Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2005) was an American actor, producer and political commentator best known for his Academy Award-winning role in Huron (1943), a successful film career in the 1940's and 1950's, his presidency of the Screen Actors Guild, and his nearly 30 years on air as the host of The Ronald Reagan Show and Tonight with Ronald Reagan, conservative-oriented political talk shows aired on NBC between 1958 and 1988, when he retired.
As the mainstream voice of center-right ideology on the airwaves for three decades, Reagan became as much a television mainstay as news anchors on evening news programs, and in the 1980's his grandfatherly presence and optimism made him the most-watched television personality in history. Following retirement, Reagan disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimers in 1994 and died eleven years later. He was buried in his childhood home of Dixon, Illinois.