The Versailles menagerie during the reign of Louis XIV.

A menagerie is a form of keeping common and exotic animals in captivity that preceded the modern zoological garden. The term was first used in seventeenth century France in reference to the management of household or domestic stock. Later, it came to be used primarily in reference to aristocratic or royal animal collections. The French-language "Methodical Encyclopaedia" of 1782 defines a menagerie as an "establishment of luxury and curiosity." Later on, the term referred also to travelling animal collections that exhibited wild animals at fairs across Europe and the Americas.

Aristocratic menageries[link]

The Tower of London housed England's royal menagerie for several centuries (Picture from the 15th century, British Library).

A menagerie was mostly connected with an aristocratic or royal court and it was thus situated within a garden or park of a palace. The aristocratic menageries have to be distinguished from the later zoological gardens since they were founded and owned by aristocrats whose intentions were not primarily of scientific and educational interest. These aristocrats wanted to illustrate their power and wealth, because exotic animals, alive and active, were less common, more difficult to acquire, and more expensive to maintain.

Medieval period and Renaissance[link]

Already within the Middle Ages, several sovereigns across Europe maintained menageries at their royal courts.

An early example is that of the Emperor Charlemagne in the 8th century. His three menageries, at Aachen, Nijmegen and Ingelheim, located in present-day Netherlands and Germany, housed elephants (the first seen in Europe since the Roman Empire), monkeys, lions, bears, camels, falcons, and many exotic birds. Charlemagne received exotic animals for his collection as gifts from important rulers of Africa and Asia.^[1] In 797, the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas. The pachyderm arrived on July 1, 802 to the Emperor's residence in Aachen. He died in June 810.^[2]

Even William the Conqueror had a small royal menagerie. At his manor, Woodstock, he began a collection of exotic animals. About 1100 his son, Henry I, enclosed Woodstock and enlarged the collection. At the beginning of the 12th century, Henry I of England is known to have kept a collection of animals at his palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, reportedly including lions, leopards, lynxes, camels, owls and a porcupine.^[3]
The most prominent animal collection in medieval England was the Tower Menagerie in London that began as early as 1204. It was established by King John, who reigned in England from 1199–1216, and is known to have held lions and bears.^[4] Henry III received a wedding gift in 1235 of three leopards from Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. The most spectacular arrivals in the early years were a white bear and an elephant, gifts from the kings of Norway and France in 1251 and in 1254 respectively. In 1264, the animals were moved to the Bulwark, which was renamed the Lion Tower, near the main western entrance of the Tower.^[3] This building was constituted by rows of cages with arched entrances, enclosed behind grilles. They were set in two storeys, and it appears that the animals used the upper cages during the day and were moved to the lower storey at night.^[5] It was opened to the public during the reign of Elizabeth I in the 16th century. During the 18th century, the price of admission was three half-pence or the supply of a cat or dog for feeding to the lions.^[3] Animals listed here at the end of the 18th century include lions, tigers, hyaenas and bears. Most of the animals were transferred in 1831 to the newly-opened London Zoo at Regent's Park.^[5] London Zoo did not receive all the animals but rather shared them with Dublin Zoo.^[6] The Tower Menagerie was finally closed in 1835, on the orders of the Duke of Wellington.^[4] In effect, the Tower Menagerie in London was the royal menagerie of England for six centuries.

In the first half of the thirteenth century, Emperor Frederick II had three permanent menageries in Italy, at Melfi in Basilicata, at Lucera in Apulia and at Palermo in Sicily.^[7] In 1235, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II established at his court in southern Italy the "first great menagerie" in western Europe. An elephant, a white bear, a giraffe, a leopard, hyenas, lions, cheetahs, camels and monkeys were all exhibited; but the emperor was particularly interested in birds, and studied them sufficiently to write a number of authoritative books on them.^[8]

By the end of the fifteenth century, during the Renaissance period, the Italian aristocracy, wealthy patricians and clergymen, what eventually began to collect exotic animals at their residences on the outskirts of the cities. The role played by animals within the gardens of Italian villas expanded at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, for which a remarkable sign was the Villa Borghese built 1608-1628 at Rome.^[9]

Versailles and its legacy[link]

The Pavilion constructed by Jean-Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey in 1759 at the Habsburg menagerie, the contemporary Tiergarten Schönbrunn.

