Patti Davis

Patricia Ann Davis (née Reagan; born October 21, 1952) is an American actress and author. She is the daughter of U.S. president Ronald Reagan and his second wife, Nancy Reagan.

Early life and education

Patricia Ann Reagan was born to Ronald and Nancy Reagan on October 21, 1952, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. She is the older sister of Ron Reagan, and the younger adoptive sister of the late Michael Reagan as well as half-sister of the late Maureen Reagan. She went to grade school at the John Thomas Dye School in Bel Air, and graduated from the Orme School of Arizona in 1970. She matriculated at Northwestern University, where she studied creative writing and drama. She then attended the University of Southern California for two years. She changed her last name to her mother's maiden name, Davis, in an effort to have an independent career. She was active in the anti-nuclear movement before her father was elected president, and continued her activism through his term, stirring controversy and creating strife in the family. She has been a critic of the Republican Party, with which she has never been affiliated.

Career

In the early 1980s, Davis acted in a few television shows before getting her first publishing deal. In 1986, she published her first novel, Home Front. She used elements of her own life to create a fictional story. The book became controversial, and she was widely criticized. Following her second novel Deadfall, she wrote an autobiography called The Way I See It, in which she revealed many family dramas and secrets. She has since spoken publicly about how she regrets the form, but not the content, of the critique she presented in the book.