Though Jane Wyman was well-known for being Ronald Reagan's first wife during his time as a movie star, she was a prominent actress in her own right — earning an Oscar and multiple Golden Globe awards.
Public DomainLegendary actress Jane Wyman married Ronald Reagan in 1940, and the pair divorced in 1949.
Throughout her long life, Jane Wyman played many roles — literally. A respected Hollywood actress during the Golden Age and beyond, she was highly praised for her Oscar-winning role as a deaf rape victim in the 1948 movie Johnny Belinda. Of course, over several decades, Wyman depicted countless other pivotal characters as well.
Off screen, Wyman proved to be just as captivating. For as much as she is remembered for her career in film and television, Wyman also had the dubious honor of being the first ex-wife of a United States president. She had married Ronald Reagan in 1940, back when he was an actor. Wyman eventually filed for divorce in 1948, and it was officially granted in 1949.
Decades later, when Reagan was inaugurated to the U.S. presidency in 1981, he became the first divorcé to hold the nation’s highest office. Though many reporters tried to get Wyman’s perspective on Reagan, she refused to speak about him because she thought it was in “bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives.” Some have speculated that her respectful silence about Reagan may have helped pave his path to the presidency.
Still, Jane Wyman’s legacy amounts to far more than being Ronald Reagan’s first wife. And even though the Hollywood icon had largely retired from the spotlight by the time Reagan was elected, she ended up making a stunning comeback as an actress while her ex-husband was in office.
Inside Jane Wyman’s Early Life And Career
It was long reported that Jane Wyman was born in 1914, but official records show she was born on Jan. 5, 1917 in St. Joseph, Missouri. It’s likely that she used the wrong birthday so she’d be able to work while she was a minor.
Her birth name was Sarah Jane Mayfield, and her birth parents were Manning Jefferies Mayfield and Gladys Hope Christian. Sarah Jane’s parents split up when she was just a child, and her father died of pneumonia a year later. She was then placed in the care of a couple named Richard and Emma Fulks, and the young Sarah Jane soon unofficially took their last name.
Although the young girl admitted that she didn’t care for school, she seemed to have a special place in her heart for dance classes. Her “adoptive” mother took notice of this, and went with the eight-year-old to Hollywood to see if she could make it in show business. Unfortunately, it seemed that Sarah Jane Fulks was not quite ready to have her name in bright lights.
She recalled, “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.”
Public DomainJane Wyman, pictured on the beach at the age of 18.
As Sarah Jane got older, she seemed ready to put her Hollywood dreams aside. But everything changed when her dancing instructor in Missouri, the father of famed film choreographer Leroy Prinz, helped her get a foot in the door. This led to her true introduction to Hollywood, as a chorus girl.
When she arrived in Los Angeles for another shot at fame, Sarah Jane dyed her light brown hair platinum blonde, hoping that by emulating Jean Harlow’s “bombshell” look, she could also emulate her success.
Her first job as a dancer was in Busby Berkeley’s movie The Kid From Spain (1932). For the next four years, she appeared in various other choruses, in films like College Rhythm (1934) and King of Burlesque (1935).
In 1936, she finally earned a contract at Warner Bros., thanks to the recommendation of agent and actor William Demarest.
According to Dutch, Edmund Morris’ biography of Ronald Reagan, Sarah Jane had already been married and divorced once by the time she got her contract. She wed Ernest Eugene Wyman in 1933 when she was just 16 — claiming to be three years older — and left him two years later.
She decided to keep Wyman as her last name as her career took off. She also dropped the name Sarah, using Jane as her first name instead.
Inside Jane Wyman’s Slow Rise To Fame
Now going by Jane Wyman, she played a series of bit parts in Warner Bros. films, eventually working her way up to B-movies. Even in these early stages, though, many could tell there was more to Wyman than met the eye.
One of her lines in Stage Struck, for example, stood out as especially memorable when Wyman delivered it: “My name is Bessie Fufnick. I swim, dive, imitate wild birds, and play the trombone.”
Dick Powell, who starred in the film and asked Wyman’s character what her name was, said he noticed early on that there was something special about her. “Janie had something you couldn’t learn — presence,” he said.
In 1937, Wyman married Myron Futterman, a dress manufacturer who was 15 years older than her. She also earned her first leading role in the B-movie Public Wedding. Just a year later, she divorced Futterman — the same year she met Ronald Reagan, whom she starred alongside in Brother Rat (1938).
Warner Bros.Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman in Brother Rat.
The director of Brother Rat, William Keighley, quickly picked up on Wyman’s incredible talent while on set. He later remarked, “I was surprised big things didn’t happen for the Wyman girl a lot faster than they did.”
The turning point for her career finally came in 1945 with The Lost Weekend, in which Wyman played the girlfriend of an alcoholic. The film, directed by Billy Wilder, was a stark departure from some of the escapist entertainment that had dominated wartime cinema. Wyman’s performance also revealed a dramatic depth that had been largely untapped in her earlier work.
Her career momentum continued in 1946 with The Yearling. Her performance earned Wyman her first Academy Award nomination.
But the peak of her career was yet to come.
Becoming Ronald Reagan’s First Wife
Public DomainJane Wyman and Ronald Reagan in the early 1940s.
Throughout the late 1930s and 1940s, as her fame began to rise, Jane Wyman was also entwined with future U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Freshly divorced from Myron Futterman — in part because he was reluctant to have a child with her — Wyman was involved with Reagan by the time they were filming Brother Rat and a Baby, the sequel to their previous movie.
Wyman once said, “When I first met Ronnie, I was a nightclub girl. I just had to go dancing and dining every night to be happy.”
