Wyman, Jane

Born Sarah Jane Mayfield, January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, MO; died of natural causes, September 10, 2007, in Rancho Mirage, CA. Actress. Performing through six decades in Hollywood and on television, Jane Wyman was an Oscar-winning actress best known for her role as a deaf-mute girl who was abused and raped in Johnny Belinda. Often cast in the role of a long-suffering woman who stubbornly survives against the odds, Wyman was internationally known for her character, Angela Channing, which she played for nearly a decade on the soap opera Falcon Crest.

Wyman is also known as the first ex-wife of an American president. Married to Ronald Reagan when both were actors, Wyman was known for her silence on their relationship after they were divorced, and walked out of interviews that sought gossip about her ex-husband. “It’s not because I’m bitter or because I don’t agree with him politically,” she explained in an interview, quoted on CNN.com. “But it’s bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that’s all. Also, I don’t know a damn thing about politics.”

Despite her high profile, many of the details of Wyman’s early life are hard to pin down. She claimed to have been born in 1914, but later sources have said that she was actually born in 1917, and that her false birth date was given so that she could get married at only 16 years of age. However, details on this first marriage (which ended in divorce) are also elusive. She may have also lied about her age in order to get work in Hollywood while still a minor: Her first film was produced in 1932.

Born Sarah Jane Mayfield, Wyman was the child of Manning Mayfield and Gladys Christian, who divorced when Wyman was four. When Wyman’s father died of pneumonia, Wyman was entrusted with neighbors, the Fulks, who raised her. For years, she went by Sarah Jane Fulks, and when her adoptive father died when Wyman was eleven, she moved with the Fulks to Los Angeles.

Wyman returned to Missouri for school, but she moved back to Los Angeles where she wanted to make it in Hollywood, dying her hair blonde and working a variety of jobs while hoping to win a role in a film. She secured a position as a chorus girl and received a role as a dancer in The Kid from Spain. This was the beginning of her regular work in Hollywood, and though Wyman battled with shyness, she covered her insecurities with bravado. “Were all the other dancers prettier? Never mind,” she once said, quoted in the Times of London. “I covered up by becoming the cockiest of all, by talking the loudest, laughing the longest, and wearing the curliest, most blatantly false eyelashes in Hollywood.” Her attitude eventually won her a position as a contract actress at Warners, where, appearing as Jane Wyman, she performed as fast-talking lady reporters and sidekicks.

In 1938, Wyman appeared opposite Reagan in Brother Rat, and she and Reagan became a couple after she finalized her divorce to her second husband in 1939. They were Hollywood darlings, popularized by gossip columnist Louella Parsons. Reagan’s career soared while Wyman remained a B-movie actress, and the two married in 1940. They had one daughter, adopted a son, and lost a second daughter to premature birth. In 1945, while Reagan was in the army during World War II, Wyman had her first breakthrough as a serious actress, playing the part of the girlfriend to an alcoholic in The Lost Weekend. In her next film, Wyman played her first Oscar nominated role in The Yearling.

As Wyman’s career progressed, her relationship with Reagan began to fall apart, particularly after she was cast in Johnny Belinda. Reagan was becom- ing more interested in politics, and Wyman was completely ambivalent. Instead, she focused on her role as a deaf-mute girl, seldom speaking at home and learning sign language. “I learned the all-important thing: A deaf person hears with her eyes, just as a blind person sees with his ears,” Wyman was quoted as having said in the Los Angeles Times. By the time the film came out, she and Reagan had finalized their divorce. Johnny Belinda received 12 Oscar nominations, and Wyman received the Oscar for best actress. Her speech was short; according to the Times of London she said, “I won this award for keeping my mouth shut, so I think I’ll do it again now.”

Several other Oscar nominations followed as Wyman took further roles of women under adversity. In 1952, Wyman married Fred Karger, Marilyn Monroe’s sometimes boyfriend, and made the move to television. She and Karger divorced in 1954, re-married in 1963, and were divorced again, but Wyman’s relationship with television was more stable. From 1955 through 1958, she was the host of Fireside Theater, which became The Jane Wyman Theater, a drama series that featured a short movie, often starring Wyman, every week. She left that position due to the enormous amount of work required, filming additional movies and television appearances throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Her last film, How to Commit Marriage with Bob Hope, appeared in 1969.

In 1981, Wyman took a role completely against her previous type: She became the controlling matriarch of Falcon Crest, a drama and soap opera that had similar themes to Dallas. On taking the role, she summed up her career in an interview, quoted at CNN.com: “I’ve been through four different cycles in pictures: the brassy blonde, then came the musicals, the high dramas, then the inauguration of television.” When the show went off the air in 1990, Wyman largely retired from public life. She put her efforts into her paintings, many of which sold through a California gallery, and focused on volunteer work for the Arthritis Foundation.

Wyman “was not only a fine actress but a darling, dear lady,” Paramount producer A. C. Lyles told the Los Angeles Times. “I think she was an inspiration to all young actresses because she started as a minor actress and worked her way through the ranks to become not only one of Hollywood’s prominent leading ladies but an Academy Award winner.” Over the course of her 54year career, Wyman made 86 films and 350 television episodes. After years of failing health, she died in her home in Rancho Mirage, California. Wyman is survived by her son, Michael Reagan. Sources: CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/10/obit.wyman.ap/index.html (September 10, 2007); Entertainment Weekly, September 21, 2007, p. 20; Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2007, p. B8; New York Times, September 11, 2007, p. C11; Times (London), September 11, 2007.

—Alana Joli Abbott