Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman Get Married | World History Project Jan 26 1940 Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman Get Married In 1938, Reagan co-starred in the film Brother Rat with actress Jane Wyman (1917–2007). They were engaged at the Chicago Theatre,[35] and married on January 26, 1940, at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Glendale, California. Together they had two children, Maureen (1941–2001) and Christine (born June 26, 1947; died June 27, 1947), and adopted a third, Michael (born 1945). Following arguments about Reagan's political ambitions, Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, citing a distraction due to her husband's Screen Actors Guild union duties; the divorce was finalized in 1949 making him the only U.S. president to have been divorced.

Source: Wikipedia Added by: Brandon samuels In 1938, Wyman co-starred with Ronald Reagan in Brother Rat (1938), and its sequel Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). They were engaged at the Chicago Theatre,[17] and married on January 26, 1940, at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Glendale, California.[18] She and Reagan had three children; Maureen Elizabeth Reagan (1941–2001), Michael Edward Reagan (born March 18, 1945, and adopted by the Reagans.), and Christine Reagan (born prematurely on June 26, 1947 and died the next day). She filed for divorce in 1948; the divorce was finalized in 1949. Since Ronald 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. Jane Wyman Jane Wyman Location of death: Palm Springs, CA Cause of death: Natural Causes Nationality: United States Executive summary: Falcon Crest Jane Wyman was a movie star in the 1940s and 50s. Her most famous films include The Yearling with Gregory Peck , Magnificent Obsession with Rock Hudson , The Glass Menagerie with Kirk Douglas , and Billy Wilder 's alcoholic classic The Lost Weekend with Ray Milland . She won an Oscar for her wordless performance in Johnny Belinda, as a small-town deaf-mute rape victim. In You're in the Army Now she gave Regis Toomey a kiss lasting three minutes and five seconds, which some cinema experts cite as the longest kiss in film history. She was born Sarah Jane Mayfield. Her parents divorced when she was four years old, and her father died mysteriously a few months later. He was only 27.

Her mother couldn't handle raising her alone, so Sarah Jane was taken in by kindly neighbors, the Fulks family. It's uncertain whether she was ever legally adopted, but school registrations list her as Sarah Jane Fulks after that. When the man of the Fulks household died some years later, Mrs. Fulks and Sarah Jane moved to Los Angeles. Four years later, at 18, she got a bit role in The Kid from Spain, and over the next several years her movie roles got bigger bit-by-bit. She also sang on the radio, as Jane Durrell. She met Ronald Reagan on the set of Brother Rat in 1938, and they were married for most of the 1940s. During much of that time, Reagan was away at the Army Air Force Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California, making WWII training and propaganda movies for the government. As the "red scare" warmed up, Reagan testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1946, but didn't "name names". He was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947, and Wyman felt abandoned and perplexed by his growing political aspirations.

When she left him, he was reportedly heartbroken, and begged for another chance. In the divorce settlement, she got custody of their children and $500 a month for their support. By the mid-1950s, Wyman was a much bigger movie star than Reagan ever was, but after her 40th birthday she knew her roles would get fewer, smaller, and less interesting. So she jumped to the newfangled medium of television, taking over as hostess, producer, and sometimes star of the long-running anthology series, Fireside Theater. The series had been on NBC since 1949, but Wyman was the first woman to host. Her name carried clout -- the show was promptly renamed Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre, and later called Jane Wyman Theater and The Jane Wyman Show. Wyman starred in 42 of the 92 episodes made during her tenure and supervising most behind-the-scenes aspects with her business partner, Lew Wasserman . Curiously, Wasserman had once been Reagan's personal agent.

Wyman and Wasserman regularly hired up-and-coming actors, and gave early work to writers like Rod Serling (before The Twilight Zone), Quinn Martin (before The Untouchables), and Gene Roddenberry (before Star Trek). She signed Aaron Spelling 's first few paychecks as a writer, decades before Melrose Place. The show became known for demanding top-notch work from everyone involved. "I learned one thing", Wyman said. "You can always get quality if you are quality". The show ended in 1958, but reruns popped up in daytime slots and even network prime time slots through the mid-1960s. After that, Wyman rarely worked, turning down offers for Joan Crawford -esque horror movies or supporting roles as wacky grandmothers. She also became an artist, painting California landscapes. But in 1981, her ex-husband Reagan was sworn in as President of the United States, and Wyman was suddenly more "in demand". She came out of retirement with a roar, playing the matriarch of the Channing family on TV's Falcon Crest until 1990.

In retirement, she joined a Dominican order of the Catholic church, and in death she was buried in her habit. Jane Wyman - Biography - IMDb Jane Wyman Biography Showing all 168 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (5) | Trade Mark (5) | Trivia (117) | Personal Quotes (35) Overview (5) 5' 5½" (1.66 m) Mini Bio (1) Jane Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield on January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, Missouri (she was also known later as Sarah Jane Fulks). When she was only eight years old, and after her parents filed for divorce, she lost her father prematurely. After graduating high school she attempted, with the help of her mother, to break into films, but to no avail. In 1932, after attending the University of Missouri, she began a career as a radio singer, which led to her first name change to Jane Durrell. In 1936 she signed a contract with Warner Bros. Pictures and that led to another name change, the more familiar one of Jane Wyman.

Under that name she appeared in "A" and "B" pictures at Warners, including two with her future husband, Ronald Reagan : Brother Rat (1938) and its sequel, Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). In the early 1940s she moved into comedies and melodramas and gained attention for her role as Ray Milland 's long-suffering girlfriend in The Lost Weekend (1945). The following year she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Ma Baxter in The Yearling (1946), and won the coveted prize in 1949 as deaf-mute rape victim Belinda MacDonald in Johnny Belinda (1948). She followed that with a number of appearances in more prestigious films, such as Alfred Hitchcock 's Stage Fright (1950), Frank Capra 's Here Comes the Groom (1951), Michael Curtiz 's The Story of Will Rogers (1952) and the first movie version of The Glass Menagerie (1950). She starred opposite Bing Crosby in the musical Just for You (1952).

She was Oscar-nominated for her performances in The Blue Veil (1951) and Magnificent Obsession (1954). She also starred in the immensely popular So Big (1953), Lucy Gallant (1955), All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Miracle in the Rain (1956). In addition to her extensive film career, she hosted TV's Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955) and starred in most of the episodes of the show, which ran for three seasons. She came back to the big screen in Holiday for Lovers (1959), Pollyanna (1960) and her final film, How to Commit Marriage (1969). Although off the big screen, she became a presence on the small screen and starred in two made-for-TV movies, including The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel (1979).

