The rightwing former actor whose presidency defined an era, Ronald Reagan died on 5 June, 2004 aged 93.

His eight year tenancy of the White House will be remembered for generating a booming domestic economy, an interventionist foreign policy and taking the first steps toward ending the Cold War.

Mr Reagan was also notorious for his inattention to detail and numerous public-speaking gaffes.

International scandals and the inevitable recession his tax-cutting policies caused in America mean that doubts remain about his political legacy but his warm personality and easy-going charm leave him remembered fondly as a man.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on 6 February, 1911, in the small town of Tampico, Illinois, the younger son of Nelle and John, a shoe salesman who gave the young boy the nickname “Dutch”.

After graduating from Eureka College, Illinois, in 1932 his first job was as a sports commentator in Des Moines, Iowa, where he stayed for five years before he decided to become an actor.

He moved to Hollywood and signed for Warner Brothers for whom he made over 50 films including Bedtime for Bonzo (1951) where he starred alongside a chimpanzee and Knute Rockne: All American where he delivered the lines long later associated with him – “Win just one for the Gipper”.

He began his political education as a member and later president of the Screen Actors Guild and it was at this time that he swung from a democratic outlook to a more rightwing position – he played an active role in the purging of Hollywood’s “communists” during the 1950s.

He was elected Governor of California in 1967 and soon set his eyes on the presidency. He twice contested the Republican nomination before securing it in 1980 and going on to defeat President Jimmy Carter and become the 40th President of the USA at the age of 69.

Only 69 days into his first term of office he survived an assassination attempt when he was shot in the chest by John Hinckley and his cheerfulness during his recovery won him many admirers.

He won a second term of office with a landslide victory in 1984 but in 1986 his administration was mired in controversy when it was found that it had illegally sold arms to Iran to fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua – considered by some to have been one of the largest political scandals in history.

He escalated the Cold War with the Soviet Union by increasing defence spending especially on the controversial “Star Wars” programme but when reformist Mikhail Gorbachev came to power he embarked upon a series of conciliatory summits which would eventually lead to a lasting peace.

He married twice, first to actress Jane Wyman in 1940 with whom he had two daughters and an adopted son and secondly to Nancy Davis, also an actress, in 1952 with whom he formed an affectionate and lasting relationship. Together they had two children.

He cared little for the day-to-day management of government and it is this indolence which perhaps allowed scandals such as the Iran-Contra affair to taint his administration though the extent of his true involvement remains conjecture.

His acting background imbued him with the skills to make speeches laden with quotable sound-bites and played no little part in enabling him to emerge unscathed from numerous sticky situations, earning him the nickname of “The Teflon President” along the way.

He survived two bouts of cancer and endured Alzheimer’s disease for a decade before his death as the second longest-lived president in US history.