Betty Ford

Former US first lady Betty Ford, whose battles with cancer and substance abuse inspired millions to seek treatment, has died aged 93.

She married Gerald Ford in 1948, the same year the future president was elected to the US Congress. She was thrust into the spotlight in 1974 when he became president after the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer weeks later and won acclaim for her openness and courage.

Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976. Mrs Ford was later treated for drug and alcohol addiction and then helped found the Betty Ford Centre to help others.

The mother-of-four had undergone surgery in April 2007. During and after her years in the White House, from 1974 to 1977, she won acclaim for her candour, wit and courage as she fought breast cancer, severe arthritis and the twin addictions of drugs and alcohol. She also pressed for abortion rights and women’s rights.

It was her Betty Ford Centre, which rescued celebrities and ordinary people from addiction, that made her famous in her own right. She was modest about that accomplishment.

Mrs Ford was born Elizabeth Bloomer in Chicago and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

She was talented in dancing and studied with the great dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. She also worked as a model to make extra money during the Depression.

With her grey-green eyes, chestnut hair and stately bearing, she was often described as regal.

An early marriage to a furniture company representative, William Warren, ended in divorce before she met Gerald Ford, a lawyer just out of the US Navy. When he proposed, she said later, she had no idea he planned a political career.

“I really thought I was marrying a lawyer and we’d be living in Grand Rapids,” she recalled. Then he announced his plan to run for Congress and even made a campaign appearance during their honeymoon.

Political life was hard for her. While her husband campaigned or worked late in Congress, she raised their four children: Michael, born in 1950; John, born in 1952; Steven, born in 1956; and Susan, born in 1957.

The children were in their late teens and early 20s by the time the Fords moved into the White House and only Susan lived there. But they were a close family, gathering at Vail, Colorado, for Christmas skiing holidays.

“When I came to Washington, I saw my job as a supporting wife and mother,” Mrs Ford said. “But I came to feel an emptiness in spite of the fact I was happy. The old term housewife just didn’t seem right. That’s when I looked for support in my thinking that there must be something more than that.”

She became an outspoken advocate for legal abortion and supported drafting women for the armed services.

Drawing on her dance background, she also helped foster interest in the arts during her time as first lady. She reconnected with her old teacher Ms Graham, who remembered her as “very dedicated”, and Ms Graham received the Medal of Freedom in a White House ceremony during the Ford years.

When she underwent a radical mastectomy for removal of a cancerous breast, she kept no secrets, bringing the disease into the open.

Thousands of women rushed to get breast examinations because of Mrs Ford’s example.

After Gerald died in 2006, aged 93, she said: “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”

As she and their children led the nation in mourning him, Americans were reminded anew of her own contributions, as well as his. It was calculated then that the Betty Ford Centre had treated 76,000 people.

She and her husband had retired to Rancho Mirage, California, after Mr Ford lost a bruising presidential race to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Mrs Ford went to work on her memoirs, The Times of My Life, which came out in 1979. But the social whirlwind that engulfed them in Washington was over and she confessed that she missed it.

By 1978, she was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs. She would later describe herself during that period as “this nice, dopey pill-pusher sitting around and nodding”.

Her children recalled her living in a stupor, shuffling around in her bathrobe, refusing meals in favour of a drink. Her family finally confronted her in April 1978 and insisted she seek treatment. She credited their intervention with saving her life.

“I was terribly hurt – after I had spent all those years trying to be the best mother and wife I could be,” she said. “Luckily, I was able to hear them saying that I needed help and they cared too much about me to let it go on.”

She entered Long Beach Naval Hospital and underwent a grim detoxification, which became the model for therapy at the Betty Ford Centre. She saw her recovery as a second chance at life.

Her own experience, and that of a businessman friend whom she helped save from alcoholism, were the inspiration for the centre, located on the grounds of the Eisenhower Medical Centre. She helped raise $3 million, lobbied in the state capital for its approval, and reluctantly agreed to let it be named after her.

She liked to tell patients: “I’m just one more woman who has had this problem.”

Her efforts won her a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, from President George Bush senior in 1991. In 1999 Gerald and Betty Ford were awarded Congressional Gold Medals.

Family spokeswoman Barbara Lewandrowski said Mrs Ford died at the Eisenhower Medical Centre in Rancho Mirage, California.

She said the family expected to organise a service in Palm Springs. After that, Mrs Ford’s body will be sent to Michigan for burial alongside her husband, who is buried at his namesake library in Grand Rapids, Michigan.