As the leading lady in two of Douglas Sirk’s finest and most enduring melodramas, Magnificent Obsession (1954) and All That Heaven Allows (1955), it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that Jane Wyman is an actress forgotten to time. Then again, given that those two films represent but a small part of her varied filmography, it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that Jane Wyman is an actress everyone is familiar with, either. Although known by many today for her Sirk films and for being, yes, Ronald Reagan’s first wife, Wyman deserves a much bigger spotlight than that.
Apple-cheeked with a pert little nose and big doe eyes framed by perfectly arched brows, Wyman began her Hollywood career as something of a blonde bombshell in the early ’30s. Earning her dues at Warner Bros. as anonymous chorus girls, ditzy co-eds, and other bit parts, the starlet slowly graduated to lead roles in second-tier fare like Private Detective and Kid Nightingale (both 1939). Perhaps the movie that best demonstrates her rise at the studio is Torchy Blane… Playing with Dynamite (1939), the last entry in a fun series about relentless woman reporter Torchy Blane, who actually inspired the creation of Superman‘s Lois Lane. Wyman had previously played a hatcheck girl in the first Torchy film Smart Blonde (1937); two years and seven sequels later, she was now the “lady bloodhound with a nose for news” and she pulled it off with aplomb.
Coming into the 1940s, Wyman had shown she could carry a film and yet she was often relegated to roles as the leading man’s girl Friday whose razor-sharp quips could cut him down to size or as the leading lady’s best friend who sympathetically lent a shoulder to cry on. It was because of one of these parts, though, that Wyman found her chance to inhabit better, more challenging characters. Portraying a wife whose husband (frequent co-star Jack Carson) is about to leave to fight in WWII in Princess O’Rourke (1943), the romantic comedy contains a rather poignant moment of melancholy when Wyman and Carson lovingly recall how they first met before clinging to each other on the dance floor. The scene garnered the attention of the one and only Billy Wilder, who decided to cast Wyman in his groundbreaking portrait of an alcoholic, The Lost Weekend (1945). As Helen St. James, Ray Milland’s understanding girlfriend, the actress opened everyone’s eyes to her dramatic talents and soon followed it up with an Oscar nomination for an even more demanding film, The Yearling (1946). Wearing little make-up with her hair pulled back into a bun and dirt on her face, Wyman threw herself into the role of a farmer’s wife in the 1870s whose loss of her other children has rendered her unable to let her walls down with her sole surviving son.
Regardless of her excellent work in these two dramas, it would take another two years and an Oscar win for Johnny Belinda (1948) before Wyman really hit her stride. Johnny Belinda was a turning point not just because it gave her the coveted golden statuette — it also influenced how Wyman would approach future dramatic roles by intensely studying and questioning the motivations, thoughts, feelings, and abilities of her characters. Wyman buried herself so deeply into the part of Belinda that it was rumored to be one of the reasons why she and Reagan divorced in 1948 after eight years of marriage, the other reasons being Wyman’s disinterest in politics and, it was gossiped, her closeness with Johnny Belinda co-star Lew Ayres.
After her shift to Serious Actress in the late ’40s, Wyman’s career in the 1950s became an interesting smorgasbord of genres. With tearjerkers like The Glass Menagerie (1950), The Blue Veil (1951), and So Big (1953), she proved her mettle as the grand dame of melodrama, making her the perfect match for Douglas Sirk’s sudsy masterpieces. Her archetype became, as one biographer called it, “brave women who triumph against all odds,” whether it be a physical disability, soul-crushing heartbreak, or difficult familial relationships. Wyman’s luminescence as a performer enables you to empathize with her every tear while her chin-up attitude encourages you to believe that she’ll win the day somehow, some way.
Because she put every ounce of herself into her dramatic performances, Wyman enjoyed the occasional opportunity in the ’50s to throwback to her early films by starring in fluffy comedies and, to her audience’s surprise, full-blown musicals. Her terrific singing had been featured in pictures before, such as her incredibly adorable duet with Jack Carson in Hollywood Canteen (1944), but moviegoers were still thrilled when she crooned “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” alongside Bing Crosby in Frank Capra’s Here Comes the Groom (1951). Her and Bing’s second and final pairing, Just for You (1952), exploited Wyman’s musical prowess even more, revealing the tremendous song-and-dance career she could have had.
