I had seen her in an interview not long ago and she seemed the elegant, appreciative and complementary co-star that everyone would have loved to work with. One of the few to insist Hitchcock never insinuated she was in any way “acting cattle,” she made a habit of working for and with the best in the business with a career spanning 60 years. The only bite I recall in the entire interview in fact was upon the question, “What do you think it would have been like, had you stayed married to Ronald Reagan?”

One can only assume how many times she had heard some variation of the same question, time and time again, especially in the 1980’s. Does she appear to regret not having been First Lady of the United States? No. It isn’t a conversation on interviews she apparently liked to dwell on. It wasn’t her life, and there was no need to question the “what ifs.” With 71 films, 4 Golden Globes, and an Oscar to her credit, not to mention being a mother of two, her life’s work was anything but lacking in accomplishment, excitement and prestige.

Born on January 4, 1914, Sarah Jane Fulks attended the University of Missouri and worked as a manicurist and switchboard operator before beginning her career as a radio singer and bit-player in the mid 1930’s. Under the name Jane Durrell she plucked along in low budget works at Warner Brothers, requiring of her little more than plenty of caffeinated pep, wise-cracking, occasional vacant dumb blond looks and straight ingénue roles rarely a step above melodrama. It was only mid-marriage to second husband Ronald Reagan in 1945, that Wyman was granted a loan-out to Paramount for Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend, causing people for the first time to sit up and sincerely take note, with good reason. When given something to sink her teeth into, Jane Wyman (as she was now billed), took the role and ran with it.

As was custom in the 40’s and 50’s film genre, Wyman settled neatly into her “type” of expertise: the sensitive, intelligent, dramatic leading lady of such films as MGM’s, The Yearling (1946), and her Oscar winning turn as a deaf-mute rape victim in Johnny Belinda (in 1948, coincidentally the same year of her divorce from Reagan.) Reaching into the early 50’s, Wyman’s work centered around romantic comedies and dramatic melodramas such as the weeper-favorite, Magnificent Obsession (1954), before launching her own anthology drama series on television as the film roles for the maturing actress began the ever threatening middle-age decline.

NBC’s Fireside Theatre sponsored by Proctor and Gamble was overhauled at the end of it’s rate-slipping 1954-55 season, and handed to Wyman to host, act in and produce through 1958 (also helping to launch the career of aspiring writer Aaron Spelling.)

Upon the cancellation of the Jane Wyman Theatre (as the NBC program was now titled), Wyman went on guest starring stints along several popular T.V. programs of the day, from time to time starring in made-for T.V. films as well.

By the early 80’s with her obvious media magnet touchstone in having once shared the surname “Reagan,” CBS clamored to capitalize on the name-game and snapped her up in newly launched Falcon’s Crest, casting Wyman as an against-type she-witch and wealthy matriarch, for which she won the 1984 Golden Globe Award and was reported the highest paid actress on the small screen.

Post Falcon Crest, Wyman withdrew from public view, devoting her time to friends, family and painting. She died Monday, September 10th at her home in Palm Springs. Ms. Wyman is survived by adopted son, Michael Reagan.

Visit www.tcm.com for a newly altered viewing schedule this Friday 9/14 in honor of one of the silver screen’s most gifted women in classic film.