In early 1981, in the 49th year of her career, she won the role of conniving matriarch Angela Channing Erikson Stavros Agretti in the movie "The Vintage Years", which was the unaired pilot for the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981), later in the year. For nine seasons she played that character in a way that virtually no other actress could have done, and became the moral center of the show. The show was a ratings winner from its debut in 1981, and made stars out of her fellow cast members Robert Foxworth , Lorenzo Lamas , Abby Dalton and Susan Sullivan . At the end of the first season the storyline had her being informed that her evil son, played by David Selby , had inherited 50% of a California newspaper company, and the conflicts inherent in that situation led to even bigger ratings over the next five years. Wyman was nominated six times for a Soap Opera Digest Award, and in 1984 she won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series Drama.

By the show's eighth season, however, she was emotionally drained and the strain of constantly working to keep up the quality of a hit show took its toll on her. In addition, there was friction on the set among cast members. All of these events culminated in her departure from the show after the first two episodes of the ninth season (her character was hospitalized and slipped into a coma) for health reasons. After a period of recuperation, she believed that she had recovered enough to guest-star in the last three episodes of the season (her doctor disagreed, but she did it anyway). She then guest-starred as Jane Seymour 's mother on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993) and three years later appeared in Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1995). In the late 1990s she purchased a home in Rancho Mirage, California, where she's still living in retirement. Her daughter, Maureen Reagan (who died in August 2001), was a writer who also involved herself in political issues and organized a powerful foundation. Also, she placed her 3200-sq.-ft. Rancho Mirage condominium on the market.

Jane Wyman died at the age of 90, at her Palm Springs, California home, on September 10, 2007, having long suffered from arthritis and diabetes. It was reported that Wyman died in her sleep of natural causes at the Rancho Mirage Country Club. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Richard Collins II (brothergaryii@yahoo.com) Spouse (5) Her hairdo, bangs over her forehead. Played roles that were either physically challenged or disabled. Usually played women who either become engaged or soon get married. Short stature Trivia (117) Her Best Actress Oscar for Johnny Belinda (1948) makes her the only wife of a future U.S. President ( Ronald Reagan ) ever to win such an award. Adopted mother of nationally syndicated radio talk show host Michael Reagan . Her name changed to "Jane Faulks" when she was unofficially "adopted" by the Faulks family, middle-aged neighbors of her single mother. Moved to So. California with Mrs.

Faulks when she was widowed in 1928 Several sources have given her date of birth as January 4, 1914, which would mean she was one of the first (and one of the very few) actresses to make herself older. She is a serious convert to Roman Catholicism, attending Mass with good friend Loretta Young . Apparently broke up with Ronald Reagan over her love for Lew Ayres , but that relationship failed in the long run. Mother of Maureen Reagan and Michael Reagan . Daughter, with third husband - actor/former president Ronald Reagan - Maureen Reagan dies of malignant melanoma (skin cancer) at her Sacramento-area home. [August 2001] Holds the record for the longest screen kiss, with Regis Toomey in You're in the Army Now (1941), at 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Before she was a successful actress, she was once a switchboard operator. Had taken a break on the ninth and final season of Falcon Crest (1981), during the third episode, due to the health problems she was suffering, but came back for the last three episodes of the series. Was a diabetic.

Was always good friends with Loretta Young . Has 2 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Would never talk about Ronald Reagan in an interview. Daughter, Maureen Reagan , was admitted to the John Wayne Cancer Institute for malignant melanoma. [11 December 2000] Appeared in every episode of Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955) and was nominated for an Emmy twice. Before she was a successful actress, she was a chorus girl. Was very good friends with: Julie London , John Forsythe , Barbara Stanwyck , Virginia Mayo , Rod Taylor , Dennis Morgan , Alexis Smith , Chao Li Chi , Bob Curtis , Bob Hope , Frank Sinatra , Sammy Davis Jr. , Dean Martin , Robert Conrad , Ernest Borgnine , Danny Thomas , Buddy Ebsen , Cary Grant , Robert Mitchum , Cesar Romero , Doris Day , Fernando Lamas , Arlene Dahl , Betty Grable , Carol Channing , Anne Jeffreys , Esther Williams , Ann Doran , Ray Milland , Loretta Young , Tony Curtis , Betty Hutton , Mickey Rooney , Aaron Spelling , Earl Hamner Jr.

, Larry Hagman , Barbara Bel Geddes , Howard Keel , Eddie Albert , Gavin MacLeod , Ann Sheridan , Eve Arden , Karl Malden , Abby Dalton , Ruta Lee , Claire Trevor , Fred MacMurray , William Demarest , Rosemary Clooney , Bing Crosby , Broderick Crawford , Rock Hudson , Leslie Nielsen , Johnny Carson , Merv Griffin , Lauren Bacall , Yvonne De Carlo and Agnes Moorehead . Replaced Gracie Allen for an evening of "The Burns and Allen Radio Show" when Gracie had a migraine. It turned out to be the only time Gracie missed their show in all the years Burns and Allen performed together. She would never talk about Ronald Reagan in an interview, but voted for him three times and attended his funeral. In Italy, most of her films were dubbed by either Lidia Simoneschi or Dhia Cristiani . She was occasionally dubbed by Rosetta Calavetta , Renata Marini , Rina Morelli or Giovanna Scotto . Was a close friend of USC School of Cinematic Arts professor Drew Casper. She attended Lafayette High School in St. Joseph, Missouri.

She dropped out of Lafayette High School, during her freshman year, and took on odd jobs such as a waitress and manicurist. She had 10 hobbies: landscape painting, golfing, dancing, collecting CDs, listening to music, playing piano, singing, philanthropy, reading and politics. Was the recipient of the Charles B. Harding Award in 1977, which was the highest national award given by The Arthritis Foundation. Began her career as a contract player for Warner Bros. in 1936. Her Falcon Crest (1981) co-stars, Susan Sullivan and Lorenzo Lamas , both went to visit her in the hospital, while the ninth and final season was filming. Her Falcon Crest (1981) co-star, Susan Sullivan , won the 1998 Jane Wyman Award at the Arthritis Foundation. Her father, Manning Jefferies Mayfield, died when she was only 5. In 1991, she received the Golda Meir Award from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.

Wyman had appeared in almost every episode of Falcon Crest (1981) from 1981 to 1989, before she missed 16 episodes in the final season. Against her doctor's advice, she came back for the series' final three shows, for a total of 208 of the 227 episodes of the series. Lived in a retirement home in Palm Springs, California, before she resided at the Rancho Mirage Country Club, where she died. Was not the first choice for Angela Channing on Falcon Crest (1981). It was after her best friend Barbara Stanwyck turned down this part, that producers Earl Hamner Jr. and Michael Filerman immediately cast her in the role. Met Lorenzo Lamas 's father, Fernando Lamas , on an episode of Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955), when at the time of filming, Lorenzo was a 3 month old infant. By the time Lorenzo Lamas was 21, he persistently auditioned for a co-starring role in the long-running TV series, Falcon Crest (1981), opposite Wyman, as her grandson.