During the seventeenth century, exotic birds and small animals provided diverting ornaments for the court of France; lions and other large animals were kept primarily to be brought out for staged fight. The collecting grew and attained more permanent lodgings in the 1660s, when Louis XIV constructed two new menageries: one at Vincennes, next to a palace on the eastern edge of Paris, and a more elaborate one, which became a model for menageries throughout Europe, at Versailles, the site of a royal hunting lodge two hours (by carriage) west of Paris.^[10]
Around 1661, he had a menagerie of "ferocious" beasts built at Vincennes for the organization of fights. Surrounding a rectangular courtyard, a two-storey building with balconies allowed spectators to view the scene. The animals were housed on the ground floor in cells bordering the courtyard, with small yards on the outside where they could take a bit of exercise.^[11] At Vincennes, lions, tigers, and leopards were kept in cages around an amphitheater where the king could entertain courtiers and visiting dignitaries with bloody battles. In 1682, for instance, the ambassador of Persia enjoyed the spectacle of a fight to the death between a royal tiger and an elephant.^[10]
When the palace of Versailles was built, Louis XIV of France also erected a menagerie within the palace’s park.^[12] The menagerie at Versailles was to be something very different from the one at Vincennes.^[10] Most of it was constructed in 1664 when the first animals were introduced, although the interior fittings were not finished until 1668-70. Situated in the south-west of the park, it was Louis XIV’s first major project at Versailles and one of several pleasure houses that were gradually assembled around the palace.^[12] It represented the first menagerie according to Baroque style. The prominent feature of Baroque menageries was the circular layout, in the middle of which stood a beautiful pavilion. Around this pavilion was a walking path and outside this path were the enclosures and cages. Each enclosure had a house or stable at the far end for the animals and was bounded on three sides with walls. There were bars only in the direction of the pavilion.^[13]
Animal fights were halted at Vincennes around 1700, the site fell into disuse, and the animals were installed at Versailles with the others.^[11] At about this time, the lions, leopards, and tigers from the menagerie at Vincennes were transferred to Versailles, where they were housed in newly built enclosures fronted with irons bars.^[10]

This particular enterprise marked a decisive step in the creation of menageries of curiosities and was imitated to some extent throughout Europe after the late seventeenth century. Monarchs, princes and important lords built them in France (Chantilly from 1663), England (Kew, Osterley), the United Provinces (Het Loo from 1748), Portugal (Belém in 1726, Quelez around 1780), Spain (Madrid in 1774) and Austria (Belvedere in 1716, Schönbrunn in 1752) as well in the Germanic lands following the ravages of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and the ensuing reconstruction. Frederick William, Elector of Prussia, equipped Potsdam with a menagerie around 1680. The Palatine Elector, the Prince Regent of Westphalia and many others followed suit.^[11]

This design was adopted particularly by the Habsburg monarchy in Austria. In 1752 Francis I erected his famous Baroque menagerie in the park of Schönbrunn Palace near Vienna. Being at first a courtly menagerie with private character it was opened to the general public in 1779. Initially, it was only open for "respectably dressed persons".

Another aristocratic menagerie was founded in 1774 by Charles III of Spain on grounds which were part of the gardens of the Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid. During two centuries, it was a predecessor institution of the modern facilities of the Madrid Zoo Aquarium, moved in 1972 to the Casa de Campo.^[14]

In the nineteenth century the aristocratic menageries were displaced by the modern zoological gardens with their scientific and educational approach. Today, the only remaining menagerie is that of Tiergarten Schönbrunn, but in the twentieth century the Tiergarten ("animal garden"), known officially by the French loan-word Menagerie until 1924, evolved into a modern zoological garden with a scientific, educational and conservationist orientation. Due to its local continuity, the Vienna Zoo, the former menagerie established in the medieval through baroque tradition of private wild-animal collections of princes and kings, is often seen as the oldest remaining zoo in the world. Although many of the old Baroque enclosures have been changed, one can still obtain a good impression of the symmetrical ensemble of the formerly imperial menagerie.

Travelling menageries[link]

In England travelling menageries had first appeared at the turn of the eighteenth century. In contrast to the aristocratic menageries, these travelling animal collections were run by showmen who met the craving for sensation of the ordinary population. These animal shows ranged in size but the largest was George Wombwell's. The earliest record of a fatality at one such travelling menagerie was the death of Hannah Twynnoy in 1703 who was killed by a tiger in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. Also in North America travelling menageries became ever more popular during that time.

