Mar 6, 2016 6:14 PM CUT  The Jan. 14, 1985, cover of TIME The Jan. 14, 1985, cover of TIMECover Credit: AARON SHIKLER  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Mar 6, 2016 6:14 PM CUT It was 1985 when Nancy Reagan—the former First Lady who [died at 94 on Sunday](http://time.com/4248853/nancy-reagan-dead-first-lady "undefined")—was first featured on the cover of TIME. It had been decades since she first showed up in the magazine’s pages, in a 1966 [publisher’s note](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,828385-2,00.html "undefined") that mentioned her making tuna salad for Ronald Reagan and Los Angeles Bureau Chief Marshall Berges, and a full presidential term since she had assumed the job of what the cover called “White House co-star.” By that point she was, noted White House Correspondent Laurence I. Barrett, more confident in her role than she had once been. Over the course of her first term in the White House, she had become more and more of a political asset to her husband—and, said a presidential aide, “no longer just Ronald Reagan’s wife.” She spoke to the public more often, influenced her husband in private more and invested more of herself in the anti-drug efforts about which she was so passionate. And, finally, after having done the job once, she was ready to offer her take on the nebulous and often tricky role of the First Lady, a position of great responsibility but little definition. Here’s what she told TIME then: --- > “” --- **_Read the full 1985 cover story, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Nancy Reagan’s Growing Role](http://time.com/vault/issue/1985-01-14/page/1/ "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4248865/nancy-reagan-1985-cover-story/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4248865/nancy-reagan-1985-cover-story/"},"headline":"What Nancy Reagan Said About How to Be a 'Successful' First Lady","datePublished":"2016-03-06T18:14:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T15:39:19.404Z","description":"\"If you get a sureness about yourself and what you can do, you just go ahead and do it\"","url":"https://time.com/4248865/nancy-reagan-1985-cover-story/","keywords":["White House","remembrance","Reagan","First Lady","Nancy Reagan"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49c02cd62338d655/6988805f196cf4331703aa23/reagan.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49c02cd62338d655/6988805f196cf4331703aa23/reagan.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Jan. 14, 1985","caption":"Jan. 14, 1985","creditText":"Cover Credit: AARON SHIKLER","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4248865/nancy-reagan-1985-cover-story/","name":"What Nancy Reagan Said About How to Be a 'Successful' First Lady"}}]}] ```