His persistence paid off, and he won the role. Was a very good friend of Aaron Spelling . She appeared on both of his shows: Charlie's Angels (1976) and The Love Boat (1977). On an episode of Falcon Crest (1981), Wyman's movie The Blue Veil (1951), showed flashback scenes when her character reminisces about being told in the hospital that her newborn son had died. Was a spokesperson for the National Arthritis Foundation from the mid-1970s. Was hospitalized with a liver ailment and diabetes after she collapsed on the set of Falcon Crest (1981)'s ninth season. [20 February 1989]. Remained good friends with Susan Sullivan and Lorenzo Lamas during and after Falcon Crest (1981). Her parents were Gladys Hope Christian, an a doctor's stenographer and office assistant and Manning Jefferies Mayfield, a meal-company laborer. Was a staunch Republican.

Her best friend Esther Williams is the stepmother of Falcon Crest (1981), co-star, Lorenzo Lamas , whose father was Fernando Lamas , who married Williams on New Years' Eve, 1969, till his death in 1982. Ironically, Wyman, Lamas and Williams, knew each other for many years, before. She had been battling health problems for years, so producers thought they rewrote the scripts in such a way that her character didn't do most of the walking on the Falcon Crest (1981) set. Before she was a successful actress, she had lots of jobs, especially that of a radio singer. The first actress ever to have lots of name changes. After she took the name of Sarah Jane Fulks, she dropped her first name and used Jane, as her middle name, hence, she legally changed her name to Jane Durrell, however, she was asked to change her last name to Wyman, the same last name as her adoptive siblings - her mother had first been married to a Dr. Weymann. Began singing and dancing at an early age. The youngest of three children.

Future Falcon Crest (1981) co-stars, David Selby , Ana Alicia and Lorenzo Lamas were all being idolized by her, during childhood. Was born in the same city as Ruth Warrick . She died only 9 months before her Falcon Crest (1981) co-star Mel Ferrer . Was a heavy smoker for years. Former sister-in-law of Neil Reagan . Her ex-husband, Ronald Reagan , died of complications of Alzheimer's disease and pneumonia. [5 June 2004]. After her father's death and the divorce of her mother, she lived with her foster mother, when she was a little girl. Survived by two grandchildren and one adopted grandchild. Interred at Forest Lawn Mortuary and Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, USA. Had met her first husband, Ronald Reagan , on the set of Brother Rat (1938). Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman had a daughter Christine who was born June 26, 1947 and lived 9 hours. After her retirement from acting, and long before her death, she attended other charity and honorable events, as well as the funeral of her best friends.

Wrote a soliloquy for the series finale of Falcon Crest (1981). Went into semi-retirement after she starred in two failed TV pilots in the 1960s and 1970s. Best remembered by the public for her starring role as Angela Channing on Falcon Crest (1981). Had relocated from Los Angeles and back to Saint Joseph, Missouri, in 1930, when young Jane was only age 13. Was also a friend of John Forsythe . Coincidentally, Wyman starred on Falcon Crest (1981), after Forsythe starred on Dynasty (1981), in the same year. She and Eddie Albert were best friends from 1938 to Thursday, May 26, 2005, when Eddie Albert lost his life. After her guest-starring role on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993), she retired from acting at age 76. Was reported that she also died of natural causes in her sleep.

Was supposed to reprise her role as Aunt Polly in The Adventures of Pollyanna (1982), but was unavailable, because she was under contract working on Falcon Crest (1981), hence, the role was ultimately given to Shirley Jones . Was buried as a third-degree nun [from an interview by Michael Reagan to Megyn Kelly on America Live (2010) on May 29, 2012]. After she won the Oscar, Jack Warner announced Wyman for "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Ethan Frome.' Vivien Leigh played the role in "Streetcar" and Warner Bros. never made "Frome.". Created the character of Angela Channing of Falcon Crest (1981), who also had no intention of letting her character become a sort of J.R. Ewing of the wine business who felt she was representing all women in business. She was also a very, tough character at first, but wanted Angela to show she was also capable of love. Was raised Roman Catholic. Her adopted son Michael Reagan had a recurring role on Falcon Crest (1981) with her.

Quit her hosting duties on Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955), because she was exhausted from putting on a miniature movie once a week. Grandmother of Cameron and Ashley. She was the last surviving member of Brother Rat (1938). Acting mentor and friends of Lorenzo Lamas , Ana Alicia and David Selby . Jack Benny gave Jane her nickname of Minnie Mouse because he believed that she resembled what the Disney character would look life if human. Missed a lot of episodes in the last season of Falcon Crest (1981), because of the direction the show was going. Appeared on the front cover of TV Guide four times. On her retirement in 1993, she moved to Rancho Mirage, California, and lived there until she died. Of German descent. Jane Wyman was deceased on September 10, 2007. Her longtime friend, Merv Griffin , died on August 12, 2007, just 4 weeks before her. Resided in Santa Monica, California, from 1985 to 1993. Had missed two episodes of Falcon Crest (1981), because she underwent abdominal surgery at St.

John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, just 3 days before her 69th Birthday. An adhesion on her intestine was removed there, making her surgery so successful. [2 January 1986]. When Sarah Jane was age 15, she landed a job as dancer in the chorus of Busby Berkeley's The Kid from Spain (1932) at MGM. Other dancers and unfamiliar actresses on the lot included Lucille Ball , Betty Grable and Paulette Goddard . Before Merv Griffin became a successful talk show host and producer, he worked with her, when he began his contract career at Warner Bros. in 1954. She studied music at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Began her show Falcon Crest (1981) at age 64. Was a longtime friend of Eve Arden , who guest-starred alongside Wyman on Falcon Crest (1981). Now living in Palm Springs, California, in retirement. [April 2003] Was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Her favorite comedienne was Betty Hutton .

Despite her divorce from Ronald Reagan , they remained close friends until his death in 2004. Worked with Fred MacMurray in both: Bon Voyage! (1962) and on My Three Sons (1960). Longtime friend of Dick Powell . She and Ronald Reagan both attended his funeral in 1963. The hardest scene she'd ever worked on was with Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (1945). Met Aaron Spelling on Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955), where the two became friends, until Spelling's death in 2006. Her children to attended boarding school. Was the 32nd actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Johnny Belinda (1948) at The 21st Academy Awards on March 24, 1949. She was most widely known to be a very private and shy lady. Her ex- Falcon Crest (1981) co-star, Lorenzo Lamas , had said in an interview, Wyman was the grandmother he never had.

