Pat Nixon.

On March 16, 1912, Thelma Catherine Ryan was born in Ely, Nevada, to William M. Ryan, a sailor and gold miner, and Katherine Halberstadt, a German immigrant. Her father nicknamed her Pat in reference to her birth date near St. Patrick’s Day and her Irish ancestry. She grew up with two older brothers and half-siblings from her mother’s first marriage.

After attending Excelsior High School, she studied at Fullerton Junior College from 1931 to 1933 before transferring to the University of Southern California. She graduated cum laude in 1937 with a degree in merchandising and a certificate to teach at the high school level, which USC regarded as equivalent to a Master’s degree.

Pat Nixon worked as a bit player in Hollywood films and as a model before her marriage. She appeared uncredited in Becky Sharp 1935 as a ballroom dancer and Dancing Pirate 1936 as a dance-class student. Her most notable film role came in The Great Ziegfeld 1936, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture—a distinction unique among First Ladies.

Teaching business at Whittier Union High School led to a community theater role in George S. Kaufman’s The Dark Tower, where she met Richard Nixon. She served as Second Lady from 1953 to 1961 and as First Lady from 1969 to 1974. Following the White House years, archive footage of her appeared in documentaries such as All the President’s Men 1976 and J. Edgar 2011.

Pat Nixon married Richard Nixon on June 21, 1940, after meeting him in a Whittier community theater production. The couple had two daughters: Tricia Nixon Cox, born in 1946, and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, born in 1948.

Health issues appeared later in life: two strokes 1976 and 1982 from which she recovered, emphysema from smoking, a degenerative spinal disease, and mouth cancer. In December 1992, during a hospitalization for respiratory problems, lung cancer was diagnosed. She died on June 22, 1993, in Park Ridge, New Jersey.

Pat Nixon was the first First Lady since Lou Hoover to precede her husband in death and remains the only First Lady to have appeared in a Best Picture-winning film, The Great Ziegfeld 1936. The University of Southern California, her alma mater, honored her achievements. In popular culture, her birth name appears in Tom Clancy’s novel as the wife of Jack Ryan, who also becomes First Lady. She received the Order of the Pioneers of Liberia and the Order of the Sun of Peru. Her lasting image is that of a supportive yet private First Lady during the Nixon presidency.