Roald Reagan was married two times throughout his life, with the actor and politician's first
wife having been a fellow Hollywood star by the name of Jane Wyman. Despite the fact
that the two were married for nearly the entire 1940s, their relationship was fairly tumultuous
and left both of the celebrity figures in dire straits. Despite her burdensome separation from
the future politician, Jane Wyman went 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 Reagan and Jane Wyman were married for a decade before the
prior figure went on to become president of the United States much later on. However,
fewer people know the lurid tale of how the two came into their decidedly problematic
union, and even fewer know the truth about their tumultuous relationship during it. 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.
Even though Jane Wyman was several years Ronald Reagan's junior upon their meeting, she had a good
deal more experience than the future politician when it came to love. Jane was already towards
the end of her second marriage when she first came into contact with Ronald, and that marriage was
soon going to end in an unceremonious divorce. Ronald and Jane's meeting occurred as a result
of the two being cast 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 was instantly won over by 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 successfully courted the future politician, but Roald found
himself feeling a bit cautious when Jane began suggesting that the two get married.
It seems that things were all moving a bit too fast for Ronald Reagan, but this was
a setback that Jane didn’t have time to deal with. Seeing that Ronald wasn’t warming up to
her suggestions of marriage, Jane decided to take matters into her own hands with a suicide plot.
When Jane Wyman realized that Ronald Reagan was hesitant to enter into marriage with
her after rushing into their relationship, she threatened to kill herself. This was a threat
that it didn’t take long for Jane to make good on. When Ronald didn’t immediately bow to her threat,
Jane swallowed a bottle of pills and left a note for the actor 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 into Jane’s marriage demands.
As a result of Jane Wyman's manipulative suicide plot, she finally got her 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 of the marriage. Despite Jane’s extreme passion for her beau prior
to tying the knot, it didn’t take long for her to become bored with Ronald after their union was
made official. Much of Jane’s dissatisfaction with the marriage came from the fact that a majority of
Ronald’s energy went to his work as the president of the Screen Actors Guild. Professional jealousy
also got in the way of Ronald and Jane’s relationship, as Ronald became jealous of
his wife when she won an Academy Award for her performance 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 ended up having three kids over the course of their nearly decade-long marriage,
though one of those children tragically died 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 son Michael a few years later, in 1945.
Just as it had been Jane Wyman that initiated her and Ronald Reagan’s marriage, it was Jane Wyman
who initiated 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
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Besides professional jealousy and the fact that they didn’t spend much time together,
there were numerous other factors that led to the 1949 divorce of Hollywood stars Ronald Reagan and
Jane Wyman. For one thing, Jane apparently couldn’t stand how much Ronald talked! Even
according to Ronald’s closest friends, the future politician had a penchant for never shutting up,
with him constantly sharing his immense wealth of knowledge with anyone who was 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 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 out 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, subscribe, and hit the notification bell if
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