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| Jane Wyman (December 1953) Photo credit: Wikipedia |
In Hollywood,
selling your soul is often the price of success. Yet, occasionally—miraculously—the healing light
of faith intervenes as in the case of Jane Wyman, born 96 years ago on today.
From
childhood, Wyman, orphaned at age 4, was very quiet, prompting Marlene Dietrich,
her co-star in Stage Fright (1950),
to tell her to “get noticed.”
She finally
did—in a film career that spanned 60 years.
Johnny Belinda (1948), in which she gave an
Oscar-winning performance, transforming herself into a deaf mute teen, is
often cited as the pinnacle of her career.
But, as
her long-time friend Virginia Zamboni told me, her
favorite film was The Blue Veil
(1951),
which earned her another Best Actor Oscar nomination—for a
total of four also including The
Yearling
(1946).
Filmed
in and around St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, The
Blue Veil “hit her in the face,” said
Zamboni. Wyman had been attending mass with her friend
Loretta Young at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills in the wake
of her 1948
divorce
and death,
a year prior, of her second baby with husband
and future president Ronald Reagan. She nursed a deep wound over the loss of her
beloved Christina shortly after her birth in 1947. As son
Michael Reagan wrote in his book, Twice Adopted, “It probably was the
most painful experience of her life, and I don’t think she ever truly recovered
from it.”
The Blue Veil was ironically
premised on the protagonist’s loss of her newborn son.
As she
soaked in the spiritual grandeur of St. Patrick’s during filming, she
began to understand that her life’s triumph and tragedy had a deeper purpose. And, on December 8, 1954, along with her
children, Maureen and Michael, she was received into the Catholic Church.
Tragedy
had visited early. Born Sarah Jane
Mayfield on January 5, 1917 in St. Joseph, Missouri, her parents were divorced
by 1921.
A year
later, her father died and she was left with middle-aged neighbors. But, her “adoptive” parents led
dull lives, impelling
her to fix her sights with steely determination on glittering showbiz, where
her talents flowed. After years of
playing bit parts, starting in The Kid from Spain (1932), she finally got her big break in The Lost Weekend (1945) as the
empathetic fiancée of an alcoholic writer, leading to greater dramatic roles
and her stunning Oscar-winning performance in Johnny Belinda.
“I accept this very gratefully for keeping my mouth shut. I think I’ll do it again,” she
said in the shortest Oscar acceptance speech ever. She could have been talking about her life
characterized by a quiet reserve cultivated in childhood.
But,
her actions spoke loudly.
“She
was certainly long on style,” Fr. Howard Lincoln of Sacred Heart in Palm
Desert, California told me.
“But she was much deeper and much longer in substance.”
“She
was the antithesis of Sunset Boulevard and Norma Desmond”—that aging silent film star, who lives in the past,
craving a “return,” Fr. Lincoln said.
After
her illustrious film career was over—her last film was How to Commit Marriage (1969) with Bob Hope—she tucked away her
Oscars in her den and focused on the present, giving generously of her time,
money and talent to the Church, especially Sacred Heart in Palm Desert, and The
Arthritis Foundation.
“I had never seen a $100,000 check,”
Fr. Lincoln told me, “until I saw one… signed by Jane Wyman” to
finance cushioned
pews, state-of-the-art sound system and a chapel for nearby seminarians. She also supported Hollywood’s Covenant House
and Our Lady of Angels Monastery, run by the Dominican Sisters. She herself was a Third Order Dominican, buried,
wearing the habit, in a simple pine coffin. She died at her home in
Rancho Mirage, California on September 10, 2007 at the ripe old age of 90.
“She
was not afraid to die,” said Fr. Lincoln, because she knew her life would be
“changed… “infinitely for the better.” One day, he said, “we’re talking about
dying and she’s smoking cigarette after cigarette. Yet, by her bed” besides the
ashtray “would also be a rosary and prayer books. So this was a holy lady.”
She
was also one heck of an actress. But, then, far from being incompatible, the
two actually work synergistically.
As
testament to her gold-plated soul, she was very loyal and discreet, purposely never
writing an autobiography about her life, including details of her marriage with
Ronald Reagan, Zamboni said.
And, she
was a great mother. As her son Michael
said in his moving eulogy at her funeral, when he begged her for a bike at age
13, she
agreed to buy it, only if he would work to pay her back, telling him, “I build
men… (not) boys.”
What a
class act!
This article by Mary Claire Kendall about Jane Wyman was published in Forbes on January 5, 2013. She initially wrote this story for Our Sunday
Visitor shortly after Wyman’s death in 2007.