Lifelong friends of: Barbara Stanwyck , Fred MacMurray , Merv Griffin , Arlene Dahl , Esther Williams , Doris Day and Agnes Moorehead . She and her first husband Ronald Reagan had a stillborn daughter Christine June 27, 1947. When one of her Falcon Crest (1981) co-stars, Lorenzo Lamas , was bungling his lines, she cautioned him not to come to work, when battling drugs. Met Julie London , Virginia Mayo , Eve Arden and Lauren Bacall , when the five were under contract with Warner Bros. in 1949. Wyman was (by far) the longest-running member of the contract company, since she was 19. She brought along her old family and her old friends to the set of Falcon Crest (1981). To protect and prevent her health, she fell asleep early, before arriving to work early on the set of Falcon Crest (1981). When Wyman received the script for her starring role on Falcon Crest (1981), she was undecided about undertaking her character, so different from the self-sacrificing characters of her movie days.

When she married Myron Futterman, she wanted to have children, her first husband didn't. She would later divorce him, a year later. During the last season of Falcon Crest (1981), her character was hospitalized in a coma, in real-life, she was hospitalized, the year before the last season started. Jane Wyman | The Independent Oscar-winning Hollywood actress who was Ronald Reagan's first wife and later starred in 'Falcon Crest' Monday 10 September 2007 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online Sarah Jane Mayfield (Jane Wyman), actress: born St Joseph, Missouri 14 January 1917; married 1937 Myron Futterman (marriage dissolved 1938), 1940 Ronald Reagan (died 2004, marriage dissolved 1948; two daughters deceased, one adopted son), 1952, 1961 Fred Karger (marriage dissolved 1955, 1965); died Rancho Mirage, California 10 September 2007.

The Oscar-winning actress Jane Wyman, who married the future US president Ronald Reagan when he was still an actor, was a prime example of a film star who paid her dues in the days of the studio system. As a contract player at Warner Bros, she appeared in more than 40 films before achieving star billing, two years after which she won an Academy Award for her moving portrayal of a deaf mute in Johnny Belinda (1948), which heralded a long career as a major star. Best remembered for films in which she suffered nobly, she also shone in comedy, and she could sing too – with Bing Crosby she introduced the Oscar-winning song "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening". The director Alexander Hall said, "That gal can do anything she sets her mind to; she is one of the most creatively versatile performers the screen has ever boasted." A new generation acclaimed her as the matriarch of the television series Falcon Crest. Her place in history is assured, since Reagan was the first US President to have an ex-wife, and though neither liked to talk about their marriage, many contend that he would never have become President had she not left him.

"I was divorced in the sense that the decision was made by somebody else," he once said. Wyman's early life is somewhat contentious. Records would indicate that she was born Sarah Jane Mayfield, daughter of Manning J. Mayfield, a labourer at a food company, and Gladdys Hope Christian, in St Joseph, Missouri, in 1917. Her parents, who married in 1916, were divorced in 1921, and Manning died the following year. Gladdys then gave her daughter into the care of Richard Fulks and his German-born wife, the former Emma Reiss. There seems to have been no formal adoption or name change, but when the child was registered for first grade at the Noyes School in St Joseph, Emma listed her name as "Sarah Jane Fulks". Wyman later revealed that she loathed school, but her spirited response to dance classes prompted Mrs Fulks to take her to Hollywood at the age of eight, but without success. "I was one of those blonde curly-haired kids and my mother thought I was destined for the movies," she recalled.

The couple returned home, and Jane later reflected, "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." She worked as a switchboard operator, waitress and manicurist before trying Hollywood again – she now had a contact, since her dancing instructor in Missouri was the father of the leading film choreographer Leroy Prinz, who gave her a spot in Busby Berkeley's The Kid from Spain (1932). For the next four years, she toiled in the chorus, occasionally getting a line of dialogue, and she can be spotted in College Rhythm (1934), Rumba (1935), King of Burlesque (1935) and Anything Goes (1936). Finally, she won a contract with Warners in 1936, on the recommendation of the agent and actor William Demarest. The studio is often credited with naming her "Jane Wyman", but some sources aver that the actress was briefly married in 1931 to a student named Eugene Wyman, while another explanation is that Mrs Fulks had been married before, and her first husband's name was M.F. Weyman.

Warners put Wyman to work with a string of bit parts – wise-cracking girl friends, telephonists, secretaries, chorus girls – that would lead to starring roles in "B" movies with, it seemed, little chance of rising higher, though Dick Powell, who starred in three films that featured Wyman, stated, "Janie had something you couldn't learn – presence." The director William Keighley reflected, "I was surprised big things didn't happen for the Wyman girl a lot faster than they did." William Demarest was to say of Wyman's lifestyle during those years, "She couldn't keep still for a second, loved nightclubs, dancing, singing with her friends. 'There's a lot of living to be done, and I'm going to do it,' she'd say." Her penchant for elaborate clothes and costume jewellery prompted gossip columnist Louella Parsons to call her "a walking Christmas tree". In 1937 Wyman married Myron Futterman, a dress manufacturer and divorcee with a teenage daughter, but the marriage lasted only a year.

Wyman was given her first leading role in a "B" movie titled Public Wedding (1937), and around this time she met a new contract player, the former radio sports announcer Ronald Reagan. She confessed later that she was attracted to the actor and flirted with him, but he would not consider a relationship because, although separated, she was still married. Demarest said, "She was far more worldly and experienced than he was, although she was three years his junior. I think Ronnie at first was somewhat bewildered by her fast come-on; then he started to like it, then her, and then he fell in love." Their relationship flourished during the shooting of William Keighley's Brother Rat (1938), in which they played a marine cadet and his sweetheart. Wyman and Reagan were total opposites. He was an outdoor enthusiast and an ardent Democrat who was soon involved in the Screen Actors Guild, fighting for the rights of contract players. Wyman was apolitical, stating, "When I first met Ronnie I was a nightclub girl.

