British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1307. Photo: Warner.
American autographed postcard. Sent by mail in 1940.
Kodak American postcard.
A foster child
Jane Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield on the 5th of January 1917 in St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S.A.
In 1921, her parents divorced and her father died in 1922. That same year, her mother Gladys left for Cleveland and entrusted her little girl to her neighbours, Richard and Emma Fulks.
They never legally adopted her but she soon became nevertheless known as Sarah Jane Fulks. As a child, she was raised with strict discipline but was allowed to attend Edward Albert Prinz’s dance school in St. Joseph, which she greatly enjoyed despite her shyness.
After Richard Fulks had died in 1928, Emma relocated with her foster girl to Los Angeles, where her grown-up children lived. In 1930, they returned to St.Joseph, where Sarah Jane attended Lafayette High School.
She dropped out of it in 1932 and returned to Los Angeles, where she soon decided on a dancing career. She got help from Leroy Prinz, Edward Albert’s son, who had become a noted dance director in Hollywood.
Dutch postcard by Sparo.
EKC American postcard.
British postcard in the “With Greetings and Best Wishes” series. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
Portuguese postcard by Ediçao Trevo. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
B movie star status
Sarah Jane Mayfield made her film debut as an uncredited chorus girl in The Kid from Spain (1932).
After several years of other unbilled dancing bits, agent William Demarest took an interest in her in the mid-1930s. Although she had reservations about her acting, Demarest got her a contract at Warner in 1936.
In 1937, she got her first female lead in Public Wedding. In The Crowd Roars (1938), she played Maureen O’Sullivan’s dizzy friend and dyed her hair from brown to blonde. She next got lucky to be cast in the pleasing comedy Brother Rat (1938), which was adapted from a successful Broadway play. She had a good role as a plain-looking bookworm who reveals herself to be lovely when she takes off her horn-rimmed glasses. After two years, Jane Wyman had finally become a B movie star at Warner.
Her career continued to move forward, albeit at a slow pace, with such films as Kid Nightingale (1939), Private Detective (1939), Brother Rat and a Baby (1940), An Angel from Texas (1940), Gambling on the High Seas (1940), You’re in the Army Now (1941), The Body Disappears (1941), etc. Her best 1942 movie was probably the gangster-spoof Larceny Inc., opposite Edward G. Robinson.
In 1943, she had a good supporting role in an Olivia De Havilland vehicle, Princess O’Rourke, in which she changed her hair colour back to her natural brunette. Make Your Own Bed (1944), Crime by Night (1944) and The Doughgirls (1944) followed.
British postcard by Picturegoer, no. 1307. Photo: Warner.
Norwegian postcard by Enerett K. Harstad, Kunstforlag, Oslo, no. 73. Photo: Warner Bros.
Belgian postcard. Jane Wyman posing with a portrait of her in Johnny Belinda (Jean Negulesco, 1948).
British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: Paramount.
Climbing to the top of the ladder
During her first eight Warner years, Jane Wyman had been a cooperative trouper and had accepted whatever parts were assigned to her. She was now ready for bigger and better things.
She got a big break when she was chosen to play Ray Milland’s girlfriend in Billy Wilder’s hard-hitting study of alcoholism, The Lost Weekend (1945), in which she gave a sensitive performance.
In 1946, she notably had the opportunity to sing two Cole Porter standards, 'You Do Something to Me' and 'Let’s Do It', in the big-budgeted musical Night and Day (1946).
She was then hired by M.G.M. to play an embittered farmer’s wife, reluctant to express maternal love, in The Yearling (1946). A deglamourized Jane received high praise from the critics and was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. The way she handled her character proved that she was definitively A-grade star material. In 1947, she was featured in Raoul Walsh’s Western Cheyenne and in William Wellman’s Magic Town. In 1948, she was a touching deaf-mute rape victim in Johnny Belinda, which earned her rave notices and the Best Actress Oscar. She was now one of the undisputed queens of the Warners lot.
After two comedies, A Kiss in the Dark (1949) and The Lady Takes a Sailor (1949), she went to England for Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright (1950). Not surprisingly, most critics at the time considered that her co-star, glamourous Marlene Dietrich, stole the show with her portrayal of an alluring stage star, dressed by Christian Dior. Back in the U.S.A., she played a limping girl in The Glass Menagerie (1950), adapted from Tennessee Williams’ play. The author didn’t like the film, deploring the tacked-on happy ending and the casting of Gertrude Lawrence as the mother.