The first exotic animal known to have been exhibited in America was a lion, in Boston in 1716, followed five years later in the same city by a camel.^[15] A sailor arrived in Philadelphia in August 1727 with another lion, which he exhibited in the city and surrounding towns for eight years.^[16] The first elephant was imported from India to America by a ship’s captain, Jacob Crowninshield, in 1796. It was first displayed in New York City and travelled extensively up and down the East Coast.^[15] In 1834 James and William Howes’ New York Menagerie toured New England with an elephant, a rhinoceros, a camel, zebra, gnu, two tigers, a polar bear, and several parrots and monkeys.^[17]

America’s touring menageries slowed to a crawl under the weight of the depression of the 1840s and then to a halt with the outbreak of the Civil War. Only one travelling menagerie of any size existed after the war: The Van Amburgh menagerie travelled the United States for nearly forty years. Unlike their European counterparts, America’s menageries and circuses had combined as single travelling shows, with one ticket to see both. This increased the size and the diversity of their collections. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus advertised their shows as the “World’s Greatest Menagerie”.^[16]

Uses in media[link]

Music[link]

A song entitled "Vanamburgh's Menagerie" was composed by Dr. W.J. Wetmore in 1865. The song consisted of five verses, each followed by the chorus.

Television[link]

In the television show Fringe, the character Walter Bishop (portrayed by John Noble) sings a partial verse from "Vanamburgh's Menagerie," though the lyrics have been slightly altered from those of the original, perhaps due to modernization or the character's faulty memory. The verse he sings is:

"Vanamburgh is the man/Who goes to all the shows/He steps into the lion's cage/And tells them all he knows./He puts his head in the lion's mouth--" (he is then cut off)

He sings an additional verse not present in the original song, perhaps one of his own creation:

"The hyena in the next cage/Most terrible to relate/Got awfully hungry the other night/And ate up his female mate./A most ferocious beast/Don't go near him little boys/For when he's mad he swings his tail/And makes an awful noise."

Theatre[link]

A play, by Tennessee Williams, was written entitled The Glass Menagerie.

In Alban Berg's opera "Lulu" a circus director introduces the opera's characters and in special the main character as animals in a menagerie.

The historic Tower of London menagerie is described in some detail by Julia Stuart in her 2010 novel, "The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise" -- which portrays the installation of a new menagerie on the Tower grounds.

See also[link]

• Anthrozoology

References[link]

• Hahn, Daniel (2003). The Tower Menagerie. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-2081-1. 
• Baratay, Eric; Hardouin-Fugier, Elisabeth (2002). Zoo: a History of the Zoological Gardens of the West. London: Reaktion. ISBN 1-86189-111-3. 

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Look up menagerie in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Vienna Zoo
• La Ménagerie de Versailles (French)

Caitlin Rose (born 23 June 1987) is a country singer from Nashville, Tennessee.^[1][2] She previously performed with indie band Save Macaulay.

Singer/songwriter Caitlin Rose performing on stage

Career[link]

Rose was previously the lead singer of Nashville indie band Save Macaulay,^[3] on local label Theory 8 until 2007.^[4] As a solo artist, she signed to BMI in 2008.^[5] The title track of her seven-track 2008 EP, Dead Flowers, is a cover of a Rolling Stones song.

Her first album, Own Side Now, was released by Names Records in August 2010.^[2] Her vocal performance and lyrics have led to comparisons to Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline,^[1] and Iris DeMent.^[6] Claire Suddath of Time magazine named Own Side Now one of the Top 10 Albums of 2011, ranking it at #7.^[7]

Discography[link]

• Dead Flowers; EP, 2008^[2]

1. Shotgun Wedding
2. Answer In One of These Bottles
3. Three Cigarettes In an Ashtray
4. Docket
5. Gorilla Man
6. Dead Flowers
7. T-shirt

• Own Side Now; album, 2010^[2]

1. Learning to Ride
2. Own Side
3. For the Rabbits
4. Shanghai Cigarettes
5. New York
6. Spare Me (Fetzer's Blues)
7. Things Change
8. That's Alright
9. Sinful Wishing Well
10. Coming Up

• Piledriver Waltz; 7", 2012 (covers of two Arctic Monkeys songs, limited edition vinyl release for Record Store Day 2012)

1. Piledriver Waltz
2. Love Is A Laserquest

Personal life[link]

