Jane Wyman

Jane Wyman

Jane Wyman was an American actress, singer, dancer, and philanthropist. She was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for the 1948 film Johnny Belinda. Her professional career began at age 16 in 1933, when she signed with Warner Bros. She achieved continuing success in the television soap opera Falcon Crest.

About Jane Wyman in brief

Summary Jane WymanJane Wyman was an American actress, singer, dancer, and philanthropist. She was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for the 1948 film Johnny Belinda. Wyman’s professional career began at age 16 in 1933, when she signed with Warner Bros. She achieved continuing success in the television soap opera Falcon Crest, in which Wyman played the lead role of villainous matriarch Angela Channing. Her birthdate was widely reported to be January 4, 1914, but research by biographers and genealogists indicated that she was actually born three years later. She may have moved her birthday back by one day to January 4 so as to share the same birthday as her daughter, Maureen. After Wyman’s death, a release posted on her official website confirmed these details. 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.” She was an only child biologically, but she had two foster siblings which she would refer to when saying she was the youngest of three. In 1928, aged 11, she moved to southern California with her foster mother. In 1930, the two moved back to Missouri, where Sarah Jane attended Lafayette High School in Saint Joseph. She started to obtain small parts in such films as The Kid from Spain, Elmer, the Great, Gold Diggers of 1933, Harold Teen, College Rhythm, Rumba, All the King’s Horses, George White’s 1935 Scandals, Stolen Harmony, Broadway Hostess, King of Burlesque and Anything Goes.

She signed a contract with Warner Brothers in 1936. At Warners she was in Freshman Love and Bengal Tiger then went to Universal for My Man Godfrey. At Warner she was a lead role in a Dick Round-Up role in Cain-Up. Wyman had her first big role in the Western The Sunday Western in 1937. She had a support part in the female lead in Mr Ready, Willing and Able, The King Takes Air and The King of the Air. She starred alongside William Hopper in Public Wedding, Ronald Reagan and Eddie Albert in Brother Rat and its sequel Brother Rat and a Baby, Dennis Morgan in Bad Men of Missouri, Marlene Dietrich in Stage Fright, and Sterling Hayden in So Big. She was also featured opposite Rock Hudson in Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows, both directed by Douglas Sirk. Her first husband was Ernest Wyman, who she married in 1940 and divorced in 1948. She would retain the use of his surname for the remainder of her career, however, she was already divorced from first husband Ernest Wymen when she met Ronald Reagan. She also had a role in The Singing Marine. By the time Wyman starred in Thesing Marine, she had the lead in Little Pioneer Girl, The Pioneer Pioneer Girl and Slim and Slim and Slim.