Austrian postcard by Verlag Hubmann, Wien, no 4097/231. Photo: Warner Brothers.
Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 2449. Photo: Warner Bros.
British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: Paramount.
Spanish postcard, no. 2670.
A versatile actress
In the 1950s, Jane Wyman continued to show how a versatile actress she was. Audiences flocked to see the tearjerkers The Blue Veil (1951) and So Big (1953). The Blue Veil was the remake of a French Gaby Morlay vehicle, Le Voile bleu (1942), that followed a nursemaid’s path over the years.
So Big had already been filmed with Colleen Moore in 1924 and Barbara Stanwyck in 1932. Jane loved doing musicals and appeared opposite Bing Crosby in Here Comes the Groom (1951), in which they introduced the Oscar-winning song 'In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening', and Just for You (1952). Both films clicked at the box office.
She too was featured in the sprightly comedy Three Guys Named Mike (1951), the biopic The Will Rogers Story (1952) and another musical, Let’s Do It Again (1953), opposite Ray Milland.
One of the highlights of her career came when she co-starred with Rock Hudson in two top-grossing melodramas directed by Douglas Sirk, Magnificent Obsession (1954) and All That Heaven Allows (1955).
Two other women’s pictures came next: Lucy Gallant (1955) and Miracle in the Rain (1956). Jane again had two more crowd-pleasers to her credit. She was an actress female audiences especially could relate to.
French or Belgian postcard, no. 21. Photo: Warner Bros.
American promotional postcard by American Airlines. Photo: MGM. Jane Wyman in Three Guys Named Mike (Charles Walters, 1951).
Belgian or French postcard, no. 951. Jane Wyman and Van Johnson in Three Guys Named Mike (Charles Walters, 1951).
West-German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin Tempelhof, no. FK 715. Photo: Columbia. Jane Wyman in Let’s Do It Again (Alexander Hall, 1953).
Later work
From 1955 to 1958 Jane Wyman hosted her own weekly TV show. It was first called Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre, then The Jane Wyman Theatre and, finally, The Jane Wyman Show. She acted in 49 of the 96 episodes.
Later, she notably appeared in series such as My Three Sons, The Love Boat and Charlie’s Angels.
From 1981 to 1990, she starred as iron-fisted, domineering, ruthless and tough-as-nails matriarch Angela Channing in the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest. In 1984, it earned her a Golden Globe in the 'Best Performance by an Actress in a Drama Television Series' category. When she received it, she declared "I’m a little too old to be happy but I’m just old enough to be grateful".
She made her final TV appearance in 1993 as Jane Seymour’s mother in an episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. She occasionally came back to movies, first in the comedy Holiday for Lovers (1959), then in two Walt Disney productions, Pollyanna (1960), in which she was the stern Aunt Polly, whose goodness is brought out in full by the cheerful heroine played by Hayley Mills, and Bon Voyage (1963).
Her filmography ended with How to Commit Marriage (1969), a Bob Hope vehicle which was not one of his best.
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 726. Photo: Columbia. Jane Wyman in Let’s Do It Again (Alexander Hall, 1953).
Spanish postcard. Jane Wyman and Sterling Hayden in So Big (Robert Wise, 1953).
Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 2560. Photo: Warner Bros.
Spanish postcard, no. 2002. Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk, 1954).
The private Jane Wyman
In 1933, young Sarah Jane married salesman Ernest Wyman. On her wedding certificate, she chose to make herself older by three years. They divorced two years later but she retained the name 'Wyman' for her professional career.
In 1937, she married dress manufacturer Myron Futterman but they soon separated and divorced in 1938. In 1940, she married actor and future President of the United States Ronald Reagan.
They had two daughters, Maureen in 1941 and Christine, who was a premature child and died shortly after her birth, in 1947. They also adopted a boy, Michael, in 1945 and divorced in 1948.
In 1952, she married composer Fred Karger and divorced in 1955. She remarried him in 1961 but it again ended with a divorce in 1965. From the mid-1960s on, she began to devote much of her time to the Arthritis Foundation, for which she would act as spokeswoman and fundraiser for many years.
Jane Wyman died on the 10th of September 2007. She had become a devout catholic in the 1950s and, as a lay tertiary of the Dominican Order, she was interred in a Dominican habit.
Spanish postcard by Marte. Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955).
Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 2753. Photo: Paramount Films.
Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2691. Photo: Paramount Films.
Text and vintage postcards: Marlène Pilaete. Check out Marlene's other La Collectionneuse posts.
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