I just had to go dancing and dining every night to be happy." By the time Reagan proposed to her – on the set of a sequel, Brother Rat and a Baby (1940) – Wyman had developed some interest in politics and athletics, and had even taken up golf, an enthusiasm she retained for the rest of her life. Meanwhile she had supported Alice Faye in Tailspin (1939) and starred as resourceful reporter Torchy Blane in Torchy Plays with Dynamite (1939). Wyman and Reagan were wed in 1940. Their daughter, Maureen, was born in 1941, and in 1945 they adopted a baby boy, Michael. While Reagan's career seemed to be going upwards, Wyman's followed its familiar pattern. "I'm queen of the sub-plots," she confessed. "For years I've been the leading lady's confidante, adviser, pal, sister, severest critic." Drafted when the United States entered the Second World War, Reagan was stationed with an army film unit in Culver City, where he was a personnel officer when not acting in training films.

Wyman toured military camps, using a talent for singing that she had rarely displayed on screen. Knowing that the studio had purchased the rights to the life story of torch singer Helen Morgan, Wyman campaigned for the role but was instead cast in support of Ann Sheridan in The Doughgirls (1944). Sheridan had become one of her closest friends, and commented, "Jane used to tell me that Ronnie was such a talker that he even made speeches in his sleep." Wyman's career received a boost when Billy Wilder asked her to read the screenplay he and Charles Brackett had fashioned from Charles Jackson's novel about alcoholism, The Lost Weekend, to be filmed for Paramount. She said, "I was so conditioned to think of myself as a comedienne, I was completely floored when Billy said he wanted me for the part of girlfriend to the hero." Brackett said, "We wanted a girl with a gift for life.

We needed some gusto in the picture." (He omitted to tell Wyman that both Katharine Hepburn and Jean Arthur had turned down the role.) Wilder and Brackett's adaptation omitted the hero's latent homosexuality, enlarged the part of the girl, and added an optimistic ending, but otherwise it was an uncompromising and brilliant study of a hopeless alcoholic (an Oscar-winning Ray Milland), with Wyman splendid as his down-to-earth sweetheart. "It changed my whole life," said Wyman, though she was still under-rated by her own studio and found herself cast as a chirpy chorus girl in a wildly inaccurate biography of Cole Porter, Night and Day (1946). Though release of The Lost Weekend was delayed for nearly a year – the studio had qualms about it, and the liquor industry offered them $5m to destroy the negative – trade insiders had seen it, and MGM negotiated to borrow Wyman for their screen version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a boy's love for a fawn, The Yearling.

Its star Gregory Peck, who personally acted with Wyman in her test, told her afterwards, "You were wonderful", to which she replied, "Good God, don't act so surprised." When The Lost Weekend opened, critics displayed similar wonder. The World-Telegram referred to her "unsuspected talent" and The New York Times stated, "Jane Wyman assumes with great authority a different role." Her part in The Yearling (1947) as careworn Ma Baxter, who toils in the backwoods of 1870 Florida, required delicate shading in her portrayal of a mother who must have her son's beloved fawn killed because it is eating their crops. Wyman's performance was described by Life magazine as "beyond reproach". Wyman won an Oscar nomination and, though she lost to Olivia De Havilland in To Each His Own, her status as a star was now established, and she was soon to play the part for which many best remember her.

The producer Jerry Wald had persuaded Warners to buy the rights to a Broadway hit of 1940, Johnny Belinda, despite the studio's misgivings about a story in which a deaf mute is raped, has a child, then kills the father when he tries to take it from her. (Shortly before shooting commenced in late 1947, Wyman's second child, a daughter, had died a few hours after her premature birth.) Wyman learned sign language and lip reading for the film, but later recalled, "Something was missing. Suddenly I realised what was wrong. I could hear." She and the director Jean Negulesco decided that her ears should be blocked with wax to cut out all noise except percussion. Wyman's performance was beautifully modulated, avoided bathos, and won her a deserved Oscar against formidable competition (Ingrid Bergman, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia De Havilland and Irene Dunne). Her acceptance speech was one of the briefest and most effective in Oscar's history: "I accept this award very gratefully – for keeping my mouth shut for once.

I think I'll do it again." She was accompanied to the ceremony by the actor Lew Ayres, who was rumoured to have consoled her during the shooting because of her marital problems. Reagan's political work and fervent campaigning for President Truman had strained their relationship, but when Wyman announced to the press, "We're through. We're finished. And it's all my fault", she was making it clear that it was her own decision to end the marriage. "I love Jane," said Reagan, "and I know she loves me. I don't know what this is all about and I don't know why Jane has done it." Shortly afterwards, Reagan was in London filming The Hasty Heart, and his co-star Patricia Neal later commented, "Although I was a young, pretty girl, he never made a pass at me. Of course there were splendid reasons. I was wildly in love with Gary Cooper and he was still in love with Jane Wyman." The couple's divorce became final in July 1949. Wyman refused throughout her life to talk of their marriage or divorce, claiming that it was "bad taste" to discuss such matters.

Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950) took Wyman to London where she renewed a friendship with Laurence Olivier, who had won his Oscar for Hamlet on the same night she won hers. Hitchcock had personally asked for Wyman, but he was later to accuse her of getting out of character by refusing to look too drab compared to her glamorous co-star, Marlene Dietrich. The film's lukewarm reviews, though, were the fault of the director, who made a rare error of judgement by opening the mystery with Wyman's boyfriend (Richard Todd) relating an incident told in flashback (in an era when flashbacks were taken literally) though in fact he is lying. Critics were incensed by the perceived "cheating", and the film proved a box-office disappointment. The Glass Menagerie (1950), based on Tennessee Williams' lyrical play, also proved disappointing, though Wyman gave what The New York Times called a "beautifully sensitive" portrayal of Laura, a crippled girl who finds solace from loneliness in her collection of glass figurines. In 1952 Wyman had two contrasting box-office hits.

The first was Frank Capra's musical comedy, Here Comes the Groom, in which Wyman was teamed with her singing idol, Bing Crosby. The pair had relaxed fun with a novelty number, "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening", which Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer had written for an unrealised Betty Hutton musical based on the life of Mabel Normand. It was a complicated production number that took the couple through several sets as they sang, and Capra decided to record the song live, with tiny radios in the stars' ears so that they could hear the orchestra. The song won an Oscar, the stars' recording was a big hit, and Decca signed Wyman to a recording contract. Her co-star Franchot Tone said, 'Everybody got caught up in the fun Bing and Jane were obviously having together.' The producer Jerry Wald had bought the rights to a French film hit, Le Voile Bleu (1947), hoping to tempt Greta Garbo out of retirement to play a woman who loses her husband and child in the First World Warand devotes her life to being governess to other people's children.