But that’s the important thing about Jane Wyman: you can’t put her in one neat, little category. She was winsome and authentic in everything she did. Vivacious career gals, wisecracking girlfriends, despairing widows, successful musical stars, traumatized introverts — Wyman did so much and did it remarkably well. Which brings me to my titular question: why don’t we talk about her anymore?
One answer is that her home studio Warner Bros. inexplicably ignored her talents and continually placed her in quickie B-movies. Wyman’s colleagues and friends were baffled by the studio’s weirdly blasé attitude toward her; they didn’t seem to notice the consistently good work she did in the ’30s and they never cared when other studios wanted to borrow her, which was especially strange during the territorial studio system — in fact, it was while she was working for Paramount (The Lost Weekend) and MGM (The Yearling) that Wyman broke through. Despite this, she extended her contract with Warners and was finally rewarded with the complex Johnny Belinda… and then the studio went right back to casting her in forgettable nonsense.
Because so many of her films aren’t well-known outside of the classic film community (honestly, even those in the community still struggle with some of her titles), her iconic work with Douglas Sirk is able to overshadow everything else, with the possible exception of The Lost Weekend. Even her collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock, Stage Fright (1950), is considered one of Hitch’s lesser efforts, which is frankly an unfair assessment. After her heyday in the ’50s, Wyman was able to enjoy a major resurgence 30 years later with her villainous turn on the soap opera Falcon Crest, which allowed her to become TV’s highest-paid actor at the time, but it would seem that the show hasn’t had quite the same staying power as its competitors, Dallas and Dynasty.
I also have to wonder if Wyman’s legacy has been diminished by something I like to call “the Myrna Loy curse.” One of old Hollywood’s most indelible stars, Myrna Loy was always great, always reliable, always effortless, and always taken for granted, as evidenced by her complete lack of awards recognition. While Wyman was nominated several times for Primetime Emmys and such, I’d still argue that the same idea applies to her. Her earthiness and comfort with the camera consorted with her ability to infuse her characters with a piece of herself, a vulnerable act that only the best performers are able to do, and yet her name has been left in the dust.
In the parlance of her ’30s films, offscreen Wyman was “a swell kid,” someone dependable and generous and loyal. She enjoyed pranks, could be brutally honest, and was beloved by her co-stars and crews. One of the most beautiful things I’ve read about her is the way she accepted Rock Hudson. When a friend was talking about Rock’s homosexuality and commented, “I wish he would triumph over it somehow,” Wyman responded, “I wish he would find happiness.” After Rock’s death from AIDS, when there was a wave of tasteless publicity about his illness and the revelation of his sexuality, Wyman publicly spoke warm words of praise for Hudson as an actor and a man.
No matter the genre or the size of her role, Wyman popped off of the screen. Drenched in furs or dressed in tattered rags, she exuded a distinctly all-American appeal and looked as if she belonged almost anywhere and could survive anything. (Including her horrendous ’50s haircut — I will never forgive the stylist who let that happen.) With her unbelievably charming performance in Three Guys Named Mike (1951), she became one of my earliest classic Hollywood touchstones, and she will forever be someone I wish we appreciated more. If you only know her as the anguished widow who suffers glamorously as she is wooed by Rock Hudson, you’re really missing out on all that made Jane Wyman one of Hollywood’s most delightful stars.
Magnificent Obsession will be screened at IU Cinema on March 24 as part of the 5X Douglas Sirk series.
Michaela Owens is thrilled to be the editor of A Place for Film, in addition to being IU Cinema’s Publications Editor. An IU graduate with a BA in Communication and Culture and an MA in Cinema and Media Studies, she has also been a volunteer usher at IU Cinema since 2016. She never stops thinking about classic Hollywood, thanks to her mother’s introduction to it, and she likes to believe she is an expert on Katharine Hepburn and Esther Williams.