Jane Wyman

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For other persons named Wyman, see Wyman (disambiguation).
Jane Wyman

in the trailer for the film Stage Fright (1950)
Born Sarah Jane Mayfield
January 5, 1917(1917-01-05)
Saint Joseph, Missouri, USA
Died September 10, 2007 (aged 90)
Rancho Mirage, California, USA
Occupation Actress
Years active 1932–1993
Spouse(s) Ernest Eugene Wyman (1933–1935) (divorced)
Myron Futterman (1937–1938) (divorced)
Ronald Reagan (1940–1948) (divorced)
Fred Karger (1952–1954,1961–1965) (Twice divorced)
Official website

Jane Wyman (January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007)[1][2] was an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated American actress. Her most prolific appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best known film roles in Johnny Belinda, for which she won an Oscar, and Magnificent Obsession opposite Rock Hudson. The actress became known to new generations in the 1980s, not only for her leading role as the malevolent matriarch Angela Gioberti Channing on the hit prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest, but because of her prior marriage to Ronald Reagan, a former actor who became President of the United States.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield in St. Joseph, Missouri. Although her birthdate has been widely reported for many years as January 4, 1914, research by biographers and genealogists indicates that she was born January 5, 1917.[3][4][5] The most likely reason for the 1914 date is that she added to her age when beginning her career as a minor in order to work legally.[6] She may have changed her January 5 birthdate to January 4 to coincide with that of her daughter Maureen Reagan. After Wyman's death, a release posted on her official website confirmed these details.[1]

Birthplace in St. Joseph
Birthplace in St. Joseph

Her parents were Manning Jefferies Mayfield (1895–1922), a meal-company laborer, and (Gladys) Hope Christian (1895–1960), a doctor's stenographer and office assistant. In October 1921, her mother filed for divorce, and her father died unexpectedly the following year at age 27. After her father's death, her mother moved to Cleveland, Ohio, leaving her to be raised by foster parents, Emma (1866–1951)[7] and Richard D. Fulks (1862–1928), the chief of detectives of Saint Joseph,[8] and she took their surname unofficially, including in her school records.

Her unsettled family life resulted in few pleasurable memories. Wyman later recalled: "I was raised with such strict discipline that it was years before I could reason myself out of the bitterness I brought from my childhood."[9]

In 1928, around age 11, she moved to southern California with her foster mother, but it is not known for certain if she attempted a career in motion pictures at this time, or if the relocation was due to the fact that some of Fulks' children also lived in the area. In 1930, the two moved back to Missouri, where Sarah Jane attended Lafayette High School in Saint Joseph. That same year she began a radio singing career, calling herself "Jane Durrell" and adding years to her birthdate to work legally since she would have been under age.

[edit] Career

[edit] Early career

After Jane dropped out of Lafayette in 1932, at age 15, she returned to Hollywood, taking on odd jobs as a manicurist and a switchboard operator, before obtaining small parts in films The Kid from Spain (as a "Goldwyn Girl") (1932), My Man Godfrey (1936) and Cain and Mabel (1936). After changing her surname from Durrell to Wyman, she began her career as a contract player with Warner Bros. in 1936. Her big break came the following year, when she received her first starring role in Public Wedding, but it would be nine long years before her movie career finally took off.[citation needed]

[edit] Recognition and acclaim

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Wyman in her Academy Award-winning role in Johnny Belinda (1948)
Wyman in her Academy Award-winning role in Johnny Belinda (1948)

In 1939, Wyman was cast in another starring role, in Torchy Plays With Dynamite. In 1941, she appeared in You're in the Army Now, in which she and Regis Toomey had the longest screen kiss in cinema history: 3 minutes and 5 seconds.[citation needed]

Wyman finally gained critical notice in the film noir The Lost Weekend (1945). She was nominated for the 1946 Academy Award for Best Actress for The Yearling (1946), and won two years later for her role as a deaf-mute rape victim in Johnny Belinda (1948). She was the first person in the sound era to win an acting Oscar without speaking a line of dialogue. In an amusing acceptance speech, perhaps poking fun at some of her long-winded counterparts, Wyman took her statue and said, "I won this by keeping my mouth shut, and that's what I'm going to do now."[citation needed]