When Garbo refused, he asked Wyman to take the role, in which the woman goes from home to home until, old and working as a janitor, she is given a surprise party attended by all her former progeny. It was blatantly manipulative, but Wyman brought dignity and conviction to her part. Variety called it "a personal triumph", and The Blue Veil won Wyman her third Oscar nomination, though she was up against two powerhouse performances, Katharine Hepburn's in The African Queen, and Vivien Leigh's (the winner) for A Streetcar Named Desire. The success of both Here Comes the Groom and The Blue Veil put Wyman into the year's top ten box-office draws, and she won two Golden Globe awards – as best actress, for The Blue Veil and as "World Film Favourite Actress of the year". Wyman rejoined Crosby to take a role planned for Judy Garland (who was not fit enough to do it) in Just for You (1952). Its brightest spot was another catchy duet with Crosby. Wyman was reunited with Ray Milland for Let's Do It Again (1952), a musical remake of a comedy classic, The Awful Truth.

Milland, usually sparing with compliments, said of Wyman, "She could sing and dance with the best of them and her comedy timing was top-notch. She inspired everyone around her to give their best, and she was very down-to-earth and democratic." Making the film, Wyman met Fred Karger, an assistant to the studio's music director, Morris Stoloff, and before shooting finished, Karger had become Wyman's husband. They were divorced in 1955, remarried in 1961, and divorced again in 1965. Wyman had to go from young woman to old lady again in Robert Wise's So Big (1953), the third screen version of Edna Ferber's novel. It proved popular, but not as much as her next film, another property filmed twice before, Magnificent Obsession (1954). In this, the first of a string of lush melodramas produced by Ross Hunter, wastrel Rock Hudson indirectly causes both the death of Wyman's doctor husband and then Wyman's blindness. Reformed, he becomes a surgeon and restores Wyman's sight for a tearful climax.

Most critics directed any praise they offered to Wyman's sincere underplaying, which won her a fourth Oscar nomination (she lost to Grace Kelly in The Country Girl). Directed by Douglas Sirk, the film was a huge money-maker, though it is less well regarded today than another film with the same production team and stars, All That Heaven Allows (1955). The latter, in which a widow falls in love with her young gardener to the horror of her selfish children and her conformist friends, was dismissed by most critics as just another piece of glossy kitsch, but is now perceived as a cuttingly perceptive attack on middle-class hypocrisy and the expectation that ageing widows should need nothing more from life than the country club and a TV set. It was not entirely original (My Reputation had tackled a similar subject a decade earlier) but Sirk's subversion of his material and use of colour made his film more than just a star vehicle. (In a celebrated shot, he has Wyman's face reflected in the glass screen of the television to symbolise her entrapment.) Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul (1974) was inspired by the film, though his ending was much bleaker.

In 1955, after starring with Van Johnson in the sentimental Miracle in the Rain, Wyman refused the role of Gary Cooper's wife in Friendly Persuasion, and instead became president of the company that produced the television anthology series Fireside Theater. Rechristened The Jane Wyman Theater, it featured a variety of plays, with Wyman starring in around a third of each season's 34 half-hour episodes, and ran until 1959. For the next 22 years, she made occasional guest appearances in TV shows such as Wagon Train and The Love Boat, and played only four more film roles, notably as Hayley Mills' stern Aunt Polly in Pollyanna (1960). Semi-retired, she enjoyed painting, golf and seeing her children. Her career, it seemed, was virtually over when in 1981, at the age of 64, she was asked to star as Angela Channing, wine tycoon, in the television series Falcon Crest. The "pilot" show left her with stringent demands. "Not only was Angela too mean and vicious, but she was just plain boring.

I wanted her to be an interesting character." When the former superstar Lana Turner joined the show as Wyman's sister-in-law, Turner's entourage and star demands did not sit well with Wyman, who displayed her power by having Turner's character killed off after one season. Falcon Crest ran until 1990, and by the end of the show's fifth season, the already-wealthy Wyman was estimated to be earning $3m a year (10 times Reagan's salary). When Reagan died in 2004, Wyman broke her long silence to say, "America has lost a great President and a great, kind and gentle man." Tom Vallance ASTROLOGY OF THIRD MILLENNIUM � Blog Archive Ronald Reagan married Jane Wyman Jun Ronald Reagan married Jane Wyman Ronald Reagan married actress Jane Wyman who was born Sarah Jane Mayfield, January 26, 1940 in Glendale near Los Angeles, California. Jane was born in 1917. They had three children. The second only lived one day. For the third, they decided to adopt a boy.

She was an actress who received an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Johnny Belinda in 1948. She refused the political ambitions of her husband and chose to divorce. The divorce took effect in 1949. In the Horoscope of Ronald Reagan: On January 26, 1940 is set to 12° 35′ of Gemini. It has a Feeble force in House XII. The degree of the year is situated at 27° 18′ of Gemini, in the exact degree of Pluto. It has a Powerful force because conjunct with the Ascendant. At twenty-eight years and eleven months, he announces the period Jupiter-Sun. The Sun has a Powerful force in Aquarius in House VIII. Analogies of that wedding: The degree of the year has a Powerful force, conjunct with the Ascendant. Mercury is the governor of the 27th degree of Gemini, its sign of Domicile. At its natal position, it lies in House VII, the contractual commitments such as marriage. Pluto into this degree ruled by Mercury symbolizes the control of the passionate forces of libido thanks to wedding.

The Sun has a Powerful force but it is not directly related to the fact. In the Solar Revolution of 1939 (SR 1939): On January 26, 1940 is set to 12° of Gemini in natal House XII and House IV of SR. The degree of the year is situated at 22° 56′ of Gemini. Planetary period is that of Jupiter-Moon. Most of Solar: The master of the planetary period is the Moon. At its natal position, it has a Powerful force and a quality Very Beneficent in Taurus, its sign of Exaltation. It represents a woman in a male horoscope. Of good quality, culminating in House XI, it announces a known wife and being well off. In 1938 at twenty-seven years old, Ronald Reagan met Jane Wyman while filming the movie Brother Rat, in the period Jupiter-Moon! In addition, the degree of the year of the Solar Revolution of his 27 years is set to 18° 26′ of Gemini.

That is a degree under the influence of the Moon, which is situated at 19° 24′ at its natal position. Related posts: Jane Wyman & Ronald Reagan | Old Movie Teams Weren’t they also in that other movie? Jane Wyman & Ronald Reagan Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan were married in January 1940, not yet two weeks following the theatrical release of their second film together Brother Rat and Baby. They play sweethearts and are reprising the roles they perform in the original Brother Rat (1938). By the end of 1940, theater audiences saw this duo play themselves as husband and wife and/or sweethearts in three other productions: 1) the short Alice in Movieland, in which they make cameo appearances as themselves; 2) the third and final installment of the Brother Rat series, An Angel from Texas; 3) and another sequel (this time to the Tugboat Annie franchise) Tugboat Annie Sails Again. Not until 1949 do they again (and for the last time) appear in a theatrical release. They portray, only briefly and separately, themselves in It’s a Great Feeling.