However, when Wyman became Ronald Reagan’s first wife in 1940, she picked up some of his interests, especially in the athletic realm. The two also became one of Hollywood’s most popular young couples, with fans eager to learn about their relationship. Of course, they also appeared in other movies together, as Warner Bros. was eager to capitalize on the publicity.
While Reagan’s acting career seemed to be moving ahead of hers, Wyman became determined to play a different kind of role: a mother.
Public DomainJane Wyman with her daughter Maureen Reagan.
“I think Jane started talking about a baby a day after we were married,” Reagan later said. “I wanted one, too, but I used all my male logic to persuade her that every young couple ought to wait a year. She agreed I was right as usual and she was wrong. So we had a baby.”
Their daughter Maureen was born on Jan. 4, 1941, but before long, their lives were on a different trajectory than they imagined. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor disrupted countless lives, including Reagan and Wyman’s.
Reagan, who already had some military service under his belt, was ordered to active duty in April 1942, but his poor eyesight meant that he was assigned to limited service during World War II, and he wouldn’t serve overseas. He was stationed in Culver City as a personnel officer who also acted in training films. Meanwhile, Wyman sang at various military camps.
Though both were focused on their respective careers and providing for their daughter, Reagan also became increasingly interested in politics.
The Couple’s Problems And Eventual Divorce
In 1945, Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan adopted their son Michael, as Reagan continued to pursue better roles and involve himself in Hollywood politics. It was 1947, however, that really marked a turning point for the couple. That year, Reagan became the leader of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and the couple also suffered a personal tragedy when their second daughter Christine was born prematurely and died just a day later.
Wyman reportedly complained to friends that all Reagan wanted to do when he returned home in the evenings was discuss world affairs, communist infiltration in Hollywood, and the politics of the entertainment industry.
At the same time, Wyman was finally breaking out of B-movies and supporting roles, and a rift was now forming between the couple.
Public DomainJane Wyman with director Douglas Sirk.
Despite his position as SAG president, Reagan was sometimes overshadowed by his wife’s rising stardom, and her commitment to more serious leading roles saw her more immersed in her work than ever before. After Wyman won an Oscar for portraying a deaf rape victim in the 1948 movie Johnny Belinda, it was clear that she and Reagan were now on different trajectories. Wyman was on the movie star path, while Reagan seemed destined to become a politician — outside of Hollywood.
Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, and it was officially granted in 1949. During the divorce proceedings, she said that she did not share Reagan’s strong interest in politics and she was bored by him talking about it so much.
After the couple went their separate ways, Reagan married the future First Lady Nancy Davis in 1952. That same year, Wyman married the band leader Fred Karger, but the pair divorced by 1954. Though Wyman and Karger later married again in 1963, that marriage also ended in divorce.
As Reagan’s political rise continued onward, though, Wyman refused to do a tell-all or speak ill of her ex-husband. It was an unusual amount of discretion for Hollywood, but it was likely beneficial for both of their careers, even if Wyman couldn’t fully escape the label of being Ronald Reagan’s first wife.
“I used to be interviewed a lot,” she told Vanity Fair in 1989. “But the last time I was, I had what seemed to be a very nice interview with the reporter, and then the piece came out. The first line was something like ‘This is the president’s ex-wife.’ That’s when the guillotine fell. I don’t have to be known as that. I’ve been in this business longer than he has. It’s such bad taste.”
Eventually, Wyman became so fed up with being defined as Ronald Reagan’s first wife and pestered about her past with him that she made a point to get up and leave an interview if a reporter mentioned his name at all.
Jane Wyman’s Continued Hollywood Success And Television Career
Turner Classic MoviesJane Wyman in Johnny Belinda.
As the film industry changed in the 1950s, Jane Wyman adapted with ease. She was among the first major film stars to embrace television, launching Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre in 1955. The anthology series allowed her to showcase her range as both an actress and producer.
It ran for three years, making Jane Wyman one of the earliest Hollywood actors to prove that television was just as viable as film. She didn’t stop taking film roles, though. While some of the movies she appeared in, such as Magnificent Obsession in 1954 and All That Heaven Allows in 1955, were initially dismissed by critics, these films were later recognized as rather sophisticated examinations of American society and the role of women in it.
Los Angeles Public LibraryJane Wyman presenting an Oscar to Walt Disney.
By the time her ex-husband was elected president, she had largely retired as an actress. She was reportedly encouraged by her inner circle to make a return to acting so she wouldn’t only get attention for being Ronald Reagan’s first wife. So she took on the role of Angela Channing in the prime time soap opera Falcon Crest in 1981, paving the way for an incredible comeback.
The show proved to be a massive success, running for nine seasons and introducing Wyman to an entirely new audience of viewers. Her impressive performance ultimately earned her a Golden Globe Award in 1984 (making that the fourth time she won a Golden Globe). She also reportedly earned 10 times the salary that Reagan was making as president.
Not long after the show came to an end, though, Wyman made a final appearance on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman before retiring from acting entirely in 1993. Her retirement was a quiet one, in which she focused on taking care of her ailing health, painting, and donating to charities.
Wyman broke her silence about Reagan only after he died in 2004, following a long battle with Alzheimer’s. She issued just a brief statement: “America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man.”
On Sept. 10, 2007, at the age of 90, Jane Wyman herself died at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, leaving behind a long and storied legacy as one of Hollywood’s most genuine and legendary talents.
After reading about the life of Jane Wyman, Golden Age Hollywood star and Ronald Reagan’s first wife, take a look back at some vintage celebrity couples that time almost forgot. Then, go inside some old Hollywood scandals that reveal Tinseltown’s uglier side.