Rose's mother is country songwriter Liz Rose,^[1] and her father Johnny B Rose works in sales and marketing in country music.^[2] She was born in Dallas, Texas, and her family moved to Nashville when she was seven. She attended community college in Nashville for a year before leaving to focus on music, initially punk rock.^[2] She is known for her cigarette smoking habit.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Caitlin Rose on Names Records

Zachary Quinto
Quinto at a Midtown Comics signing in 2011
Born	Zachary John Quinto (1977-06-02) June 2, 1977 (age 35) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2000–present
Website
http://www.zacharyquinto.com/

Zachary John Quinto (born June 2, 1977) is an American actor and producer. Quinto grew up in Pennsylvania and was active in high school musical theater. In the early 2000s, he guest starred in television series and appeared in a recurring role in the serial drama 24 from 2003 to 2004. In 2006, Quinto acted in the sitcom So NoTORIous and portrayed series antagonist Sylar in the science fiction drama Heroes from 2006 to 2010. He was cast as Spock of the Star Trek franchise and appeared in the 2009 reboot Star Trek. He will continue the role in the 2013 sequel. He also voiced the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) in the Star Trek Online MMORPG

Early life[link]

Quinto, who is of half-Italian and half-Irish descent,^[1] was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in Green Tree, Pennsylvania, with his mother Margo and his brother Joe.^[2] His father, John, who was a barber, died of cancer when Quinto was 7 years old.^[3] He graduated from Central Catholic High School in 1995, where he participated in their musicals and won the Gene Kelly Award for Best Supporting Actor, and then attended Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama, from which he graduated in 1999.^[4][5]

Career[link]

Quinto first appeared on television in the short-lived television series The Others, and appeared as a guest star on shows including CSI, Touched by an Angel, Charmed, Six Feet Under, Lizzie McGuire, and L.A. Dragnet. In 2003, he landed a recurring role as computer expert Adam Kaufman on the Fox series 24; Quinto appeared in 23 episodes of the third season.

Quinto at the premiere party of Heroes' third season in 2008

In 2006, Quinto played the role of Sasan, the haughty, gay Iranian-American best friend of Tori Spelling on her VH1 series So NoTORIous. Later that year, he joined the cast of Tim Kring's Heroes as Gabriel Gray, better known as the serial killer Sylar.^[6] He worked on the series until its cancellation in 2010 after four seasons.

His casting as a young Spock in the J. J. Abrams-directed reboot of the Star Trek film franchise was officially announced at the 2007 Comic-Con.^[7][8][9] Speaking alongside Leonard Nimoy at a press conference to promote the new Star Trek film, Quinto revealed that Nimoy had been given casting approval over who would play the role of the young Spock. "For me Leonard's involvement was only liberating, frankly,"^[10] says Quinto. "I knew that he had approval over the actor that would play young Spock, so when I got the role I knew from the beginning it was with his blessing."

In a September 2008 interview, Abrams said of Quinto's performance as Spock: "Zachary brought a gravity and an incredible sense of humor, which is a wonderful combination because Spock's character is deceivingly complicated. The revelation for me watching the movie, when I finally got to watch the whole thing after working on sequences, was that he is extraordinary. He was doing things I didn't even realize while we were shooting – these amazing things to track his story."^[11]

Following Star Trek, he appeared in the comedy short Boutonniere (2009). It "...was a movie written and directed by my former landlady and friend [actress Coley Sohn]. She called up and said, 'Would you do me a favor and be in my short film?'"^[12]

Quinto at the premiere of Love the Beast in 2009

Quinto has joined with Corey Moosa and Neal Dodson to form Before the Door Pictures.^[13] The company is working on projects in film, television, new media, and the graphic novel arena. It announced a three-book publishing deal with comic book publisher Archaia at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con. The first project from the partnership is expected to be a 100-page graphic novel called Mr. Murder is Dead, created by writer Victor Quinaz. It will be followed by the comic book series LUCID: A Matthew Dee Adventure written by writer/actor Michael McMillian.^[14]

