Maureen Reagan dies after 5-year battle with cancer / Reagan daughter Maureen dies at 60

Maureen Reagan, former President Ronald Reagan's elder daughter, died yesterday in her Granite Bay (Sacramento County) home after a five-year struggle with malignant melanoma. She was 60.

At her bedside were her husband Dennis Revell and their adopted daughter Rita, 16. She had been in grave condition for more than a month, after the cancer had spread to her brain.

Nancy Reagan, whose relationship with her stepdaughter had been characterized as frosty, said in a prepared statement: "Ronnie and I loved Mermie very much. We will miss her terribly."

Nancy Reagan also broke the news to her husband, who gave his daughter the nickname Mermie when she was small. The former president, who is afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, a condition that inspired Maureen Reagan to become a spokeswoman for the Alzheimer's Association and which seemed to bring father and daughter closer.

In an observation about the former president and his daughter, Nancy Reagan said her stepdaughter "had his gift of communication, his love of politics, and when she believed in a cause, she was not afraid to fight hard for it."

Maureen Reagan was drawn to politics as a youngster, later joking that she became a Republican before her father, who was a Democrat until he switched parties. Although a Republican, she differed from her father on many issues, including support for the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights.

Though diagnosed in 1996 with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, Reagan had remained active as a spokeswoman for the Alzheimer's Association until a golf ball-size tumor was discovered in her pubic bone last November.

She underwent 3 1/2 months of aggressive biochemotherapy treatments at the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica.

Upon her release March 23, she spoke optimistically, and it appeared that she was winning her fight against cancer.

But on July 4, she was stricken with seizures, and an MRI performed July 6 confirmed the existence of two brain tumors, said her husband, Dennis Revell.

Melanoma is a form of skin cancer often attributable to excessive exposure to unfiltered sunlight. It strikes 51,000 Americans each year and kills 7,800.

Maureen Reagan became active with the Alzheimer's Association after her father was diagnosed with the disease in 1994.

The disease seemed to have brought her more prolonged contact with her father than at any other period of her life -- a circumstance described in painful detail in her 1989 autobiography, "First Father, First Daughter."

Political figures around the nation offered their remembrances of Reagan.

"Maureen was a devoted, caring daughter and mother," said President Bush. "She fought tirelessly to increase funding for Alzheimer's research and raise public awareness of the disease."

Maureen Reagan was the first child of Ronald Reagan and actress Jane Wyman, his first wife. She and her adopted brother, Michael, were sent to boarding schools at ages 7 and 5, when their parents divorced.

"We were raised by nannies and maids," said Michael Reagan, a talk show host.

In her autobiography, Reagan recounted how her half-sister, Patti, the daughter of the president and Nancy Reagan, had not been told by age 7 that Maureen was her sister. When asked why not, her father responded, "Well, we just haven't gotten that far yet."

The intertwined themes of Maureen Reagan's adult life were a search for her own identity and a striving for a connection with, and the affection and admiration of, her father -- goals that she only achieved late in his life.

In her autobiography, Maureen Reagan said: "My relationship with my father hasn't changed with the years. . . . I still feel for him the same love and respect and admiration I've always felt; if anything, those feelings have deepened with time. He will always be a big, warm, cuddly teddy bear of a father to me, and I will always be his wide-eyed, precocious little girl."

The father-daughter relationship changed as the former president's Alzheimer's symptoms worsened.

"Usually when I leave, I say, 'Goodbye, Dad. I love you. Is that OK? And he says, 'No.' Sometimes it's very hard," she told a recent interviewer.

"I consider it a good day when I get several smiles and laughter," she said.

"There's nothing like the sound of his laughter."

Alzheimer's Association board Chairwoman Orien Reid said, "Maureen has been one of the Alzheimer's Association's most effective and passionate spokespeople. . . . She seemed to be driven by her love and devotion to her father."

Maureen Reagan was a talk show host, actress, charitable fund-raiser, candidate for political office, volunteer, co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee and co-chairwoman of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. She was also a trustee of her father's alma mater, Eureka College, in Illinois.

As the GOP's co-chairwoman, she institutionalized an Office of Women's Campaign Activities. On the U.N. commission, she led the U.S. delegation to the 1985 Decade for Women Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

After a brief stint in college, Reagan did clerical work and some acting and was married and divorced twice, first to a police officer who she has said was abusive, then to a Marine.

Although Reagan started early in politics, stuffing envelopes for Richard Nixon when she was a teenager, her first attempt to become involved in her father's political career -- his successful 1966 run for California governor --

was brutally rebuffed.

Ronald Reagan's consultants not only refused to let her join the campaign because they worried it would bring attention to her parents' divorce but also issued a press release that said, "Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, have two children, Patti and Ronnie."

In her autobiography, Reagan said her father had responded to her complaint about being left out with the comment, "If you pay someone to do a job, you should give them the authority to do it as they see fit." Maureen Reagan came away from the experience with an abiding dislike of political consultants, but she never criticized her father.

In 1982, Reagan ran unsuccessfully in California for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, finishing fifth behind the winner, Pete Wilson.

She criticized her uncle Neal Reagan for failing to support her bid but was silent on her father's role in the campaign. Apprised that his daughter was about to run for the Senate, the then-president said, "I hope not."

In 1983, Maureen Reagan finally became an official member of her father's administration as his in-house adviser on women's issues. Part of the president's problem with the so-called gender gap was that he was courtly and old-fashioned and had mannerisms and reflexes that seemed anachronistic to feminists, she said.

In 1992, Maureen Reagan ran for a seat in the House of Representatives and encountered criticism from the Republican Party's conservative wing.

"She's no Reagan Republican," said Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, R-Long Beach, who criticized Maureen Reagan's aggressive feminism and support for abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment.

But Ronald Reagan supported his daughter the second time around.

"Who are you going to believe -- Ronald Reagan or somebody else?" she said in response to her critics.

It did no good. She lost again, although finishing second in a field of 11 candidates.

Because of her activism in publicizing melanoma in recent years, she received the President's Gold Triangle Award from the American Academy of Dermatology in 1998. She was appointed a member of the Alzheimer's Association's national board in 1999 and received its distinguished service award last year.

In addition to her husband, daughter, father, mother and stepmother, she is survived by her brothers Michael and Ron Reagan and her sister, Patti Davis.

A public memorial service and Mass are scheduled for Aug. 18 at 10 a.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Sacramento.