Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, credited with winning the Cold War, has died at age 93 surrounded by his family at his California home.

Reagan has been out of the public eye for almost a decade ever since he revealed he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

"Ronald Reagan was an American original," Gil Troy, a McGill University presidential historian, told CTV Newsnet on Saturday.

"He had a program of a few key ideas: Fighting communism, small government, fighting taxes, deregulation, cutting taxes -- those were his," he said.

But a certain selfishness in U.S. society also emerged as a result of those policies, he said.

"He was a conservative ideologue but the important thing about Reagan is he was never a zealot," Craig Oliver, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief, told Newsnet about Reagan.

But the ex-actor was also incredibly charming, said Oliver, who had worked in Washington during Reagan's presidency and met him. "He always made you feel like you were the most important person in the room to him."

Reagan and former prime minister Brian Mulroney had a close bond, evidenced at the 1985 "Shamrock Summit" where the two leaders and their spouses sang "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" on-stage together.

The two men were of Irish descent.

"I've heard Mulroney speak about Ronald Reagan and he speaks about him with tremendous affection," Troy said.

"I think there was a tremendous click between the two men. Call it an ethnic click, a tactical click. Ideologically they seemed to be on the same page."

The two mens' administrations negotiated the Free Trade Agreement, something that transformed Canada's economy.

Another Canadian prime minister whose tenure overlapped with Reagan was Pierre Trudeau. Troy said the two men didn't bond.

"I have a marvelous picture I got from the Ronald Reagan Library of them coming off a helicopter on one of their visits," he said.

"Reagan is tanned, tall in a suit and looking very all-American. Trudeau has just a little bit of a ... more foppish look. And you see the culture clash between the man of the 1950s and the man of the 1970s."

Trudeau earned the ire of the U.S. administration during his 1983 peace tour which happened when Cold War tensions were high between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.

When Reagan visited Canada in 1981, he was met with massive protests over acid rain. He shrugged off the criticism.

A would-be assassin's bullet struck him in 1981. One bullet missed his heart by an inch, but he recovered. He reportedly told his wife Nancy, "honey, I forgot to duck."

Reagan had lived longer than any former U.S. president. He was also the oldest person ever elected president, taking office at age 69.

In running for re-election against Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984, Reagan got big laughs at a debate when he said he wouldn't take advantage of his opponent's "youth and inexperience."

Reagan was also known as the Teflon President, because nothing seemed to stick to him.

His administration was hit by the 1986 Iran/Contra scandal, in which arms were covertly sold to Iran to illegally raise money to fund the "contras" who were fighting to overthrow the left-wing government of Nicaragua.

A presidential commission investigating the scandal didn't assign blame to Reagan, but criticized him for being out of touch. Reagan didn't contest the finding.

"He was able to articulate this broad vision of peace, prosperity and small government," Troy said.

"All the 'little' things that went wrong on his watch ... somehow didn't hurt him," he said, adding Reagan's poll numbers did go up and down.

The end

Rumours about Reagan's health started swirling on Friday.

 His California office said it was inundated with phone calls -- more than 300 over the past two days.

In a note written in 1994, Reagan said, "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."

Born in Illinois in 1911, his last documented public appearance was in 1997.

Reagan, the 40th U.S. president, is the only professional actor to become an American president, having spent 30 years in Hollywood.

Before first seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 1976, Reagan was governor of California for two terms, ending in 1974.

He spent eight years as president, from 1981 to 1989. He won both the 1980 and 1984 elections by landslides.

Some conservative politicians have lobbied to have his face carved into Mount Rushmore.

A date for the funeral hasn't been set yet. A hearse picked up his body Saturday evening. He passed away around 4 p.m. EDT.

He is survived by Nancy, sons Michael and Ron Jr. and daughter Patty Davis. Another daughter, Maureen, predeceased him in 2001.