Quinto's theatre experience includes roles in a variety of productions, including Much Ado About Nothing at the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival and Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow at the Old Globe Theatre. Baseline Studio Systems announced in January 2010 that Steven Spielberg may direct a biopic about George Gershwin, which is scheduled for release in 2012, with Quinto confirmed for the lead role.^[15][16] From October, 2010 to February 2011, Quinto played the lead role of Louis Ironson in an Off-Broadway revival of Tony Kushner's Angels in America at the Signature Theatre, New York City.^[17][18] For this role, Quinto received the Theatreworld Outstanding Debut Performance award.^[19] He has modeled for magazines including GQ and August.^[20][21]

In 2010, Quinto's company Before the Door Pictures produced Margin Call, an independent film about the financial crisis. Quinto played the role of Peter Sullivan in the film, in a cast that included Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci and Demi Moore. Margin Call premiered in January 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival.^[22] In October 2011, Quinto began his recurring role on the FX series, American Horror Story, as Chad, former owner of the house. Quinto will return for the second season in a lead role.^[23]

Personal life[link]

Quinto publicly came out as gay in October 2011.^[24] He explained that, after the suicide of gay teenager Jamey Rodemeyer, he realized "that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it, is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality."^[25] Prior to his coming out, Quinto had long been an active supporter of gay rights and organizations like the Trevor Project.^[26] In 2009, he appeared in the one-night production Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays, a benefit stage reading in response to the passing of Proposition 8,^[27] as well as in the play The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard.^[28] In 2010, Quinto contributed a video to the It Gets Better Project, an Internet-based campaign that aims to prevent suicide among LGBT youth.^[25]

Film and television[link]

Quinto at the 84th Academy Awards, Red Carpet 2012

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zachary Quinto

• Official website
• Zachary Quinto at the Internet Movie Database
• Zachary Quinto at AllRovi
• Zachary Quinto at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

Jane Wyman, born Sarah Jane Mayfield, (January 5, 1917 - September 10, 2007)^[1][2] was an American singer, dancer, and character actress of film and television. She began her film career in the 1930s, and was a prolific performer for two decades. She received an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Johnny Belinda (1948), and later achieved success during the 1980s for her leading role in the television series Falcon Crest.

Wyman was the first wife of Ronald Reagan. They married in 1940 and divorced in 1949, before Reagan ran for public office.

Early life[link]

Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield in St. Joseph, Missouri. Although her birthdate has been widely reported for many years as January 4, 1914, research by biographers and genealogists indicates that she was born on January 5, 1917.^[3][4][5] The most likely reason for the 1914 date is that she added to her age when beginning her career as a minor, so that she could work.^[6] After Wyman's death, a release posted on her official website confirmed these details.^[1]

Her parents were Manning Jefferies Mayfield (1895–1922), a meal-company laborer, and (Gladys) Hope Christian (1895–1960), a doctor's stenographer and office assistant. In October 1921, her mother filed for divorce, and her father died unexpectedly the following year at age 27. After her father's death, her mother moved to Cleveland, Ohio, leaving her to be reared by foster parents, Emma (1866–1951)^[7] and Richard D. Fulks (1862–1928), the chief of detectives in Saint Joseph.^[8] She took their surname unofficially, including in her school records and, apparently, her first marriage certificate.

Her unsettled family life resulted in few pleasurable memories. Wyman later said, "I was raised with such strict discipline that it was years before I could reason myself out of the bitterness I brought from my childhood.^[9]

In 1928, around age 11, she moved to southern California with her foster mother, but it is not known for certain if she attempted a career in motion pictures at this time, or if the relocation was due to the fact that some of Fulks' children also lived in the area. In 1930, the two moved back to Missouri, where Sarah Jane attended Lafayette High School in Saint Joseph. That same year she began a radio singing career, calling herself "Jane Durrell" and adding years to her birthdate to work legally since she would have been under age.

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Jane Wyman on the beach, 1935, at age 18

Jane Wyman in 1953.

After Jane dropped out of Lafayette in 1932, at age 15, she returned to Hollywood, taking on odd jobs as a manicurist and a switchboard operator, before obtaining small parts in films The Kid from Spain (as a "Goldwyn Girl") (1932), My Man Godfrey (1936) and Cain and Mabel (1936). After changing her surname from Durrell to Wyman, she began her career as a contract player with Warner Bros. in 1936 at age 19. Her big break came the following year, when she received her first starring role in Public Wedding.

