Watch: Nancy Reagan's Funeral

Nancy Reagan, mother, actress, and former first lady is laid to rest today beside her husband, ending America’s most enduring political love story.

Mrs. Reagan, 94, died of congestive heart failure at her home in Bel Air Sunday. As storm clouds threaten to open up from above, more than 1,000 political dignitaries and celebrities joined the Reagan family to pay their respects at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

As guests streamed in, the 1st Marine Division Band from Camp Pendleton and the Santa Susana High School Choir performed `Battle Hymn of the Republic,'' chosen by Mrs. Reagan because it was a favorite of the nation's 40th president. The solemn crowd gathered in a massive tent on the library's lawn overlooking the Santa Monica Mountains.

Four current and former first ladies stand among the mourners including Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and Rosalynn Carter. Mrs. Reagan’s children Patti Davis and Ronald Prescott Reagan are joined by dignitaries including George W. Bush, Gov. Jerry Brown, Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi, and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver as well as news anchors Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric and Larry King. The guest list also includes an eclectic list of celebrities who supported causes close to Mrs Reagan’s heart including Mr. T, John Stamos, Yakov Smirnoff, Wayne Newton, and Gary Sinise.

The service opened with a reading of Proverbs 31:10-31 by Mrs. Reagan’s niece Anne Peterson. It was followed by an tribute by Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Mulroney shared a memory of a state visit to Canada in which the two men watched their wives arrived for a final farewell.

"He said with a grin, 'You know, Brian, for two Irishman, we sure married up," recalled Mulroney. "I mention this anecdote again because it reflects a unique Reagan reality. She really was always on his mind. We all know of Ron’s great love and admiration for Nancy and the elegant and constant manner in which he publicly expressed it."

Mulroney shared a deeply personal tribute written by Ronald Reagan on the couple's first Christmas together in the White House in 1981 in which he celebrated the first lady in all her roles.

“She brings so much grace and charm to whatever she does that even stuffy formal functions sparkle and turn into fun times,” wrote the president. “Everything is done with class. All I have to do is wash up and show up.”

President Reagan also described his feelings while gazing at a picture of his wife visiting a hospital as first lady.

“She takes an abandoned child in her arms in a hospital visit. The look on her face - only the Madonna could match. The look on the child’s face, is one of adoration, and I know because I adore her too.”

“There could be no life for me without you,” concluded Ronald Reagan. “I love the whole gang of you - mommy, first lady, the sentimental you, fun you and the peewee powerhouse you. Merry Christmas you all, with all my love, lucky me.”

President Reagan’s Chief of Staff James A. Baker described the story behind the famous couple’s meeting.

“The Cold War that President Reagan did so much to end brought them together,” he told mourners.

In 1950, the name Nancy Davis appeared on the list of communist sympathizers and the then actress worried that Hollywood blacklisters would confuse her with the suspected communist. So she turned to Screen Actor’s Guild President Ronald Reagan, who agreed to meet with her at a Hollywood restaurant.

“The dinner would be brief, they agreed, because each had an early casting call,” said Baker. “In fact neither had an early casting call. An early casting call was the standard Hollywood excuse to put a quick end to unpleasant dinners...their meeting lasted through dinner and then through the wee hours at a nearby club.”

Baker also shed light on Nancy Reagan’s unique role as first lady and chief advisor.

“She had an instinct for reading people that the president knew he lacked,” he said. “She was as tough as a marine drill sergeant as many of us found out when things didn’t go well. The president’s advisors to keep her informed and to seek her support... She was without a doubt, absolutely without a doubt, the president’s closest advisor.”

It was Nancy Reagan who convinced her husband to negotiate with Cold War nemesis Mikhail Gorbachev, said Baker.

The only time the first lady ever lost her composure, said Baker, was when her husband was shot by a would-be assassin. Baker remembered the president trying to comfort her.

“‘Honey, I forgot to duck,’ he said. "That was his way of comforting her,” laughed Baker.

