The Class of Jane Wyman
Although a movie buff, I’m not all that familiar with the work of Jane Wyman. I have only seen a handful of her films — and a good number of episodes of Falconcrest, the 1980s TV drama in which she starred and for which she won a Golden Globe Award.
I’ve long wanted to see Johnny Belinda, the 1948 film for which she won an Oscar. (Guess I’ll just Netflix it). I was most impressed with her performance in All That Heaven Allows, the 1955 Douglas Sirk flick where she plays an upper-class widow who falls for a much younger man. And in the 1945 film The Lost Weekend.
All that said, I was sad today when I learned that this talented actress had died today at 93. I will most remember the class she showed, the type of class once commonplace in Hollywood and Washington, when asked about her third husband, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the nation’s 40th president.
As AP Reporter Bob Thomas put it in his obituary, when her ex-husband “became governor of California and then president of the United States, Wyman kept a decorous silence” about him (Emphasis added). As she put it, “it’s bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives.”
The Gipper returned the favor, writing very little about their marriage in his biography, An American Life. All he said was that it “produced two wonderful children, Maureen and Michael, but it didn’t work out, and in 1948 we were divorced.”
Perhaps the Gipper learned to be publicly silent about such private matters from the “decorous silence” his first wife maintained about their marriage. And perhaps while understanding that while a union between them could not “work out,” he continued to respect her talents as an actress and her quality as a human being.
For it seems that she was indeed a great actress and an even better person. Hollywood could learn from her example.
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[...] Original post by GayPatriotWest [...]
Pingback by Politics: 2008 HQ » Blog Archive » The Class of Jane Wyman — September 10, 2007 @ 10:18 pm - September 10, 2007
Jane Wyman was one actress with class. And so was Ronald Reagan an actor with class. It is so sad to see the self-destructive, narcisstic nature of today’s crop of actors/entertainers. I yearn for a time where there could be people like Miss Wyman and President Reagan. Oh, BTW, President Reagan revived Miss Wyman’s career as she was the matriach in the 1980′s nighttime soap “Falcon Crest.”
Comment by Mark J. Goluskin — September 10, 2007 @ 11:42 pm - September 10, 2007
In this age of E! and TMZ (both of which I read religiously), it’s even more commendable that both Miss Jane Wyman and President Ronald Reagan — as well as Mrs. Nancy Reagan — kept that “decorous silence” about their private lives.
Such class is almost non-existent today. All the more reason to appreciate Miss Wyman.
And don’t forget POLLYANNA. It was schmaltzy, manipulative, and sugary — I loved it!
Comment by Julie the Jarhead — September 11, 2007 @ 8:45 am - September 11, 2007
Ms. Wyman was indeed a class act. The only reasons I know her is the show Falcon Crest & that she was the ex-wife of Ronald Reagan. Is it just me, or did Nancy Reagan resemble Jane Wyman somewhat? They always looked similar to me. #2 Um, Mr. Goluskin, President Reagan had nothing to do with Jane Wyman getting her role on Falcon Crest. She landed the part just fine on her own.
Comment by Jimbo — September 11, 2007 @ 6:19 pm - September 11, 2007
My recollection of Jane Wyman is mainly from a fifties sitcom where she played a very wholesome wife and mother. But now I think of her mostly for her role in the pseudo biographical movie of Cole Porter’s life, Night and Day. She is in the opening scene where she is a decidedly saucy singer and dancer, flipping her green skirts like a can can girl. Not hard to see what the gipper saw in this gal!
Comment by Raymond Barry — September 11, 2007 @ 8:34 pm - September 11, 2007
Nope, Uncle Jimbo, it’s not just you. I have noted the resemblance as well.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — September 11, 2007 @ 8:46 pm - September 11, 2007
Jimbo, I am sorry if I gave the impression that President Reagan GOT the part that Miss Wyman played on “Falcon Crest”. I was just noting that there was a certain irony that while Mr. Reagan was president, the ex-wife was still continuing as an actress. Mr. Reagan’s political involvement was one of the reasons for the divorce between the two in 1948. Sorry for the confusion.
Comment by Mark J. Goluskin — September 12, 2007 @ 12:22 am - September 12, 2007
for poster #5 that was Jane Wy-att not Wy-man in “Father Knows Best” & you conservatives always act like you know everything…
Comment by james — September 17, 2007 @ 12:13 pm - September 17, 2007