Recognition and acclaim[link]

Wyman in her Academy Award-winning role in Johnny Belinda (1948)

In 1939, Wyman was cast in another starring role, in Torchy Plays With Dynamite. In 1941, she appeared in You're in the Army Now, in which she and Regis Toomey had the longest screen kiss in cinema history: 3 minutes and 5 seconds,^[10] until Elena Undone beat it by eighteen seconds in 2010.^[11]

Wyman finally gained critical notice in the film noir The Lost Weekend (1945). She was nominated for the 1946 Academy Award for Best Actress for The Yearling (1946), and won two years later for her role as a deaf-mute rape victim in Johnny Belinda (1948). She was the first person in the sound era to win an acting Oscar without speaking a line of dialogue. In an amusing acceptance speech, perhaps poking fun at some of her long-winded counterparts, Wyman took her statue and said only, "I accept this, very gratefully, for keeping my mouth shut once. I think I'll do it again."^[12]

The Oscar win gave her the ability to choose higher profile roles, although she still showed a liking for musical comedy. She worked with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock on Stage Fright (1950), Frank Capra on Here Comes the Groom (1951) and Michael Curtiz on The Story of Will Rogers (1952). She starred in The Glass Menagerie (1950), Just for You (1952), Let's Do It Again (1953), The Blue Veil (1951) (another Oscar nomination), the remake of Edna Ferber's So Big (1953), Magnificent Obsession (1954) (Oscar nomination), Lucy Gallant (1955), All That Heaven Allows (1955), and Miracle in the Rain (1956).

She replaced the ailing Gene Tierney in Holiday for Lovers (1959), and next appeared in Pollyanna (1960), Bon Voyage! (1962), and her final big screen movie, How to Commit Marriage (1969). Wyman was also a well-regarded character actress.

Television[link]

Her first guest-starring television role was on a 1955 episode of General Electric Theater. This appearance led to roles on Summer Playhouse, Lux Playhouse, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Checkmate, The Investigators, and Wagon Train. She guest starred in 1959 on The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford on NBC. She was hostess of The Bell Telephone Hour and Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre. She had telling roles in both The Sixth Sense and Insight, among other programs.

Wyman hosted an anthology television series, Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theater, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1957. During her tenure as host, however, ratings steadily declined, and the show ended after three seasons.

She was later cast in two unsold pilots during the 1960s and 1970s. After those pilots were not picked up, Wyman went into semi-retirement and remained there for most of the 1970s, though she made guest appearances on series such as Charlie's Angels and The Love Boat.

[edit] Falcon Crest

In the spring of 1981, Wyman's career enjoyed a resurgence when she was cast as the scheming Californian vintner and matriarch Angela Channing in The Vintage Years, which was retooled as the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest. The series, which ran from December 1981 to May 1990, was created by Earl Hamner, who had created The Waltons a decade earlier. Also starring on the show was an already established character actress, Susan Sullivan, as Angela's niece-in-law, Maggie Gioberti, and the relatively unknown actor Lorenzo Lamas as Angela's irresponsible grandson, Lance Cumson. The on- and off-screen chemistry between Wyman and Lamas helped fuel the series' success. In its first season, Falcon Crest was a ratings hit, behind other 1980s prime-time soap operas, such as Dallas and Knots Landing, but initially ahead of rival soap Dynasty. Cesar Romero appeared from 1985 to 1987 on Falcon Crest as the romantic interest of Angela Channing.

For her role as Angela Channing, Wyman was nominated for a Soap Opera Digest Award five times (for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role and for Outstanding Villainess: Prime Time Serial), and was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1983 and 1984. Her 1984 Golden Globe nomination resulted in a win for Wyman, who took home the award for Best Performance By an Actress in a TV Series. Later in the show's run, Wyman suffered several health problems. In 1986, she had abdominal surgery which caused her to miss two episodes (her character simply "disappeared" under mysterious circumstances). In 1988, she missed another episode due to ill-health and was told by her doctors to avoid work. However, she wanted to continue working and she completed the rest of the 1988-1989 season while her health was still deteriorating. Months later in 1989, Wyman collapsed on the set and was hospitalized due to problems with diabetes and a liver ailment. Her doctors told her that she should end her acting career. Wyman was absent for most of the ninth and final season of Falcon Crest in 1989-1990 (her character was written out of the series by being comatose in a hospital bed following an attempted murder). Going against her doctor's advice, she returned for the final three episodes in 1990, even writing a soliloquy for the series finale. Wyman ultimately appeared in almost every episode up until the beginning of the ninth and final season, for a total of 208 of the show's 227 episodes.^{[citation needed]}

After Falcon Crest, Wyman only acted once more, playing Jane Seymour's screen mother in a 1993 episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.^[13] Following this, she retired from acting permanently. Wyman had starred in 83 movies, two successful TV series, and was nominated for an Academy Award four times, winning once.