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw also recalled the assassination attempt, noting that when Nancy Reagan was informed about the shooting and Secret Service agents were hesitant to take her to immediately see him, she told them, "You get me a car right now or I'll walk to the hospital."

From his days as a young reporter covering the longshot California gubernatorial campaign of an actor turned politician, Brokaw developed a lifelong friendship with the future first lady.

It was a friendship tested more than once by Brokaw's critical reporting of the presidency, he admitted. He recalled earning the first lady's ire one day early in Ronald Reagan's first term, and being warned by White House staffers, "Stay clear of the White House for a while, Brokaw, we’ll let you know when it’s safe to go back."

That steely resolve of the first lady was one of the qualities he admired most, said Brokaw. "She knew how to protect her husband and her president but also her own place, to stand her ground, and once it had been resolved to move on."

Patti Davis, Nancy's daughter, told the crowd she often butted heads with her determined mother, acknowledging that her "challenging and often contentious" relationship with her mother was no secret.

"When I was a child, I imagined having warm, comfortable conversations with her -- the kind of conversations that feel like lamplight," she said. "The reality was far different. I tried her patience and she intimidated me. We were never mild with one another. Whether we were distant and angry or bonded and close, our emotions burned up the color chart. Nothing was ever gray. But there were moments in our history when all that was going on between us was love. I choose to remember those moments."

But she was also in awe of her parents' devotion to one another, recalling watching the couple sitting on a vast empty beach, heads together in deep conversation during a childhood vacation.

"And then there was the circle of their own private world as clear as if it had been traced around them, indestructible, impenetrable, An Island of two," said Davis, before pivoting the couple's final moment together. “The moment before my father died, he opened his eyes, which had been closed for days, and he looked straight at my mother, the circle was drawn again as he left this world.”

Best known as her husband Ronald Reagan’s fierce protector and confidante, the former first lady was a political force in her own right.

Ronald Reagan summed up his wife's influence in a 1994 speech at a Junior League of Los Angeles tribute to the former first lady.

"Nancy Davis Reagan has led a remarkable life – as an adoring daughter, a loving mother, a devoted and sensitive partner, and a worthy ambassador for our country as First Lady," he said. "I have seen her cope bravely with life’s most difficult challenges, exuding grace and dignity and strength. I am so proud of this woman…I can’t imagine life without her."

After serving as first lady during the height of the Cold War from 1981 to 1989, Mrs. Reagan went to champion her husband’s legacy as he battled and eventually died from Alzheimer's Disease. A tastemaker, famed for her grace, poise and state dinners while in office, Mrs. Reagan’s voice continued to be influential in the Republican party even after her husband’s death.

Anne Frances "Nancy" Robbins was born on July 6, 1921 in New York City to a car salesman, Kenneth Robbins and an actress, Edith Luckett Robbins. She grew up in Chicago where she attended Girls' Latin School of Chicago before going on to graduate from Smith College in Northampton, Mass.

Originally a Broadway actress who played a number of minor roles in the movies, she gave up her acting career when she married the future president.

"My life really began when I married my husband," she once said.

She met Ronald Reagan in 1951, when he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild Association. Before his political career, Reagan, too, was an actor with a penchant for politics, and he worked during his presidency of SAG to win better pay and benefits for actors. He then went on to become the 33rd governor of California in 1967 before assuming the presidency in 1981. They married in 1952. He died in 2004 at the age of 93. During those 10 years, Mrs. Reagan priority was caring for her husband as he battled the disease.

During her time as first lady, Reagan was remembered as an advocate for decreasing drug and alcohol abuse. Particularly the "Just Say No" campaign in the 1980s. While roundly ridiculed for the perceived simplicity of the slogan, her attention to the issue managed to raise attention about drug abuse in the public consciousness.

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National Patch Staffer FEROZE DHANOA and City News Service contributed to this report. Image via Wikimedia Commons