Alex Carson
Roald Reagan marries two times, with the actor and politician’s first wife on Hollywood star, Jane Wyman. The two marry for the entire 1940s, their relationship is fairly tumultuous and leaves the celebrity figures in dire straits. Despite her burdensome separation, Jane goes on to lead a rewarding life into her twilight years. Donating much of her time and energy to charitable causes before her death at the age of 90. Join Facts Verse as we take a look inside Jane Wyman’s tragic split from Ronald Reagan.
Everyone knows that Ronald and Jane Wyman marry for a decade. Then they figure goes to become president of the United States much later on. However, fewer people know of how they decide problematic union, and even fewer know the truth about their relationship. The two met in 1938 when Ronald Reagan was 27 years old and Jane Wyman was 21. Both of them were working for Warner Bros. Pictures, and neither was anywhere near the star that they were eventually going to become.
Jane is several years Ronald Reagan’s junior upon their meeting. She is a good deal more experience than the future politician when it comes to love. Jane is already towards the end of her second marriage when she first comes into contact with Ronald. That marriage will end in an unceremonious divorce. Ronald and Jane’s meeting occur as a result of being together in the picture Brother Rat and a Baby. While Ronald certainly found himself fond of Jane, it was the latter who became the instigator of the relationship.
It seems that Jane wins over her male costar on the film Brother Rat and a Baby. Going so far as to refer to Ronald as the very personification of manhood. She courts the future politician, but Roald found himself feeling a bit cautious. It is when Jane starts suggesting that the two get married. It seems that they’re moving a bit too fast for Ronald Reagan. This is a setback that Jane didn’t have time to deal with. Seeing that Ronald isn’t happy with her suggestions, Jane decides to focus on her own hands with a suicide plot.
When Jane realizes that Ronald is hesitant to marry her after rushing into their relationship, she threatens to kill herself. This was a threat that it didn’t take long for Jane to make good on. When Ronald didn’t bow to her threat, Jane swallows a bottle of pills and leaves a note telling him goodbye. The actress was quickly taken to the hospital, but she refused to let Ronald into her room. Knowing what he had to do, Ronald gave in to Jane’s marriage demands.
As a result of Jane Wyman’s manipulative suicide plot, she finally got her to wish. Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman tied the knot in 1940 and remained married until 1949. Throughout the 1940s, Ronald and Jane had three children together. However, their relationship was never very healthy throughout the whole marriage. Jane’s extreme passion for her beau prior to tying the knot. It didn’t take long for her to become dull with Ronald after their union is official. As Jane’s dissatisfaction with the marriage comes from the fact that a majority of Ronald’s energy is for his work. It is as the president of the Screen Actors Guild. Professional jealousy gets in the way of Ronald and Jane’s relationship. Ronald becomes jealous of his wife when she wins an Academy Award in the 1948 film Johnny Belinda.
Although Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman’s marriage wasn’t perfect, the two still tried to make things work. They end up having three kids over their nearly decade-long marriage. One of those children dies during infancy after being born prematurely. This child was Christine, who was born and passed away in 1947. Besides Christine, Ronald and Jane also had two other children, with those being Maureen and Michael. Maureen was born in 1941, while the celebrity couple adopted their son Michael a few years later, in 1945.
Just as Jane initiates her and Ronald Reagan’s marriage, it is Jane Wyman who initiates the pair’s divorce. According to Jane, the actress was simply starved for attention. The couple would go on to divorce in 1949. If you’re enjoying this video so far, be sure to hit the like button to show your support! Also, subscribe to the channel if you’d like to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
Professional jealousy and the fact that they didn’t spend much time together. There are numerous other factors that lead to the 1949 divorce of Hollywood stars Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman. For one thing, Jane apparently couldn’t stand how much Ronald talked! According to Ronald’s closest friends, with a penchant for never shutting up. He constantly sharing his immense wealth of knowledge with anyone who is willing to listen. According to Jane, Ronald had verbal diarrhea that prevented him from keeping his mouth shut.
