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, my children Cameron and Ashley have lost a loving grandmother, my wife Colleen has lost a loving friend she called Mom 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, said Richard Adney of Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Cathedral City. Wyman’s age was listed as 93 in several reference books; however, other sources, including the official family Web site www.jane-wyman.com, say she was 90.
Wyman’s film career spanned from the 1930s, including “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 CBS’ “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.
The following year, she gave birth to a daughter, Maureen. They later adopted a son, Michael. They also had a daughter who was born several months premature in June 1947 and died a day later. Maureen died in August 2001 after a battle with cancer.
While Reagan was in uniform during World War II, Wyman’s career ascended, signaled by her 1946 Oscar nomination for “The Yearling.”
The couple divorced in 1948, the year she won the Oscar for “Johnny Belinda.” Reagan reportedly cracked to a friend: “Maybe I should name Johnny Belinda as co-respondent.”
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 newspaper interview, Wyman explained the reason: “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 on June 5, 2004, Wyman broke her silence, saying: “America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man.”
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