The Oscar win gave her the ability to choose higher profile roles, although she still showed a liking for musical comedy. She worked with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock on Stage Fright (1950), Frank Capra on Here Comes the Groom (1951) and Michael Curtiz on The Story of Will Rogers (1952). She starred in The Glass Menagerie (1950), Just for You (1952), Let's Do It Again (1953), The Blue Veil (1951) (another Oscar nomination), the remake of Edna Ferber's So Big (1953), Magnificent Obsession (1954) (Oscar nomination), Lucy Gallant (1955), All That Heaven Allows (1955), and Miracle in the Rain (1956).

She replaced the ailing Gene Tierney in Holiday for Lovers (1959), and next appeared in Pollyanna (1960), Bon Voyage! (1962), and her final big screen movie, How to Commit Marriage (1969). Wyman was also a well-regarded character actress.

[edit] Television

Her first guest-starring television role was on a 1955 episode of General Electric Theatre. This appearance led to roles on Summer Playhouse, Lux Playhouse, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Checkmate, The Investigators, and Wagon Train. She also served as hostess of The Bell Telephone Hour and Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre. She had telling roles in both The Sixth Sense and Insight, among other programs.

Wyman hosted an anthology television series, Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theater, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1957. During her tenure as host, however, ratings steadily declined, and the show ended after three seasons.

She was later cast in two unsold pilots during the 1960s and 1970s. After those pilots were not picked up, Wyman went into semi-retirement and remained there for most of the 1970s, though she made guest appearances on series such as Charlie's Angels and The Love Boat.

[edit] Falcon Crest

Wyman's career enjoyed a resurgence when she was cast as the scheming Californian vintner and matriarch Angela Channing in The Vintage Years, which was retooled for the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest, which ran from 1981 to 1990. The series was created by Earl Hamner, who had created the hit series The Waltons a decade earlier. Ex-husband Ronald Reagan apparently encouraged Wyman to take the role,[citation needed] after actress Barbara Stanwyck had turned it down in 1980. In its first season, Falcon Crest was a ratings hit, behind Dallas but initially ahead of rival soap Dynasty. The show also starred Robert Foxworth, Susan Sullivan and a young Lorenzo Lamas.

For her role as Angela Channing, Wyman was nominated for a Soap Opera Digest Award five times (for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role and for Outstanding Villainess: Prime Time Serial), and was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1983 and 1984. That same year, she won the Golden Globe for Best Performance By an Actress in a TV Series. Later in the show's run, Wyman suffered several health problems. In 1986, she had abdominal surgery which caused her to miss two episodes while her character simply "went missing" under mysterious circumstances. In 1988, she missed another episode due to ill-health and was told by her doctors to avoid work. However, she wanted to continue working and she completed the rest of the 1988-1989 season while her health was still deteriorating. Months later in 1989, Wyman collapsed on the set and was hospitalized with diabetes and a liver ailment. Her doctors told her that she should end her acting career. Wyman was absent for most of the ninth and final season of Falcon Crest in 1989-1990 (her character was written out of the series by being comatose in a hospital bed). Going against her doctor's advice, she returned for the final three episodes in 1990, even writing a soliloquy for the series finale. Wyman ultimately appeared in 208 of the show's 227 episodes.

After Falcon Crest, Wyman only acted once more, playing Jane Seymour's screen mother in a 1993 episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Following this, she retired from acting permanently. Wyman had starred in 83 movies, two successful TV series, and was nominated for an Academy Award four times, winning once.

