Background and career
Jane Wyman, TOSD ( WY-mən; born Sarah Jane Mayfield; January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007) was an American actress. A star of both movies and television, she received an Academy Award for Best Actress, four Golden Globe Awards and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. In 1960 she received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for both motion pictures and television. She was the first wife of actor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Jane Wyman made her theatrical film debut in The Kid from Spain (1932) as an uncredited chorus girl. Wyman always maintained that she got her start in 1934 at 17 dancing in the chorus for LeRoy Prinz at Paramount Pictures. In 1936 Bryan Foy signed Wyman, at 19 years old, to her first studio contract with Warner Bros. During her tenure there, Wyman began appearing in bit roles but progressed into supporting roles, including My Love Came Back (1940), Footlight Serenade (1942), and Princess O'Rourke (1943). By 1945, Wyman emerged as a prominent A-list actress with successful releases in 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 nominations for Academy Award for Best Actress between 1946 and 1954, winning one for Johnny Belinda (1948). In 1955, Wyman transitioned into television, forming her own production company Lewman Productions Ltd. (co-owned with MCA Inc.). She was also made the producer, host, and frequent star of the last three seasons of NBC's Fireside Theatre, which was rebranded with Wyman's name. Her career declined shortly after, and she went into virtual retirement for several intervals of the 1960s and 1970s. Wyman's career resurged when she appeared on the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest (1981–1990), portraying the villainous matriarch Angela Channing. She retired in 1993, after appearing in an episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Wyman died from natural causes in 2007, at the age of 90. She was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic.
Sarah Jane Mayfield was born on January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Gladys Hope née Christian and Manning Jeffries Mayfield. She was descended from the American colonial Robert Coe. Gladys was a doctor's stenographer and office assistant and Manning was a laborer for a meal company. She filed for divorce in October 1921 and relocated to Cleveland without Wyman and left her in the care of Emma (née Reiss ) and Richard D. Fulks, though she occasionally visited. Wyman's father died a few months later of pneumonia after taking a job in San Francisco with Southern Pacific Westbound Conference, a shipping company. The obituary prepared by his family did not include Wyman. Fulks was the patrolman to the chief of detectives in St. Joseph and served a term as county collector. Wyman took their surname unofficially, using the name Jane Fulks, as they never formally adopted her. Wyman 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." Shortly after taking Wyman into her care, Emma took Wyman to Los Angeles (LA), where her two biological children, Elsie and Morie, were living, to see her father before he died. Morie was a doctor. They stayed for a few months before returning to St. Joseph, where Wyman took dance classes at Prinz's Dancing Academy. Richard died when Wyman was 11, in 1928. After his death, Emma and Wyman returned to LA to live with Elsie. There she entered Los Angeles High School, but soon after dropped out in 1932 to begin working at a Manning's coffee shop to pay for her dance classes. Wyman said she was fired for being too clumsy. She said that Emma wanted her to stay in school, but because she "goofed off in high school," she knew that she could not get into college and decided to pursue dance to help out financially. She sought out the son of her St. Joseph dance teacher, choreographer LeRoy Prinz, and, upon recommendation from his father, he coached her for chorus roles. In 1932, she landed her first role on the chorus of a film produced by Samuel Goldwyn, whose son later married her cousin, Jennifer Howard. In 1933, Wyman returned briefly to St. Joseph where she again lived with her mother, attended Lafayette High School, and worked at a radio station there as a singer under the pseudonym Jane Durrell. Due to her local fame, she soon dropped out again, and returned to LA, taking on odd jobs as a manicurist and a switchboard operator. That same year, she married a salesman named Ernest Wyman, whom she divorced two years later. She lied about her age on her marriage certificate, alleging she was 19, when she was only 16 at the time.
Jane Wyman began her 60-year show business career as an extra on The Kid from Spain (1932), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Elmer, the Great (1933), and Harold Teen (1934). She had taken classes with Edward Albert Prinz (Dad Prinz) at Prinz’s Dancing Academy back in St. Joseph, Missouri. Dad Prinz’s son LeRoy Prinz was now a successful Dance Director at Paramount Pictures. Prinz hired Wyman 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). In between pictures at Paramount she did King of Burlesque (1936) and George White's 1935 Scandals (1935) at Fox. She then went to Universal Studios for My Man Godfrey (1936).
Jane Wyman signed her first contract with Warner Bros. in 1936 and stayed for the next two decades. Miracle in the Rain (1956) would become the last film she completed under contract to the studio. It was released on April 7, 1956 almost exactly twenty years after she signed her inaugural contract.
