Ronald Reagan PHOTOS From LIFE.com On His 100th Birthday

Ronald Reagan served many roles during his life - movie star, governor, conservative icon and of course 40th president of the United States.

On his 100th birthday, as Reagan was born on Feb. 6, 1911, LIFE.com is taking a look back at the man's life through pictures by legendary photographer Harry Benson.

These photos, selected by Benson himself, reveal recollections of visiting, traveling with and photographing Reagan and his wife Nancy.

See one of the photos from the gallery below and click over to LIFE.com for the full gallery.

Above: The Reagans at the White House in 1985. Photo taken by Harry Benson.

Comments

[rnorthro14]

01:46 AM on 02/08/2011

I can only hope these are the first steps towards a Canadian style single payer system. That will be so much cheaper than what we all currently pay and actually save the federal government money and improve the deficit.

[gentlewomanfarmer]

06:46 PM on 02/07/2011

"Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

What a question. Most of the trolls here weren't even born then.

[MIvoter1231]

04:29 PM on 02/07/2011

All politics and policies aside, there is one thing that I really admire about Ron and Nancy Reagan. They simply adored each other, something that is not seen nearly enough in political life on either side of the aisle. The Obama's and the Reagan's each show what a real love match is, support for each other under all circumstances. I may not like his policies, but his love for Nancy could never be questioned. All his other faults and flaws notwithstanding, that was something to be admired.

Now, civilly criticize his faults, flaws, politics and policies. Carry on.

[Budokan]

04:27 PM on 02/07/2011

Any pics of Saint Reagan cheating on Jane Wyman (his wife at the time) with Nancy Davis because he did that too.

Explain to me again why he's such a cultural hero to con$ervatives?

[rnorthro14]

01:48 AM on 02/08/2011

Reagan would not pass the litmus test of today's tea baggers, despite their constant invocations to his greatness. If they think he's so great, then lets change the tax rates back to what is was at the end of his presidency - much higher than it is today.

REAGAN RAISED THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX THREE TIMES!!!!!

[hagenjr]

04:24 AM on 02/07/2011

I loved Reagan and the Reagan era.

He helped the country find its pride again and ushered in a short golden age.

[bebrave2]

12:51 PM on 02/07/2011

Yeah! All of America...except maybe for the millions of newly found homeless population he created huh?

[larrykat]

01:57 PM on 02/07/2011

And all the fired union employees... and anyone with AIDS... But hey, hagenjr is right, the Astrologers entered a golden age, as did high-end dinner china manufacturers.

[AlaskanWannaB]

10:50 PM on 02/07/2011

For only his preferred race. I remember his outgoing video....not one person of color. It spoke volumes.

[jarheadgreen]

03:25 AM on 02/07/2011

How does the left explain that President Reagan won by two electorial landslides, second term took 48 out of 50 states.

But the vultures here will resort to demonize and name calling that all the socialist left is good for.

[shaggyct]

04:22 AM on 02/07/2011

So which of Reagan's conservative policies do you like the most? Was it the 189% increase in the national debt? The eight years of tax hikes for the middle class that followed his catastrophic 1981 tax cuts? Was it his cutting and running from Lebanon when our Marines were attacked? Was it his masterful invasion of mighty Grenada? Was it the 138 members of his administration who were convicted of federal crimes? Or was it the millions of illegals whom he granted amnesty?

Elections come and go, big deal. But the implications of bad policies last for a very long time. The fact that you seem obsessed with constantly babbling on about trivia, such as long forgotten election results, but not about the long-term implications of that awful President's policies speaks volumes.

[jarheadgreen]

10:45 AM on 02/07/2011

For you tell a lie big enough and long enough a loon will believe it

[busterbrownthefirst]

03:57 PM on 02/07/2011

Great post. Here's my theory, which is that his final impact was a lot more than bad policies: I really see Reagan as the beginning of modern politics, where we have an unrepairable chasm over how, if at all, we are interconnected as a people, and to each other.

