Contract player, Oscar winner, TV star

LOS ANGELES -- Jane Wyman, an Academy Award winner for her performance as the deaf rape victim in "Johnny Belinda," star of the long-running TV series "Falcon Crest" and Ronald Reagan's first wife, died Monday.

"I have lost a loving mother … and Hollywood has lost the classiest lady to ever grace the silver screen," son Michael Reagan said in a statement.

Wyman died early Monday at her Palm Springs home. Her age is listed as 93 in several reference books; however, the family Web site, www.jane-wyman.com, says she was 90.

Born Sarah Jane Fulks in St. Joseph, Mo., Wyman's film career spanned from "Gold Diggers of 1937," to 1969's "How to Commit Marriage," co-starring Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason.

From 1981 to 1990 she played Angela Channing, a Napa Valley winery owner who maintained her power with a steely will on "Falcon Crest."

Her marriage in 1940 to fellow Warner Bros. contract player Reagan was celebrated in the fan magazines as one of Hollywood's ideal unions. While he was in uniform during World War II, her career ascended.

The couple divorced in 1948, the year she won the Oscar for "Johnny Belinda."

After Reagan became governor of California and then president of the United States, Wyman kept a decorous silence about her ex-husband, who had married actress Nancy Davis.

In a 1968 interview, Wyman explained: "It's not because I'm bitter or because I don't agree with him politically. I've always been a registered Republican. But it's bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that's all. Also, I don't know a damn thing about politics."

A few days after Reagan died in 2004, Wyman broke her silence: "America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man."

It was 1936 when Warner Bros. signed Wyman to a long-term contract. She long remembered the first line she spoke as a chorus girl to show producer Dick Powell: "I'm Bessie Fuffnik. I swim, ride, dive, imitate wild birds and play the trombone."

Warner Bros. was notorious for typecasting its contract players. In 1968 Wyman recalled: "For 10 years I was the wisecracking lady reporter who stormed the city desk snapping, 'Stop the presses! I've got a story that will break this town wide open!' "

In 1937, Wyman married a wealthy manufacturer of children's clothes, Myron Futterman, in New Orleans. She divorced him in November 1938.

The actress became entranced by Reagan, a handsome former sportscaster who was new to the Warner lot. They were married on Jan. 26, 1940, and the following year she gave birth to a daughter, Maureen. They later adopted a son, Michael. A daughter was born several months premature in June 1947 and died a day later.

In Reagan's autobiography, "An American Life," his only mention of Wyman runs for two sentences. "That same year I made the Knute Rockne movie, I married Jane Wyman, another contract player at Warners," Reagan wrote. "Our marriage produced two wonderful children, Maureen and Michael, but it didn't work out, and in 1948 we were divorced." The final divorce decree was issued in 1949.

Maureen died in 2001 from cancer. At the funeral, Wyman, balancing on a cane, put a cross on the casket. Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was not well enough to attend.

Early in their marriage, Reagan's career grew with "Knute Rockne -- All American" and "King's Row."

But after Reagan joined the army, Wyman escaped B-pictures by persuading Jack Warner to loan her to Paramount for "The Lost Weekend." The film won the Academy Award for 1945 and led to another loanout -- to MGM for "The Yearling." De-glamourized as a backwoods wife and mother, she got her first Oscar nomination.

After 40 films at Warner Bros., Wyman had her first real acting challenge with "Johnny Belinda," which got 12 Academy Award nominations and the best-actress Oscar for Wyman.

Her acceptance speech was brief: "I accept this award very gratefully for keeping my mouth shut once. I think I'll do it again."

Reagan became increasingly active in politics as his wife's career climbed. When she divorced him, she testified: "Politics built a barrier between us. I tried to make his interests mine, but finally there was nothing to sustain our marriage."

Wyman continued making prestigious films such as "The Glass Menagerie," Alfred Hitchcock's "Stage Fright," "Here Comes the Groom" (with Bing Crosby). Two tearjerkers, "The Blue Veil" (1951) and "Magnificent Obsession" (1954), brought her Oscar nominations as best actress.

Other film credits include: "So Big," "Lucy Gallant," "All That Heaven Allows," "Miracle in the Rain," "Holiday for Lovers," "Pollyanna" and "Bon Voyage!"

Her first entry into TV was "The Jane Wyman Show," an anthology series on NBC from 1955 to 1958. She introduced the shows, half of them starring herself, half with other actors. She quit after three years, saying "putting on a miniature movie once a week" was exhausting.

In 1952 Wyman married Fred Karger, a studio music director. They divorced, later remarried and divorced the second time in 1965. She remained single thereafter. While not working, she devoted much of her time to benefits and telethons for the Arthritis Foundation.

When Wyman received the script for "Falcon Crest," she was undecided about undertaking the nasty, power-mad Angela Channing, so different from the self-sacrificing characters of her movie days.

But she liked the idea that Angela "goes straight through everything like a Mack truck." "Falcon Crest" lasted nine seasons.

After Reagan became president in 1981, his former wife gave few interviews and responded to questions about him with a stony look. When "Falcon Crest" ended, she withdrew from public view, devoting time to painting.

She summed up her long career in a 1981 newspaper interview: "I've been through four different cycles in pictures: the brassy blonde, the musicals, the high dramas, then the inauguration of television."

Sarah Jane Fulks grew up in a cheerless home in which her mother was devoted to her seriously ailing husband. After her father died, Sarah Jane and her mother went to Los Angeles, where the girl tried to get jobs in the studios. Failing that, she returned to St. Joseph.

She attended the University of Missouri, worked as a manicurist and switchboard operator, then sang on radio as Jane Durrell. When that career dwindled, she decided to try Hollywood again, began playing bit parts, and changed Durrell to Wyman.