I tried to make his interests mine, but finally there was nothing to sustain our marriage." When she divorced him, she testified: "Politics built a barrier between us. Reagan became increasingly active in politics as his wife's career climbed. Her acceptance speech was brief: "I accept this award very gratefully for keeping my mouth shut once. He changed his attitude when "Johnny Belinda" received 12 Academy Award nominations and the Oscar for Jane Wyman. Wyman escaped B-pictures by persuading Jack Warner to loan her to Paramount for "The Lost Weekend." The film won the Academy Award for 1945 and led to another loanout - to MGM for "The Yearling." De-glamourized as a backwoods wife and mother, the actress received her first Oscar nomination.Īfter 40 films at Warner Bros., Wyman achieved her first acting challenge with "Johnny Belinda." When Jack Warner saw a rough cut of the film, he ranted to the director, Jean Negulesco: "We invented talking pictures, and you make a picture about a deaf and dumb girl!" Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was not well enough to attend.Įarly in their marriage, Reagan's career grew with "Knute Rockne - All American" and "King's Row" while Wyman languished as "Joan Blondell of the B's." That changed after Reagan joined the army. At the funeral, Wyman, balancing on a cane, put a cross on the casket. Their daughter Maureen died in August 2001 after a battle with cancer. "Our marriage produced two wonderful children, Maureen and Michael, but it didn't work out, and in 1948 we were divorced." The final divorce decree was issued in 1949. "That same year I made the Knute Rockne movie, I married Jane Wyman, another contract player at Warners," Reagan wrote. In Reagan's autobiography "An American Life," the index shows only one mention of Wyman, and it runs for only two sentences. They also had a daughter who was born several months premature in June 1947 and died a day later. The following year she gave birth to a daughter, Maureen. She wangled a date with him, and romance ensued.Īfter returning from a personal appearance tour with columnist Louella Parsons, they were married on Jan. The actress became entranced by Reagan, a handsome former sportscaster who was a newcomer to the Warner lot. She divorced him in November 1938, declaring she wanted children and he didn't. The marriage was reported as her second, but an earlier marriage was never confirmed. In 1937, Wyman married a wealthy manufacturer of children's clothes, Myron Futterman, in New Orleans. She recalled in 1968: "For 10 years I was the wisecracking lady reporter who stormed the city desk snapping, `Stop the presses! I've got a story that will break this town wide open!'" was notorious for typecasting its contract players, and Wyman suffered that fate. I swim, ride, dive, imitate wild birds and play the trombone." She long remembered the first line she spoke as a chorus girl to show producer Dick Powell: "I'm Bessie Fuffnik. Also, I don't know a damn thing about politics."Ī few days after Reagan died on June 5, 2004, Wyman broke her silence, saying: "America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man." But it's bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that's all. I've always been a registered Republican. "It's not because I'm bitter or because I don't agree with him politically. In a 1968 newspaper interview, Wyman explained the reason: The couple divorced in 1948, the year she won the Oscar for "Johnny Belinda." Reagan reportedly cracked to a friend: "Maybe I should name Johnny Belinda as co-respondent."Īfter Reagan became governor of California and then president of the United States, Wyman kept a decorous silence about her ex-husband, who had married actress Nancy Davis. While he was in uniform during World War II, her career ascended, signaled by her 1946 Oscar nomination for "The Yearling." contract player Reagan was celebrated in the fan magazines as one of Hollywood's ideal unions. Her marriage in 1940 to fellow Warner Bros. From 1981 to 1990 she played Angela Channing, a Napa Valley winery owner who maintained her power with a steely will on CBS' "Falcon Crest." Wyman's film career spanned from the 1930s, including "Gold Diggers of 1937," to 1969's "How to Commit Marriage," co-starring Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason. No other details were immediately available. Wyman died at her Palm Springs home, said Richard Adney of Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Cathedral City. LOS ANGELES - Jane Wyman, an Academy Award winner for her performance as the deaf rape victim in "Johnny Belinda," star of the long-running TV series "Falcon Crest" and Ronald Reagan's first wife, died Monday morning at 93. By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer 27 minutes ago
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