Following his divorce from Jane Wyman in 1949, Ronald Reagan went on to marry another actress only a few years later, in 1952. This time, the actress in question was a woman by the name of Nancy Davis, who would go on to become First Lady of the United States thanks to the union. Ronald and Nancy were a decidedly better fit for each other than Ronald and Jane were, and the two ended up staying married until Ronald’s death in 2004. However, that doesn’t mean that Ronald and Nancy’s marriage was perfect!
While starting a new family with Nancy, Ronald tried to maintain his relationship with Maureen and Michael, but the latter pair found themselves essentially pushed aside when Ronald and Nancy’s first child was born. This first child was Patti Reagan, who was born in 1952. Like Christine before her, Patti was born prematurely. Thankfully, Patti managed to survive, and is still alive to this day!
Patti was apparently a fairly difficult child, and Maureen and Michael grew to resent the young girl a great deal. However, the truth of the matter is that Ronald wasn’t spending much more time with Patti than he was with his two previous surviving children from his marriage to Jane. Instead, Ronald was continuing to spend most of his time focusing on his own personal endeavors, whether those were horseback riding or his eventual transition into the arena of politics.
By the time that Ronald Reagan became president of the United States in 1981, Patti Reagan was nearly in her 30s. At that point, Ronald didn’t have an especially positive relationship with any of his children. However, he still managed to convince them all to show up to the inauguration and pose for a picture with him just for show. Patti largely disagreed with her father’s politics to the point where she could hardly be around him, while Maureen and Michael were constantly fluctuating between desperation and anger as a result of a continued lack of attention from their father.
Ronald Reagan apparently didn’t have a very good relationship with his own parents. Ronald grew up poor, allegedly subsisting during his early years off of a strange gruel consisting of hamburger meat and oatmeal, which was all that his parents could afford to feed him. His father was an alcoholic, and Ronald recalled before his death a memory of finding his father passed out on the floor of the living room and having to drag him to bed by the sleeve of his shirt when he was far too young to be dealing with such things.
Before moving to Hollywood and marrying Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan was engaged to his high school sweetheart, who was a young woman by the name of Margaret Cleaver. Some have speculated that, while Ronald and Margaret were attending school together at Eureka College in Illinois, Margaret may have become pregnant with Ronald’s first child and covered the pregnancy up due to their respective families’ conservatism. Margaret went missing from the school for a semester. When those who would know why have been pressed for an answer, they have suggested that Margaret transferred over to the University of Illinois for a semester. However, there is no record of Margaret Cleaver ever having attended the University of Illinois.
Some suggest that Margaret dropped of school for a semester either to give birth to a child that she had conceived with high school sweetheart Ronald Reagan, or to have an abortion. If this is true, then it’s possible that Ronald Reagan had another child that no one knows about. Regardless of what happened between Ronald and Margaret during their college years, the two continued dating after the incident. Ronald and Margaret dated for a total of eight years before the latter decided that she didn’t want to continue the relationship after Ronald moved out to Hollywood.
Jane Wyman was born in 1917, and was orphaned at the age of 4. Her neighbors subsequently adopted her. Jane’s breakout Hollywood role came in 1945’s The Lost Weekend, and her last Hollywood role was in 1969’s How to Commit Marriage. Following her retirement from the entertainment industry, Jane invested the majority of her remaining time and energy in her faith, as well as charitable causes. The actress passed away in 2007, at the age of 90.
Even though Jane Wyman nearly killed herself to be with Ronald Reagan, she regrettably found herself bored with her new beau almost immediately after the wedding ceremony. Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Ronald Reagan’s first marriage came about as a result of a suicide attempt, and that many of his kids didn’t even want to show up to his presidential inauguration? As always, like this video to show your support, and subscribe and hit the notification bell if you’d like to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