His version of small government never amounted to anything more than the most expeditious way to be selfish. The hell with Kennedy saying we need to ask what we can do for our country! Reagan took everyone's private greed and capitalized on it--by actually making it perfectly all right not to do anything for anyone else. He was able to completely reverse the prior vision most Americans had of our country--that we stood for caring for our fellow man, and that we were no better than the worst of us. But more than all of this, he made it noble. A virtue to be selfish, along the popular "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" sort of thinking.

I think this actually ruined the country. We went from noble ideals and a sense of community and selflessness to nothing but a focus on me first, me only. He allowed us to make a culture of the worst in all of us. And we have no purpose today--that's the real reason we're completing our plummet into second-world status. Bush might be the stupidest President we've ever had, but by far and away, Reagan was the worst.

[larrykat]

02:00 PM on 02/07/2011

One doesn't need name calling or lying to dismantle Reagan' s legacy. All that is required is a reading of the facts during his administration. The right-winger that actually admits that the facts don't lie is almost impossible to find, however. They have so few political heroes to choose from that they find it easier to just create an imaginary script of one... Reagan.

[blinkthink]

03:10 PM on 02/07/2011

Exactly-his blind to the aids epidemic made him less than a stellar President.

[jarheadgreen]

04:44 PM on 02/07/2011

Your comment is just another left wing socialist with a big mouth and no facts. All your good for is name calling of a great President.

[Combustus]

01:19 AM on 02/07/2011

If rOnny had lived to blow out his 100 birthday candles he still wouldn't have cashed all of his social security dispensations...

[Freesia2]

09:02 PM on 02/06/2011

I'm no fan of Reagan's politics, and I think that there is plenty of validity for feeling that way.

But do you know what I do regret in the loss of him and the generation of Republican pols he was from? Civility.Their touch of class.

He handled himself with aplomb, he could use wit as a weapon but also as a way to keep the discourse reasonable - for laughter is a bipartisan thing. All people like to laugh. Most people, decent people, want to talk things over not mindlessly brawl and come to verbal blows and no one wants to deal with people who are incapable of basic manners and decorum....He was articulate and proud of it and had conversations not food fights. He could talk with someone across the aisle and not only talk with them but enjoy and respect their input resulting in images like this:

http://www.reddogreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/reagan-laughs-with-oneill.jpg?w=300

He put in place policies that were wrong. Trickle Down Economics will haunt for decades. But he remembered and respected the office that he held and he showed it in his manner, in his dealings with opposition he viewed as "loyal opposition" not "That One". 

I miss that view of Republicans. That presentation. In a world of Joe Wilson's hollering "You lie!" in the middle of a Presidential address and Palin behaving with no more class than a pick up from a watering hole at the Republican National Convention.....I miss the Ronald Reagan generation.

I regret what their loss has done to our politics, the coarse quality we are left with in what remains of his party.

[Mikeeee]

10:58 PM on 02/06/2011

http://i.imgur.com/rgOmL.jpg

[Freesia2]

11:03 PM on 02/06/2011

I know. I know.

I was actually trying to make a broader point about the time when Republicans at least ...oh never mind. I shouldn't have written anything.

He was all that. That masked all that. I should just hush.

[Freesia2]

11:05 PM on 02/06/2011

My post didn't go through. I have no idea why.

You're right. I know you're right.

I shouldn't have written anything. I'm waxing nostalgic for something that didn't actually exist beyond veneer.

[shaggyct]

05:28 AM on 02/07/2011

I agree completely with you. Great comment, F&F'd. For years, I was a registered Republican (although I identified more with New England moderates such as Lowell Weicker, John Chafee, William Cohen and Nelson Rockefeller). As for Reagan, I was no fan of his, but at least he didn't consider it sacrilege to compromise with Democrats, and maintained a healthy, civil friendship with Tip O'Neill, who was Speaker of the House for most of Reagan's presidency.

