Michael Deaver - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

Shortly after Deaver resigned from the White House, he formed Michael K. Deaver, Inc. and became a lobbyist.

In his later years, he wrote three books: Behind the Scenes (1988; co-written with Mickey Herskowitz), A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan (2001; foreword by Nancy Reagan), and Nancy: A Portrait of My Years with Nancy Reagan (2004). In 2005, he edited and published a collection of essays titled Why I Am a Reagan Conservative.

Deaver also worked at the Washington, D.C. office of Edelman, a public relations agency, a role he held from 1992-2006, ultimately as chairman of the D.C. office. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 2001, Deaver said, "I've always said the only thing I did is light well... My job was filling up the space around the head. I didn't make Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan made me." According to former first lady and longtime friend Nancy Reagan, Deaver's greatest skill "was in arranging what were known as good visuals — televised events or scenes that would leave a powerful symbolic image in people's minds." In 2006, Deaver was awarded an honorary degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Deaver died of pancreatic cancer on August 18, 2007 at age 69 at his home in Maryland. He is survived by his wife, Carolyn, and their two children, Amanda Deaver of Washington and Blair Deaver of Bend, Oregon. In a statement, Nancy Reagan, who attended the funeral of former talk show host Merv Griffin only the day before, said on the 18th, " was the closest of friends to both Ronnie and me in many ways, and he was like a son to Ronnie... We met great challenges together... I will miss Mike terribly."