Jane Wyman (1917-2007)

          Jane Wyman

Jane Wyman was petite, blonde, a radio singer, and a versatile performer on film and TV. She shone in serious dramatic roles as well as comic ones, and she was a participant with Regis Toomey in the longest ever recorded screen kiss.

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Born in 1917 to the mayor of St.Joseph, Missouri, Manning J. Mahfield, and Le Jerne Pichelle, a struggling actress, Jane Wyman was destined for the limelight. She became a versatile actress capable of strong performances in a range of genres.

Following the death of her father, Wyman entered show business around 1930 as a radio singer named Jane Durrell. By age fifteen, she was in Hollywood. Her adopted stage name, Jane Wyman, coincided with her becoming a contract player at Warner Brothers in 1936; she had been billed once prior as Sarah Jane Fulks, the surname of her unofficial foster family back in Missouri. Established at Warner Brothers, Wyman met her future husband, Ronald Reagan, co-starring with him in the comedy 'Brother Rat' in 1938 and its sequel, Brother Rat and a Baby' in 1940. They married in 1940, but divorced in 1948. They had two children and adopted a third.

Wyman won an Academ Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the deat-mute rape victim in 'Johnny Belinda' in 1948. she became as famous for her witty acceptance speech as for the role she played, saying:"I won this by keeping my mouth shut, and that's what I'm going to do now."

Subsequently, she appeared primarily in tearjerkers, garnering yet another Oscar nomination for her performance opposite Rock Hudson in Douglas Sirk's improbable melodrama 'Magnificent Obsession' in 1954. That movie's success led to her again starring with Hudson, this time as the older woman in a May-to-September romance, Sirk's 'All That Heaven Allows' in 1955. After her final feature film, 'How to Commit Marriage' in 1969, she went into semi-retirement, but years later made a triumphant return on TV, starring as Angela Channing on the prime-time soap opera 'Falcon Crest'.

Jane Wyman died at her Rancho Mirage home on September 10, 2007, after a long illness. She was 90.