Former Reagan presidential advisor Michael Deaver has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 69.

Michael K. Deaver, one Ronald Reagan’s closest advisers during in the White House and the director of the president’s picturesque and symbolic public appearances, died Saturday. He was 69.
Deaver, who had pancreatic cancer, died at his home in Bethesda, Md., according to a statement from the Deaver family that was issued by Edelman, the public relations firm he served as vice chairman.

Deaver was celebrated and scorned as an expert at media manipulation for focusing on how the president looked as much as what the president said. Reagan’s chief choreographer for public events, Deaver protected the commander in chief’s image and enhanced it with a flair for choosing just the right settings, poses and camera angles.

“I’ve always said the only thing I did is light him well,” Deaver told the Los Angeles Times in 2001. “My job was filling up the space around the head. I didn’t make Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan made me.”

Sympathies and prayers go out to his family.