At Warner Bros, Wyman was in Freshman Love (1936) and Bengal Tiger (1936), Stage Struck (1936), Cain and Mabel (1936), and Here Comes Carter (1936). Wyman had her first big role, both singing and dancing in a Dick Foran Western The Sunday Round-Up (1936). Wyman had small parts in Polo Joe (1936), and Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936) but a bigger one in Smart Blonde (1936), the first of the Torchy Blane series. She appeared in Ready, Willing and Able (1937), The King and the Chorus Girl (1937), and Slim (1937). She had the lead in Little Pioneer (1937), a short, and parts in The Singing Marine (1937). By the time Wyman starred in Public Wedding (1937), a "B" picture, she was already divorced from first husband Ernest Wyman. She retained use of the surname for the remainder of her career. She had a supporting part in Mr. Dodd Takes the Air (1937) and was the female lead in some "B" films, such as The Spy Ring (1938) (at Universal), He Couldn't Say No (1938) with Frank McHugh and Wide Open Faces (1938) with Joe E. Brown. Wyman was borrowed by MGM to play a supporting part in The Crowd Roars (1938). Back at Warner Brothers, Wyman was cast as one of the leads in Brother Rat (1938) for Hal B. Wallis. It co-starred Ronald Reagan, Priscilla Lane, Wayne Morris and Eddie Albert. Wyman was borrowed by 20th Century Fox for a supporting role in Tail Spin (1939), followed by The Kid from Kokomo (1939) with Pat O'Brien and Morris. She played the title role in Torchy Blane..Playing with Dynamite (1939). Now established, Wyman was cast in Kid Nightingale (1939) with John Payne, Private Detective (1939) with Foran, Brother Rat and a Baby (1940) with Reagan, An Angel from Texas (1940) with Albert, Flight Angels (1940), and Gambling on the High Seas (1940) with Wayne Morris. Wyman had supporting roles in "A" films such as My Love Came Back (1940), starring Olivia de Havilland and Jeffrey Lynn. She and Reagan were in Tugboat Annie Sails Again (1940). Wyman was a supporting role to Ann Sheridan in Honeymoon for Three (1941) and was Dennis Morgan's leading lady in Bad Men of Missouri (1941). Wyman made The Body Disappears (1941) with Jeffrey Lynn and You're in the Army Now (1941) with Jimmy Durante; in the latter she and Regis Toomey had the longest screen kiss in cinema history: 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Wyman did Larceny, Inc. (1942) with Edward G. Robinson, and My Favorite Spy (1942) with Kay Kyser. At Twentieth Century Fox, Wyman was a supporting actor to Betty Grable in Footlight Serenade (1942) then back at Warners supported Olivia de Havilland in Princess O'Rourke (1943). Warners teamed Wyman with Jack Carson in Make Your Own Bed (1944) and The Doughgirls (1944), then she was top billed in Crime by Night (1944). She was one of many stars to cameo in Hollywood Canteen (1944).
Wyman finally gained critical attention with The Lost Weekend (1945), made by the team of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. Wilder had wanted Katharine Hepburn or Barbara Stanwyck for the female lead but Brackett had been impressed by Wyman’s performance in Princess O'Rourke. Wyman called it "a small miracle". Wyman remained a supporting actor in One More Tomorrow (1946), and Night and Day (1946). However Wyman was borrowed by MGM for the female lead in The Yearling (1946), and was nominated for the 1946 Academy Award for Best Actress. She was leading lady for Dennis Morgan in Cheyenne (1947) and James Stewart in RKO's Magic Town (1947). Her breakthrough role was playing a deaf-mute rape victim in Johnny Belinda (1948). Wyman spent over six months preparing for the film which was an enormous hit and won Wyman a Best Actress Oscar. She was the first person in the sound era to earn the award without speaking a line of dialogue. In an amusing acceptance speech, Wyman took her statue and said only, "I accept this, very gratefully, for keeping my mouth shut once. I think I'll do it again." Wyman was now a top-billed star. She did two comedies, A Kiss in the Dark (1948) with David Niven and The Lady Takes a Sailor (1949) with Morgan, then made a thriller in England, Stage Fright (1950) for Alfred Hitchcock. She played Laura in The Glass Menagerie (1950), and went to MGM for Three Guys Named Mike (1951), a popular comedy. Frank Capra used her as Bing Crosby's leading lady in Here Comes the Groom (1951) at Paramount, then she had the lead role in RKO's The Blue Veil (1951), a melodrama that was a big box office hit and earned her an Oscar nomination. Wyman was one of many stars in Warner Bros' Starlift (1951). She was the female lead in The Story of Will Rogers (1952) and Paramount reunited her and Crosby in Just for You (1952). Wyman expressed interest around this time of doing no more "weepy" roles. Columbia cast her in a musical, Let's Do It Again (1953) with Ray Milland, then at Warners she was in So Big (1953), a melodrama. Wyman had a huge success when producer Ross Hunter cast her alongside Rock Hudson in Magnificent Obsession (1954). It earned her another Oscar nomination. Wyman and Hudson were promptly reteamed on All That Heaven Allows (1955). Pine-Thomas Productions put Wyman in Lucy Gallant (1955) with Charlton Heston. She did Miracle in the Rain (1956) with Van Johnson. Wyman was meant to follow this with Annabella but it appears to have not been made.