The GOP used to be a party of ideas, a party of pragmatists and realists. But now it has been hijacked by a group of know-nothings who celebrate mediocrity, view ignorance as a virtue, and see politics as little more than a sport, where winning is everything regardless of the cost to the nation. Their vile rhetoric, ideological fanaticism, Pavlovian hysteria about anything the other party does, demonization of political opponents, and mindless shrieking of intellectually vapid talking points has left the nation polarized and paralyzed.

Everything changed with the emergence of Lee Atwater and his Rovian disciples, who dragged our national discourse into the gutter.

Yes, I miss the old Republicans too. At least you could have a serious debate with them, and even if you disagreed, it was never personal. But let's face it, Reagan would never even survive a GOP primary today; he wouldn't pass their ideological purity test.

[blinkthink]

03:51 PM on 02/08/2011

F&F-great post, so much of what I was thinking, too.

[msblynne]

08:59 PM on 02/06/2011

Nan reminds me of a "old time wifey" version of Michele Bachmann.

[JohnnyKay]

05:31 PM on 02/06/2011

I lived through Reagan's socalled 'presidency'.

Pictures are a waste of print for someone as forgettable as him.

[blueman00009]

05:38 PM on 02/06/2011

I did also. It was a nightmare that I would rather forget. And the republics have completely rewritten that history. It is completely different from reality. The guy was a f00l and put our country on the trajectory to economic ruin. And they want to praise him????? Unbelievable.

[msblynne]

09:03 PM on 02/06/2011

Praise? They want him on Mt. Rushmore with Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, and Roosevelt- Let's honor the guy who gave us Supply Side Economic Ruin, from which we had to be rescued by a Democrat (Clinton), until another dumb Republican drank the Kool-Aid and again plunged us into a near-depression using the venerable "Reaganomics.". Economic Conservative Republicans, budgeting our country on high-interest credit card debt. Thanks, Ronnie, see you on Rushmore.

[Allan888]

05:01 PM on 02/06/2011

Reagan is not the great president they make him out to be. He is just the best of what has been a long line of bad republican presidents since Nixon.

[shaggyct]

05:39 AM on 02/07/2011

As somebody else eloquently pointed out earlier, Reagan is to Republicans what Mao is to the Chinese Communists, what Lenin is to the Russian Communists, and what Castro is to the Cubans. If they didn't have Reagan, they would have to invent him. They have taken a President who was mediocre at best, and utterly awful at worst, and have created a mythology that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Psychologically, they cling to this mythology like a blankie, because it validates their failed ideology. The more they cling to it, the more they feel the desperate need to fetishize him, and to hell with reality. If you read their comments here, their often hysterical defense of this rather mediocre ex-President tells you much more about their psychological issues than it does about his legacy.

[blueman00009]

04:47 PM on 02/06/2011

Yeah! An unmoderated st. ronnie thread. They must have missed this one to sanitize.

[bj2386]

04:44 PM on 02/06/2011

It seems to me that there are a lot of people on here who are extremely jealous of the success and notoriety that Reagan achieved in his lifetime. He was the one of the world's most powerful men on the earth for eight years, and won both of his elections by complete landslides. Yet, there are those who can only dream of having such an opportunity, and instead hunch over their keyboards hurling childish insults to a d e a d guy on an internet website anonymously, thinking they are so clever. I am sure that Reagan has the last laugh in his grave to know that his foes are still pitching fits over his accomplishments as president. I must admit I chuckle, too.

[JohnnyKay]

05:33 PM on 02/06/2011

I take it you never saw one of the last interviews Ginger Rogers gave where she talked about the 'real' Hollywood Ronnie?

Too bad.

[msblynne]

09:05 PM on 02/06/2011

The joke is certainly on all of us, and on our grandkids. Ha Ha Ha. Economic Conservatives, ha ha ha. Toss the mentally ill out on the street and all that fun.

[jaslyn]

04:05 PM on 02/06/2011

One of the worst presidents; our decline started with him .

[Yenzer]

04:13 PM on 02/06/2011

He was "The" worst until Shrub retired the title.

[Marilyn Gott]

04:39 PM on 02/06/2011

He was "made great" by big corporations.