In the year prior to the release of this movie, they had divorced. Ms. Wyman’s film career was on the ascendance, she having just won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Belinda McDonald in the 1948 Johnny Belinda. Mr. Reagan’s career (in the movies, that is) was at this point on the wane. It is perhaps mistaken to claim that only a movie first brought these two together and, as Ronald Reagan is famously (and perhaps apocryphally) quoted, it was at last a movie that caused their divorce (a reference to the loss of a daughter in 1947 in tandem with Ms. Wyman’s moving portrayal in Johnny Belinda of a mother feeling quite irreconcilable to the prospect of losing a child). But there can be no mistaking that it is a movie or, more accurately, movies that forever keep this charming and endearing couple together.

Like this: 1 Comment » pkingwp wrote @ September 17, 2015 at 5:19 pm Jane Wyman, who died September 10, 2007, at the age of 90, was married a total of at least 4 times. There is a suggestion of a 5th marriage, her very first, but I can find no corroborating evidence that such a marriage ever took place. Her marriage to Myron Futterman in 1937 lasted a little more than a year (the two separated after just 3 months together, presumably because Mr. Futterman did not want children). Her final two marriages were to the same man, Fred Karger, and culminated in a second divorce in 1965. Having converted to Catholicism in the mid 1950s, she never remarried after her 1965 divorce. Christine Reagan // Still Birth Day October 27, 2012 by Heidi Faith In 1940, before he was President, Ronald Reagan married actress Sarah Jane Mayfield, known as Jane Wyman. Jane, incidentally, was born in St.

Joe, Missouri, not too far from Kansas City, the birthplace of stillbirthday. Wyman’s first husband was Ernest Eugene Wyman. While some say this is the surname she carried forth even after their divorce, others say that she acquired this surname from her foster mother. Her second husband was Myron Martin Futterman. Their marriage ended three months after it began because Wyman wanted children, and her husband did not. Wyman and Ronald Reagan co-starred in Brother Rat, a film released in 1938. They were married in January, 1940. Their first child was Maureen Elizabeth Reagan (1941 – 2001). Their second child was Michael Edward Reagan (March 18, 1945 – ). The Reagans adopted Michael. Their third child was Christine Reagan. She was born June 26, 1947, apparently 4 weeks premature. Some reports say that she was stillborn. Others say she lived for 9 hours, dying on June 27, 1947. Their divorce was filed in 1948. President Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been divorced.

While reports state that Jane’s reason for the divorce was a difference in political opinion, others speculate that their bereavement may have played a part. Ronald considered himself a Democrat until the 1950s when he presented bi-partisan speeches for General Electric. Influenced by Lemuel Boulware and his wife Nancy, Ronald formally switched to the Republican party in 1962. In 1952 Wyman married music composer Fred Karger. In 1955, the two divorced. In 1961 the two remarried, but in 1965, they divorced once again. Reagan was an actor, served in the military, was a Screen Actor’s Guild President, and a secret informant to the FBI. He met actress Nancy Davis in 1949, when she sought him out for support regarding her name mistakenly appearing on a communist blacklist in Hollywood.

They were married in 1952 and had two children together: Patti, born October 21, 1952 Ron, born May 20, 1958 After the 1964 A Time for Choosing speech, Ronald Reagan became Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975. “You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream – the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order – or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.” Reagan’s first presidential campaign was in 1975, when he narrowly lost the nomination to Gerald Ford. He ran again in 1980. He was President of the United States of America for two terms, from 1981 until January 1989.

Jane Wyman Obituary | Jane Wyman Funeral | Legacy.com Jane Wyman Obituary Visit Guest Book LOS ANGELES (AP) - 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. Wyman died at her Palm Springs home, said Richard Adney of Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Cathedral City. No other details were immediately available. 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. 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." Her marriage in 1940 to fellow Warner Bros. contract player Reagan was celebrated in the fan magazines as one of Hollywood's ideal unions.

While he was in uniform during World War II, her career ascended, signaled by her 1946 Oscar nomination for "The Yearling." 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." After 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. In a 1968 newspaper interview, Wyman explained the reason: "It's not because I'm 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, saying: "America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man." It was 1936 when Warner Bros. signed Wyman to a long-term contract.

She long remembered the first line she spoke as a chorus girl to show producer Dick Powell: "I'm Bessie Fuffnik. I swim, ride, dive, imitate wild birds and play the trombone." Warner Bros. was notorious for typecasting its contract players, and Wyman suffered that fate. 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!"' In 1937, Wyman married a wealthy manufacturer of children's clothes, Myron Futterman, in New Orleans. The marriage was reported as her second, but an earlier marriage was never confirmed. She divorced him in November 1938, declaring she wanted children and he didn't. The actress became entranced by Reagan, a handsome former sportscaster who was a newcomer to the Warner lot. She wangled a date with him, and romance ensued. After returning from a personal appearance tour with columnist Louella Parsons, they were married on Jan. 26, 1940. The following year she gave birth to a daughter, Maureen.

They later adopted a son, Michael. They also had a daughter who was born several months premature in June 1947 and died a day later. In Reagan's autobiography "An American Life," the index shows only one mention of Wyman, and it runs for only two sentences. "That same year I made the Knute Rockne movie, I married Jane Wyman, another contract player at Warners," Reagan wrote. "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. Their daughter Maureen died in August 2001 after a battle with cancer. At the funeral, Wyman, balancing on a cane, put a cross on the casket. Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was not well enough to attend. Early 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.

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. After 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!" He changed his attitude when "Johnny Belinda" received 12 Academy Award nominations and the Oscar for Jane Wyman. Her acceptance speech was brief: "I accept this award very gratefully for keeping my mouth shut once. I think I'll do it again." Reagan became increasingly active in politics as his wife's career climbed. When she divorced him, she testified: "Politics built a barrier between us.

I tried to make his interests mine, but finally there was nothing to sustain our marriage." Wyman continued making prestigious films such as "The Glass Menagerie," Alfred Hitchcock's "Stage Fright," "Here Comes the Groom" (with Bing Crosby). Two tearjerkers, "The Blue Veil" (1951) and "Magnificent Obsession" (1954), brought her Oscar nominations as best actress. Other film credits include: "So Big," "Lucy Gallant," "All That Heaven Allows," "Miracle in the Rain," "Holiday for Lovers," "Pollyanna" and "Bon Voyage!" Her first entry into television came with "The Jane Wyman Show," an anthology series that appeared on NBC from 1955 to 1958. She introduced the shows, half of them starring herself, half with other actors. She quit the show after three years, saying that "putting on a miniature movie once a week" was exhausting. In 1952 Wyman married Fred Karger, a studio music director. They divorced, later remarried and divorced the second time in 1965. She remained single thereafter.

