Jane Wyman Dies

CNN Reports on Jane Wyman's Death.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Jane Wyman, an Academy Award winner for her performance as the deaf rape victim in "Johnny Belinda," star of the long-running TV series "Falcon Crest" and Ronald Reagan's first wife, died Monday morning at 93.

Jane Wyman won an Oscar for "Johnny Belinda" and appeared in the long-running TV show "Falcon Crest."

Wyman died at her Palm Springs home, said Richard Adney of Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Cathedral City. No other details were immediately available.

Wyman's film career spanned from the 1930s, including "Gold Diggers of 1937," to 1969's "How to Commit Marriage," co-starring Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason. From 1981 to 1990 she played Angela Channing, a Napa Valley winery owner who maintained her power with a steely will on CBS' "Falcon Crest."

Read More about Jane Wyman here.

Wyman starred int he classic film The Lost Weekend about a writer who drinks away a weekend because of writer's block. According to Wikipedia, the novel featured an accusation about a gay affair with the writer's friend as the reason for the man's drinking binge:

The Lost Weekend is an Academy Award-winning 1945 motion picture directed by Billy Wilder for Paramount Pictures, starring Ray Milland, Jane Wyman and Phillip Terry. The film was based on a novel of the same title by Charles R. Jackson about a writer who drinks heavily out of frustration over the accusation that he had an affair with one of his buddies while in college. The reference to the gay affair is removed in the film, and the main character's descent into an alcoholic binge is blamed on writer's block.

Also from Wikipedia: Although the movie adaptation hews closely to the novel, the novel differed in one crucial respect: Birnam is described in the novel as being tormented by a homosexual incident in college. That is omitted from the film.

Wyman won an Academy Award for her role as a deaf rape victim in the film Johnny Belinda. According to Wikipedia's page on the movie : The story is based on a real life incident that happened near Harris's summer residence in Fortune Bridge, Bay Fortune, Prince Edward Island. The title character is based on the real life of Lydia Dingwell (1852-1931), of Dingwells Mills, Prince Edward Island.

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