Jane Wyman

Academy Award-winning actress and first wife of Ronald Reagan.

Wyman later starred as Angela Channing on the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest.^[1]

Last updated 2026-09-30 from the source article.

Quick Facts

Other names: Jane Fulks, Jane Durrell
Birth name: Sarah Jane Mayfield
Born: 5 January 1917
Birthplace: St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S.
Died: 10 September 2007
Place of death: Rancho Mirage, California, U.S.
Resting place: Forest Lawn Mortuary and Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California
Political party: Republican

Life and work

Wyman was the only child of Gladys Hope and Manning Jeffries Mayfield.^[2] She went into semi-retirement around 1962 after feeling the film industry no longer offered good roles for women.^[1] In October 1921, Wyman's mother initiated divorce proceedings and moved to Cleveland, leaving her daughter in the custody of Emma and Richard D. Fulks.^[3] Although never formally adopted by the Fulks family, Wyman used the surname Fulks informally, going by the name Jane Fulks.^[3]

To fund her dance classes, Wyman left Los Angeles High School in 1932 and took a job at a Manning's coffee shop.^[4] In 1933, Wyman wed salesman Ernest Wyman, misrepresenting her age on the marriage license; the couple separated two years later.^[5] Wyman's initial Warner Bros. contract was signed in 1936, and she kept the surname Wyman for her professional work.^[6][7] The role that elevated Wyman's career was that of a deaf-mute rape survivor in the 1948 film Johnny Belinda, which earned her the Best Actress Oscar.^[8]

References

Wikipedia, "Jane Wyman" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Jane Wyman: 'I Always Did Four-Handkerchief Roles. Until Now.': Jane Wyman By Marianne Constantinou. The New York Times November 29, 1981: D29. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Jane Wyman" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hart, "A Genealogy of the Wives of the American Presidents and Their First Two Generations of Descent", McFarland & Company, 2004-11-18 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Jane Wyman" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Edwards, "Early Reagan", Taylor Trade Publishing, 2012; Edwards, "Early Reagan", Taylor Trade Publishing, 2012; Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Random House, Inc., 1999.; Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Random House, Inc., 1999.; "Jane Wyman (obituary)", The Independent, September 11, 2007 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Jane Wyman" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bubbeo, "The Women of Warner Brothers: The Lives and Careers of 15 Leading Ladies, with Filmographies for Each", McFarland, 2002; Edwards, "Early Reagan", Taylor Trade Publishing, 2012 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Jane Wyman" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Edwards, "Early Reagan", Taylor Trade Publishing, 2012; Colacello, Bob. Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House – 1911 to 1980. Warner Books; 1st Warner Books Edition (2004); .; Schlueter, "Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman’s love story had an unhappy ending", Belleville News-Democrat, March 14, 2017; Schlueter, "Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman’s love story had an unhappy ending", Belleville News-Democrat, March 14, 2017; "Jane Wyman", The Telegraph, September 11, 2007; Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Random House, Inc., 19 en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Jane Wyman" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Colacello, Bob. Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House – 1911 to 1980. Warner Books; 1st Warner Books Edition (2004); . (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Jane Wyman" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Random House, Inc., 1999. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Jane Wyman" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Deaf Girl Role Helps Jane Wyman Career: Deaf Role Helps Jane Wyman Up" Hopper, Hedda. Los Angeles Times October 3, 1948: D1. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Jane Wyman (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.