Jane Wyman's parents were divorced when she was four years old. Her father died a few months later and her mother took her daughter to foster parents.

The actress began her career in 1930 under the name Jane Durrell as a singer at the radio. In 1936 she got her first roles in Hollywood. She turned to the Warner Brothers film company for the next few years a long series of B movies without leaving lasting impression with audiences or critics to. In 1941 she starred in the horror of the 2nd Company and went down in cinema history through the longest Leinwandkuss. The kiss lasted 3 minutes and 5 seconds.

Her breakthrough came in 1944 with the comedy The Doughgirls, who was exalted as a soldier, from the window of her hotel out shooting at pigeons. Director Billy Wilder liked her performance so much that he from her 1945 screen test for the film The Lost Weekend (The Lost Weekend) made at the end and gave her the female lead. A year later, she received her first Oscar nomination for The Yearling (The Yearling), in which they are directed by Clarence Brown, the wife of Gregory Peck in a drama about impoverished people (engl. white trash) in the swamps of Florida played. Her home studio finally gave her a good role as a deaf-mute rape victim in the drama Johnny Belinda (Johnny Belinda). Wyman went to prepare for the role so much that she ran around for days with wax in the ears, to develop an understanding of the character. For her performance, she received 1948 Oscar as best actress.

In the next few years, Wyman was next to Doris Day's biggest female star of the studio, which was reflected in the fact that studio boss Jack Warner of recent TopAttraktioner Bette Davis offered to the mother of Wyman in the film adaptation of the play The Glass Menagerie (The Glass Menagerie) to play. In the same year, 1950, she turned to the side of Marlene Dietrich and directed Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (Stage Fright). The film showed Wyman as a gray mouse next to the glamorous Dietrich, who played a stage star. Like Hitchcock reported that Wyman was not satisfied with their appearance and complained incessantly. Contrary to many rumors, the two divas got on well together, as Jane Wyman berichtetet later in an interview on the DVD-Veröfffentlichung. Although the film fell short of expectations in a Hitchcock movie, but was still well received and brought one of the Henrietta-Wyman Award, a copy of it in a Dior dress, contrary to the Dietrich nahm.Erst later, the qualities of the film have been recognized .

While the reviews were mixed for these two films rather, could the actress for the role of a self-sacrificing teacher in the melodrama The Blue Veil 1951 to win an Oscar nomination again. In the next few years, Wyman took her best roles in a tearful melodramas, including two films directed by Douglas Sirk: The miraculous powers (Magnificent Obsession) and what the sky permits (All That Heaven Allows). Especially Magnificent Obsession, for which she won her last Oscar nomination was financially so successful that the actress was elected in 1954, the ten bankable stars. Occasionally she was seen in comedies, so in her two films with Bing Crosby: Wedding Parade (Here Comes the Groom) and Just For You. They still turned the romantic comedy, I want you to love me (Lucy Gallant), which they presented as a successful fashion designer and lover of Charlton Heston, passed, and with the sentimental history of Miracle in the Rain in 1956 in a semi-retired.

In subsequent years, Wyman turning occasionally movies, usually as something more mature lady of society. It was 1960 and 1961 will see in the two Walt Disney productions all love Pollyanna (Pollyanna) and champagne in Paris (Bon Voyage!) To. She has also worked extensively on television and had with Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theater (1955-1958) its own successful series, which her two Emmy nominations earned.

Wyman a second career peaked in the 1980s as the scheming matriarch "Angela Channing in the successful series Falcon Crest, thanks to which it became the highest paid TV actress of the decade. Her severe diabetes forced Wyman then from 1990 to widespread withdrawal from show business. On the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she was honored with one star in the categories of film and television.

On 29 June 1937 Wyman married in New Orleans, Myron Martin Futterman (1900-1965), a manufacturer of children's clothing, the marriage was on 1 November 1938 is already divorced.

Also in 1938 she met during the filming of the movie Brother Common Council her future husband Ronald Reagan, whom she married 1940th Both were the darlings of the tabloid media and have visited most of Hedda Hopper almost a week to report about the marital happiness. They had two daughters: Maureen Reagan (1941-2001) and on 26 June 1947-born daughter, Christine, who lived only one day. Son Michael Reagan was adopted by the two. In 1948, the marriage was dissolved.

1952 Wyman married bandleader Frederick M. Karger (1916-1979) in Santa Barbara, the couple divorced 1955th The two married in 1961 again, another divorce followed in March 1965.

Wyman was a good friend of Loretta Young, which was said to be instrumental in their conversion involved to Catholicism, and of Irene Dunne and Joan Crawford.

Jane Wyman died on the morning of the 10th September 2007 at the age of 90 years at her home in Palm Springs, one natural death.
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