[edit] Personal life

[edit] Marriages

[edit] Ernest Eugene Wyman

It has been rumored that on April 8, 1933, Wyman married Ernest Eugene Wyman (or Weymann) (1906–1970),[10] a salesman; the marriage was mentioned in Dutch, the authorized biography of Ronald Reagan by Edmund Morris, who says that the marriage certificate is on file with the State of California, with the bride giving her name as Jane Fulks, daughter of Richard D. and Emma Reise Fulks. Morris also says that Reagan hinted at Wyman's first marriage when he told him in 1989, "What you have to look at [is] that there were a few husbands before me."[11] American genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner suggests that Jane Wyman adopted her professional surname from her German-born foster mother, Emma (Reise) Fulks, whom he says was previously married to Dr. M. F. Weyman, a St. Louis, Missouri ophthalmologist[12] by whom she had several children who lived with Jane Wyman in her youth.

[edit] Myron Martin Futterman

Wyman married Myron Martin Futterman (1900–1965), a dress manufacturer, in New Orleans on June 29, 1937. Because Wyman wanted a baby and Futterman did not, they separated after three months of marriage.[13] They divorced on December 5, 1938.[14]

[edit] Ronald Reagan

In 1938, Wyman co-starred with Ronald Reagan in Brother Rat (1938), and its sequel Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). She and Reagan had three children; Maureen Elizabeth Reagan (1941–2001), Michael Edward Reagan (born March 18, 1945, and adopted by the Reagans shortly thereafter), and Christine Reagan (born prematurely June 26, 1947, and died later that same day). Since Reagan is the only U.S. president to have been divorced, Wyman is the only ex-wife of an American President.

Though she remained silent during Reagan's political career, she told a newspaper interviewer in 1968 that this was not because she was "bitter or because I don't agree with him politically. I've always been a registered Republican. 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." A few days after Reagan died on June 5, 2004, Wyman broke her silence: "America has lost a great president and a great, kind, and gentle man."[15]

[edit] Fred Karger

Following her divorce from Reagan, Wyman married Hollywood music director and composer Frederick M. Karger (1916–1979) on November 1, 1952, at El Montecito Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara. They separated on November 7, 1954 and were granted an interlocutory divorce decree on December 7, 1954; the divorce was finalized on December 30, 1955. They remarried on March 11, 1961, and Karger divorced her again on March 9, 1965. According to The New York Times report of the divorce, the bandleader charged that the actress "had walked out on him."[16] Wyman had a stepdaughter, Terrence (Karger) Melton, by Karger's first marriage to Patti Sacks, an actress.[17]

Wyman never remarried, and after her conversion to Roman Catholicism, both she and her best friend Loretta Young obtained special indults from their bishop to receive communion.

[edit] Later life

Jane Wyman lived in seclusion for a number of years because of declining health. She was rarely seen in public, with the exception of attending the funerals of her daughter, Maureen Reagan, and her close friend Loretta Young.

During her retirement, she purchased a house in Rancho Mirage in 1997, so that she could continue living a quiet life and attend honorable charity events. Reportedly, on April 16, 2003, she moved to a retirement home in Palm Springs, but after her death it was reported that she died at her own home at the Rancho Mirage Country Club.

[edit] Death

Jane Wyman died at the age of 90[1] at her Rancho Mirage home on Monday, September 10, 2007,[18] having long suffered from arthritis and diabetes. Wyman's son, Michael Reagan, released a statement saying, "I have lost a loving mother, my children Cameron and Ashley have lost a loving grandmother, my wife Colleen has lost a loving friend she called Mom and Hollywood has lost the classiest lady to ever grace the silver screen."[19]

It was reported that Wyman died in her sleep of natural causes. Since she was a member of the Dominican order of the Catholic church, she was buried in a nun's habit. She was interred at Forest Lawn Mortuary and Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Television

  • Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre (1955 - 1958)
  • Summer Playhouse (host in 1957)
  • The Failing of Raymond (1971)
  • Amanda Fallon (1973) (unsold TV pilot)
  • The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel (1979)
  • Falcon Crest (1981 - 1990)

[edit] Awards and nominations

[edit] Academy Awards

[edit] Emmy Awards

  • Nominated: Best Lead Actress - Drama Series, Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1957)
  • Nominated: Best Lead Actress - Drama Series, Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1959)

[edit] Golden Globe Awards

Wyman has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for motion pictures at 6607 Hollywood Boulevard and one for television at 1620 Vine Street.

