Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)

Subject: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: Genie
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 09:43 PM

Oscar winner and first wife of actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan passed away today at age 93.

I have no more info than that, but it's said she had a rather different perspective on our former US President than, say, what you're likely to hear on Fox or the other "mainstream" media outlets.    That may be partly because, allegedly, Ronnie was fooling around with Nancy Davis while still married to Jane.    (Family values, don't ya know.)

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: Beer
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 09:53 PM

"Father Knows Best".

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 10:40 PM

She and Ronnie named names. That took most of the lustre off the star for me.

As actors I had liked her, but I never cared for Ronnie.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 11:08 AM

Wow. Yet another I would have thought long dead. Bully for her.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: Big Mick
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 11:12 AM

Genie, I always felt that showed how much class this fine lady had. She could have made a much bigger deal out of that than she did, but chose to just put it with the dirty laundry and take care of it when she washed her clothes.

Mick

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: bobad
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 12:30 PM

Adrien, Jane Wyatt was the Father Knows Best actress - I made the same mistake.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: Beer
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 01:25 PM

Thanks Bobad. Man that was stupid of me.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: Genie
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 02:11 PM

Yeah, Mick, Jane clearly chose not to air Ronnie's dirty laundry very publicly when he was President or in his post-White House years prior to his death.   In fact, it appears that quite a few of the "family values" folks who have bordered on deifying Reagan were unpleasantly surprised when the media's obit notices for Jane Wyman mentioned that she was his first wife.   Apparently, our "liberal media" had done a pretty good job over the past 3 decades of keeping his status - as the first and only divorced President - pretty much out of public notice.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman
From: Genie
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 02:12 PM

Jane Wyman's TV fame was for her role on the long-running prime-time soap "Falcon Crest."

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Little Robyn
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 03:40 PM

What was that movie where she went blind?
Magnificent what?
I saw it as a kid and it made a big impression then.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 04:09 PM

Johnny Belinda?

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Genie
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 04:19 PM

Yes, she won the Oscar for playing a blind and mute rape victim in Johnny Belinda.

In her acceptance speech she said something like "Well, I won the Oscar for keeping my mouth shut, so that's what I'm going to do tonight." *g*

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 04:59 PM

Wyman's IMDb entry.

She had quite a run. She was deaf and mute in Johnny Belinda. She was blind in Magnificent Obsession. And, as far as I am concerned, she is Unforgiven, as is Ronnie, for naming names before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 05:56 PM

And that the sainted Nancy was pregnant when she and Ronnie got married.

And that Maggie Thatcher was Dennis's second wife.

Not that I am one to gossip you understand.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Big Mick
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 06:24 PM

I guess I was unaware that she had named names to HUAAC, Maggie. That one is hard to get past. Changes my opinion.

Mick

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Rog Peek
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 02:55 PM

Yes, I didn't know that either.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 01:10 AM

Genie--what hole has your ostrich head been in? No medium has ever covered up that Jane Wyman was Reagan's first wife. During his presidency, whenever his children were mentioned it was most always noted that Maureen and Michael were the children from his marriage to Jane Wyman [Big cover up there!]. Now you may not have liked President Reagan (your right) but don't manufacture a conspiracy from your own preferences. Or maybe you're the only person who didn't know their marital history.
'

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Genie
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 09:00 PM

John, I'm not the one who didn't know about Ronnie's first wife being Jane.   It appears, though, that that little bit of Reagan history managed to be kept surprisingly (and conveniently) hidden from a fairly sizeable segment of the "religious right wing" base of the Republican party.

And you may recall that when Reagan finally passed away (as opposed to just having 'faded away' mentally) and the mainstream US media spent a whole week eulogizing him like he was a freakin' Princess Diana or something, there was hardly a blip about Jane Wyman having been part of his history. The press continued to paint the "storybook romance" picture of Ronnie and Nancy.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Genie
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 09:05 PM

PS, John, I don't think it's that the information wasn't out there - e.g., about Maureen and Michael not being Nancy's kids - as much as that it didn't get much prominence in press coverage. And that was especially true on stations and channels that lean to the right in their coverage (e.g., Fox).   

There's many a fact that occasionally gets cited somewhere - maybe in passing - in the newspaper or in a radio or TV broadcast but which barely pierces the collective consciousness or is forgotten almost as soon as it's received.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:58 PM

I don't think there was a cover-up, Genie, I think it was so widely known in the U.S. that it was never a big deal. And at the time of Ronnie's death, evidently the press had some modicum of restraint and left the wife and the ex-wife alone in their respective grief. Their daughter Maureen Reagan died a number of years earlier and it received quite a lot of press, as did Maureen's pro-Ronnie leanings. There are plenty of things in life that, if they don't matter to us, we don't pay attention to. Perhaps for you this was one of those things.

I was pretty disappointed when I read about the HUAAC hearings. I'm not having any luck finding information here--it has been a while since I read it, and the gist of the story was that they were friendly and cooperative with the committee. All of the stories I'm finding focus on Reagan alone, so to be fair, I would have to say that her fingerprints are all over the story, but I can't show you my source right at the moment.

There's a bit from a book in a Google search that says "On October 20, 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee, in Congress, held hearings into alleged communist influences in Hollywood. In his testimony on October 25, Reagan testified publicly as president of SAG and refused to label any members of the union as Communists. In private, however, he had already given the FBI the names of possible Communists in the industry. Increasingly, Reagan found himself in demand as an anticommunist speaker."

This is a piece of juvenile fiction excerpted online, but it conveys what several other sources said as well. Wyman apparently engineered his activity with SAG--a CNN report says that Jane Wyman is the one who "initiated Reagan's involvement with the [SAG] labor group" (from Jack Dales, former SAG exec. director). One can't conclude from that that she influenced or shared in his testimony, but like I said, I came across it somewhere that when I read it seemed authoritative and I haven't found any reason not to believe it still.

I'll poke around a little more, though. She did have the good sense to divorce the guy, so there was some hope of redemption!

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 11:11 PM

I think maybe we all did things that in hindsight were kinda stupid. I know I did. I'm also probably on file at the FBI.

Care? Nope.Jane was a pretty class act, IMO.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 10:21 PM

Genie--First, I apologize for starting my last post in a mean spirited way. Second, people's histories are often selectively remembered. My mother was married four times, but if you knew her in her later in her life you would certainly have only known of her last husband although she had her children with her first two. She rarely spoke of previous ones, generally only when prompted. Almost no mention of my cousin's earlier life was mentioned at his funeral...one would have thought his life began when he married his much younger last wife. And they weren't even famous.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jane Wyman (10 Sept 2007)
From: Genie
Date: 15 Sep 07 - 10:12 PM

Sorcha, I'm with you.

I have a great deal of admiration for Sen. Robert Byrd in his current 'incarnation", but in his youth he was an active member of the KKK. I'm slow to condemn a senior citizen for what they did in their youth, unless I have reason to believe they did not grow over the years.

When I was in high school, I now remember, a teacher 'explained' to us that Paul Robeson's music could no longer be bought in the USA,, although he was a wonderful singer, "because he was a communist."   At the time, I did not question why that was an absurd 'justification' for banning his music.
Those who "named names" before HCUAA in the '50s were not teenagers, but I daresay some of them were as caught up in the anti-"communist" scare of the McCarthy era as a lot of us teenagers were and perhaps did not really see the light till years later.