Personal life[link]

Marriages[link]

Ernest Eugene Wyman[link]

It has been rumored that on April 8, 1933, Wyman married Ernest Eugene Wyman (or Weymann) (1906–1970),^[14] a salesman; the marriage was mentioned in Dutch, the authorized biography of Ronald Reagan by Edmund Morris, who says that the marriage certificate is on file with the State of California, with the bride giving her name as Jane Fulks, daughter of Richard D. and Emma Reise Fulks. Morris also says that Reagan hinted at Wyman's first marriage when he told him in 1989, "What you have to look at [is] that there were a few husbands before me."^[15] American genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner suggests that Jane Wyman adopted her professional surname from her German-born foster mother, Emma (Reise) Fulks, who he says was previously married to Dr. M. F. Weyman, a St. Louis, Missouri ophthalmologist^[16] by whom she had several children who lived with Jane Wyman in her youth.

Myron Martin Futterman[link]

Wyman married Myron Martin Futterman (1900–1965), a dress manufacturer, in New Orleans on June 29, 1937. Because Wyman desired children and Futterman did not, they separated after three months of marriage.^[17] They divorced on December 5, 1938.^[18]

Ronald Reagan[link]

In 1938, Wyman co-starred with Ronald Reagan in Brother Rat (1938), and its sequel Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). They were engaged at the Chicago Theatre,^[19] and married on January 26, 1940, at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Glendale, California.^[20] She and Reagan had three children; Maureen Elizabeth Reagan (1941–2001), their adopted son Michael Edward Reagan (born March 18, 1945), and Christine Reagan (born prematurely on June 26, 1947 and died the next day).^[21] This event soured their marriage irreparably. Wyman stated that their break up was due to a difference in politics.^[22] She filed for divorce in 1948; the divorce was finalized in 1949. Since Ronald Reagan is the only U.S. president to have been divorced, Wyman was the only ex-wife of an American President.

Though she remained silent during Reagan's political career, she told a newspaper interviewer in 1968 that this was not because she was:

A few days after Reagan died on June 5, 2004, Wyman broke her silence:

Fred Karger[link]

Following her divorce from Reagan, Wyman married Hollywood music director and composer Frederick M. Karger (1916–1979) on November 1, 1952, at El Montecito Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara. They separated on November 7, 1954 and were granted an interlocutory divorce decree on December 7, 1954; the divorce was finalized on December 30, 1955. They remarried on March 11, 1961, and Karger divorced her again on March 9, 1965. According to The New York Times report of the divorce, the bandleader charged that the actress "had walked out on him."^[24] Wyman had a stepdaughter, Terrence (Karger) Melton, by Karger's first marriage to Patti Sacks, an actress.^[25]

Wyman, who had converted to Catholicism in 1953, never remarried.^[26]

Later life[link]

After Falcon Crest ended, Wyman made a guest appearance on the CBS series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and then completely retired from acting, spending her retirement painting and entertaining friends. A recluse, Wyman made only a few public appearances in her last years in part due to suffering from diabetes and arthritis, although she did attend her daughter Maureen's funeral in 2001 after the latter's death from cancer (Ronald Reagan was unable to attend due to his Alzheimer's Disease), as well as the funeral of her friend Loretta Young. She broke her silence about her ex-husband upon his death in 2004, attending his funeral and issuing an official statement that read "America has lost a great president and a great, kind, and gentle man."^[13]

After retiring, Wyman bought a house in Rancho Mirage, California. It was reported that she moved to a retirement community in Palm Springs in April 2003, but after her death, it was confirmed that she did in fact die in her home on the grounds of the Rancho Mirage Country Club.

Death[link]

Jane Wyman died at the age of 90^[1] at her Rancho Mirage home on Monday, September 10, 2007.^[27] Wyman's son, Michael Reagan, released a statement saying:

It was reported that Wyman died in her sleep of natural causes. A member of the Dominican Order (as a lay tertiary) of the Catholic Church, she was buried in a nun's habit.^[29] She was interred at Forest Lawn Mortuary and Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.^[1]

Filmography[link]