Actress Jane Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield on January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, Missouri. Her parents divorced in 1921, and her father died the following year. She took the name Sarah Jane Fulks in honor of her neighbors, who officially adopted her after her father died.

After attending the University of Missouri, she began a career as a radio singer. This led to another name change (Jane Durrell), and then to Wyman. Jane signed with Warner Bros. in 1936 and made her film acting debut the next year in "Gold Diggers" (1937). She won the Oscar for Best Actress for her 1948 role as a teenage deaf-mute raped in "Johnny Belinda", the first person in the sound era to win an acting Oscar without speaking a line of dialogue. From 1981 to 1990 she played empire-building matriarch Angela Channing in the CBS melodrama "Falcon Crest".

Jane had several marriages including one in 1940 to former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. They were divorced in 1948. Jane Wyman died at age 90 in 2007.

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