Jane Wyman

Jane Wyman, TOSD (born Sarah Jane Mayfield; January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007), was an American actress who found success in both film and television. Over her career, she won an Academy Award for Best Actress, took home four Golden Globe Awards, and earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. In 1960, the Hollywood Walk of Fame honored her with stars for both motion pictures and television. She is also known as the first wife of actor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Wyman’s first theatrical film appearance was an uncredited role as a chorus girl in *The Kid from Spain* (1932). She always said her real start came in 1934, when she was 17 and dancing in the chorus for LeRoy Prinz at Paramount Pictures. In 1936, at age 19, Bryan Foy gave her a first studio contract with Warner Bros. There, she began with bit parts and moved into supporting roles, including *My Love Came Back* (1940), *Footlight Serenade* (1942), and *Princess O'Rourke* (1943).

By 1945, Wyman had become a prominent A-list actress, starring in hits like *The Lost Weekend* (1945), *The Yearling* (1946), *Johnny Belinda* (1948), *Stage Fright* (1950), *The Blue Veil* (1951), *So Big* (1953), *Magnificent Obsession* (1954), and *All That Heaven Allows* (1955). She received four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress between 1946 and 1954, winning once for *Johnny Belinda* (1948).

In 1955, Wyman moved into television, founding her own production company, Lewman Productions Ltd., which she co-owned with MCA Inc. She also became the producer, host, and frequent star of NBC’s *Fireside Theatre* during its last three seasons, when the show was renamed after her. Her career then declined, and she went into virtual retirement for several stretches during the 1960s and 1970s.

Wyman’s career revived when she played the villainous matriarch Angela Channing on the primetime soap opera *Falcon Crest* from 1981 to 1990. She retired in 1993 after an appearance on *Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman*. She died of natural causes in 2007 at age 90. Wyman was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic.

Born Sarah Jane Mayfield on January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, Missouri, she was the only child of Gladys Hope and Manning Jeffries Mayfield. She was descended from colonial American Robert Coe. Gladys worked as a doctor’s stenographer and office assistant; Manning labored for a meal company. In October 1921, Gladys filed for divorce, moved to Cleveland without Wyman, and left her in the care of Emma and Richard D. Fulks, though she visited occasionally. Manning died of pneumonia a few months later after taking a job in San Francisco with a shipping company; his family’s obituary did not mention Wyman. Richard Fulks worked as a patrolman for the chief of detectives in St. Joseph and served a term as county collector. Wyman unofficially took the Fulks surname, calling herself Jane Fulks, since they never formally adopted her. She later said, “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.”

Soon after taking Wyman in, Emma brought her to Los Angeles to see Emma’s dying father. Emma’s two biological children, Elsie and Morie (a doctor), were already there. They stayed a few months before returning to St. Joseph, where Wyman took dance classes at Prinz’s Dancing Academy. Richard died in 1928, when Wyman was 11. After his death, Emma and Wyman returned to Los Angeles to live with Elsie. Wyman entered Los Angeles High School but dropped out in 1932 to work at a Manning’s coffee shop to pay for dance classes; she said she was fired for being too clumsy. She claimed Emma wanted her to stay in school, but because she “goofed off,” she knew college was impossible and chose dance to help financially. She sought out LeRoy Prinz, the son of her St. Joseph dance teacher, and with his father’s recommendation, he coached her for chorus roles. In 1932, she landed her first chorus role in a film produced by Samuel Goldwyn, whose son later married her cousin, Jennifer Howard.

In 1933, Wyman briefly returned to St. Joseph, living with her mother again, attending Lafayette High School, and singing at a radio station under the pseudonym Jane Durrell. Local fame led her to drop out again and return to Los Angeles, where she worked odd jobs as a manicurist and switchboard operator. That same year, she married a salesman named Ernest Wyman; they divorced two years later. She lied about her age on the marriage certificate, claiming she was 19 when she was actually 16.

Wyman’s 60-year show business career began as an extra in *The Kid from Spain* (1932), *Gold Diggers of 1933* (1933), *Elmer, the Great* (1933), and *Harold Teen* (1934). She had studied with Edward Albert Prinz at his dancing academy in St. Joseph. His son LeRoy Prinz, now a successful dance director at Paramount Pictures, hired her for the chorus of *College Rhythm* (1934), *Rumba* (1935), *All the King’s Horses* (1935), *Stolen Harmony* (1935), *Broadway Hostess* (1935), and *Anything Goes* (1936). Between Paramount pictures, she worked on *King of Burlesque* (1936) and *George White’s 1935 Scandals* (1935) at Fox, then went to Universal for *My Man Godfrey* (1936).

Wyman signed her first Warner Bros. contract in 1936 and remained with the studio for two decades. Her last film under that contract was *Miracle in the Rain* (1956), released on April 7, 1956, almost exactly twenty years after her initial signing.