She had a complicated role in the AIDS crisis

What is less well known is that Nancy Reagan refused to assist Hudson after his publicist pleaded with her to intervene and persuade a French military hospital to treat him. The hospital was thought to have a special treatment that could help, but Hudson, who was in Paris at the time of his collapse, was denied because he did not live in France.

Mrs. Reagan declined the request, presumably because she didn't want the administration to appear to be favoring friends or celebrities. "This is probably not the [last] time we're going to get a request like this, and we want to be fair and not do anything that would appear to favor personal friends," she agreed with White House staffer Mark Weinberg.

Mrs. Reagan appeared shaken by Hudson's death nine weeks later. She worked hard behind the scenes to persuade her husband that he needed to fund AIDS research and do more to address the crisis. Mr. Reagan was notoriously slow to act on AIDS; he initially cut funding for it and only spoke publicly about the crisis in 1987, after thousands had died.