While not working, she devoted much of her time to benefits and telethons for the Arthritis Foundation. When Wyman received the script for "Falcon Crest," she was undecided about undertaking the nasty, power-mad Angela Channing, so different from the self-sacrificing characters of her movie days. But she liked the idea that Angela "runs everything. She goes straight through everything like a Mack truck." Riding the wave of prime-time soap operas that made "Dallas" and "Dynasty" national sensations, "Falcon Crest" lasted nine seasons. The series ended with Angela again in control of the vineyard. Her battered family raised their glasses in a toast: "The land endures." After Reagan became president in 1981, his former wife gave few interviews and responded to questions about him with a stony look. When "Falcon Crest" ended, she withdrew from public view. She saw a few intimates and devoted much time to painting.

She summed up her long career in a 1981 newspaper interview: "I've been through four different cycles in pictures: the brassy blonde, then came the musicals, the high dramas, then the inauguration of television." In the end, she had survived for decades in a town notorious for exploiting talent and then discarding it. Sarah Jane Fulks was born in St. Joseph, Mo., in 1914. She grew up in a cheerless home in which her mother's time was devoted to her seriously ailing husband. After the father died, Sarah Jane accompanied her mother to Los Angeles, where the girl tried to get jobs in the studios. There was no work for the snub-nosed teenager, and she returned to St. Joseph. She attended the University of Missouri, worked as a manicurist and switchboard operator, then sang on radio as Jane Durrell. When that career dwindled, she decided to try Hollywood again, began playing bit parts, and changed Durrell to Wyman.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) - 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. Wyman died at her Palm Springs home, said Richard Adney of Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Cathedral City. No other details were immediately available. 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. 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." Her marriage in 1940 to fellow Warner Bros. contract player Reagan was celebrated in the fan magazines as one of Hollywood's ideal unions.

While he was in uniform during World War II, her career ascended, signaled by her 1946 Oscar nomination for "The Yearling." 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." After 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. In a 1968 newspaper interview, Wyman explained the reason: "It's not because I'm 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, saying: "America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man." It was 1936 when Warner Bros. signed Wyman to a long-term contract.

She long remembered the first line she spoke as a chorus girl to show producer Dick Powell: "I'm Bessie Fuffnik. I swim, ride, dive, imitate wild birds and play the trombone." Warner Bros. was notorious for typecasting its contract players, and Wyman suffered that fate. 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!"' In 1937, Wyman married a wealthy manufacturer of children's clothes, Myron Futterman, in New Orleans. The marriage was reported as her second, but an earlier marriage was never confirmed. She divorced him in November 1938, declaring she wanted children and he didn't. The actress became entranced by Reagan, a handsome former sportscaster who was a newcomer to the Warner lot. She wangled a date with him, and romance ensued. After returning from a personal appearance tour with columnist Louella Parsons, they were married on Jan. 26, 1940. The following year she gave birth to a daughter, Maureen.

They later adopted a son, Michael. They also had a daughter who was born several months premature in June 1947 and died a day later. In Reagan's autobiography "An American Life," the index shows only one mention of Wyman, and it runs for only two sentences. "That same year I made the Knute Rockne movie, I married Jane Wyman, another contract player at Warners," Reagan wrote. "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. Their daughter Maureen died in August 2001 after a battle with cancer. At the funeral, Wyman, balancing on a cane, put a cross on the casket. Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was not well enough to attend. Early 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.

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. After 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!" He changed his attitude when "Johnny Belinda" received 12 Academy Award nominations and the Oscar for Jane Wyman. Her acceptance speech was brief: "I accept this award very gratefully for keeping my mouth shut once. I think I'll do it again." Reagan became increasingly active in politics as his wife's career climbed. When she divorced him, she testified: "Politics built a barrier between us.

I tried to make his interests mine, but finally there was nothing to sustain our marriage." Wyman continued making prestigious films such as "The Glass Menagerie," Alfred Hitchcock's "Stage Fright," "Here Comes the Groom" (with Bing Crosby). Two tearjerkers, "The Blue Veil" (1951) and "Magnificent Obsession" (1954), brought her Oscar nominations as best actress. Other film credits include: "So Big," "Lucy Gallant," "All That Heaven Allows," "Miracle in the Rain," "Holiday for Lovers," "Pollyanna" and "Bon Voyage!" Her first entry into television came with "The Jane Wyman Show," an anthology series that appeared on NBC from 1955 to 1958. She introduced the shows, half of them starring herself, half with other actors. She quit the show after three years, saying that "putting on a miniature movie once a week" was exhausting. In 1952 Wyman married Fred Karger, a studio music director. They divorced, later remarried and divorced the second time in 1965. She remained single thereafter.

While not working, she devoted much of her time to benefits and telethons for the Arthritis Foundation. When Wyman received the script for "Falcon Crest," she was undecided about undertaking the nasty, power-mad Angela Channing, so different from the self-sacrificing characters of her movie days. But she liked the idea that Angela "runs everything. She goes straight through everything like a Mack truck." Riding the wave of prime-time soap operas that made "Dallas" and "Dynasty" national sensations, "Falcon Crest" lasted nine seasons. The series ended with Angela again in control of the vineyard. Her battered family raised their glasses in a toast: "The land endures." After Reagan became president in 1981, his former wife gave few interviews and responded to questions about him with a stony look. When "Falcon Crest" ended, she withdrew from public view. She saw a few intimates and devoted much time to painting.

She summed up her long career in a 1981 newspaper interview: "I've been through four different cycles in pictures: the brassy blonde, then came the musicals, the high dramas, then the inauguration of television." In the end, she had survived for decades in a town notorious for exploiting talent and then discarding it. Sarah Jane Fulks was born in St. Joseph, Mo., in 1914. She grew up in a cheerless home in which her mother's time was devoted to her seriously ailing husband. After the father died, Sarah Jane accompanied her mother to Los Angeles, where the girl tried to get jobs in the studios. There was no work for the snub-nosed teenager, and she returned to St. Joseph. She attended the University of Missouri, worked as a manicurist and switchboard operator, then sang on radio as Jane Durrell. When that career dwindled, she decided to try Hollywood again, began playing bit parts, and changed Durrell to Wyman. Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press

Question: Who, from 1940 to 1949 was Jane Wyman's third husband?
Answer: Ronald Reagan