Awards
Preceded by
Loretta Young
for The Farmer's Daughter		 Academy Award for Best Actress
1948
for Johnny Belinda		 Succeeded by
Olivia de Havilland
for The Heiress
Preceded by
Rosalind Russell
for Mourning Becomes Electra		 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1949
for Johnny Belinda		 Succeeded by
Olivia de Havilland
for The Heiress
Preceded by
Gloria Swanson
for Sunset Boulevard		 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1952
for The Blue Veil		 Succeeded by
Shirley Booth
for Come Back, Little Sheba
Preceded by
Joan Collins
for Dynasty		 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama
1984
for Falcon Crest		 Succeeded by
Angela Lansbury
for Murder, She Wrote

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Actress, Philanthropist Jane Wyman Dies. Retrieved September 10, 2007.
  2. ^ Birth and death dates from the Social Security Death Index.
  3. ^ Edwards, Anne. Early Reagan: The Rise to Power. William Morrow & Co (November 1990). ISBN 0688060501.
  4. ^ Bubbeo, Daniel. The Women of Warner Brothers: The Lives and Careers of 15 Leading Ladies. McFarland & Company (October 2001). ISBN 0786411376.
  5. ^ Colacello, Bob. Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House--1911 to 1980. Warner Books; 1st Warner Books Edition (2004). ISBN 044653272X.
  6. ^ She is listed in the U.S. Census taken in April 1930 as being 18 years old, when she was actually 13. U.S. Census, April 1, 1930, State of California, County of Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles, enumeration district 328, p. 13A, family 503.
  7. ^ U.S. Census, April 15, 1910, State of Missouri, County of Buchanan, enumeration district 54, p. 5-A, family 99. California death index, 1940–1997.
  8. ^ Jane Wyman, 90, Star of Film and TV, Is Dead, The New York Times, September 11, 2007. Fulks's position was upgraded to mayor of Saint Louis by the Warner Bros. publicity department when his foster daughter became a successful actress. Source: Jane Wyman (obituary), The Times (London), September 11, 2007.
  9. ^ Jane Wyman (obituary). The Independent (London), September 11, 2007.
  10. ^ California Death Index, 1940-1997. U.S. Census, April 1, 1930, State of California, County of Los Angeles, enumeration district 221, p. 14-A, family 490.
  11. ^ Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Modern Library, 2000. ISBN 978-0375756450
  12. ^ The Annals of Ophthalmology: A Quarterly Review of Ophthalmic Science, Volume XI, St. Louis, Missouri: Jones H. Parker, 1900.
  13. ^ Jane Wyman biography. Official Wyman website.
  14. ^ "Film Actress Wins Divorce," Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1938, p. 3.
  15. ^ Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan's first wife, dies at 93, Politico.com
  16. ^ "Jane Wyman Divorced", The New York Times, March 10, 1965.
  17. ^ "Frederick M. Karger, 63, Arranger and Composer", The New York Times, August 6, 1979.
  18. ^ Johnny Belinda Actress Jane Wyman Dies. USA Today. 10 September 2007.
  19. ^ Oscar-Winner Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan's First Wife, Dead at 93. Fox News. 10 September 2007.

[edit] External links

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Academy Award for Best Actress

Joan Fontaine (1941) · Greer Garson (1942) · Jennifer Jones (1943) · Ingrid Bergman (1944) · Joan Crawford (1945) · Olivia de Havilland (1946) · Loretta Young (1947) · Jane Wyman (1948) · Olivia de Havilland (1949) Judy Holliday (1950) · Vivien Leigh (1951) · Shirley Booth (1952) · Audrey Hepburn (1953) · Grace Kelly (1954) · Anna Magnani (1955) · Ingrid Bergman (1956) · Joanne Woodward (1957) · Susan Hayward (1958) · Simone Signoret (1959) · Elizabeth Taylor (1960)

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Persondata
NAME Wyman, Jane
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mayfield, Sarah Jane
SHORT DESCRIPTION Actress
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint Joseph, Missouri, USA
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 2007
PLACE OF DEATH Rancho Mirage, California, USA