A Mystery About The First Marriage

PATIO RESTAURANT OF BEL-AIR HOTEL, LOS ANGELES–DAY.

EM:(recounting biographical gossip)… so when Clare found out about Harry and Jeanne, she threatened suicide and–

FFL: (interrupting, her eyes hard as the V&B) That’s just what Jane did to Ronnie.

EM: Excuse me?

FFL: Said she would kill herself if he didn’t marry her.

EM: (reaching furtively for his notebook) You’ve got to be kidding. (She stares at him) No, you’re not.

FFL: Ronnie, of course, didn’t… uh… want to marry, he was too… much too young, he was, uh, just playing around. So she sent him a suicide note and swallowed a whole, uh, lot of pills, and got herself taken to the hospital.

EM: Good God.

FFL: As soon as he got the note, he rushed… rushed down there, while they were, uh, pumping her out, and said, “Of course I’ll marry you!” You know how soft… softhearted he is.

EM: Good God.

FFL: (bitterly) She knew which of his buttons to press.

Second wives are, of course, notorious prosecution witnesses. When I told Mrs. Reagan’s story to Joy Hodges [Reagan’s singer friend from Des Moines days] she refused to believe it. “Dutch was so crazy about her, and Janey about him.” But I thought of the “nervous breakdown” story in Variety, after Dutch’s arrival at Warner Bros., and the abrupt split with Mr. Futterman, and the large cruel hands, and investigated Jane’s studio work records. Sure enough, a memo dated Oct. 4, 1939, had Wyman hospitalized with a sudden “stomach disorder.” I spoke to some more people. The Hollywood oral historian Douglas Bell said he had heard Jane tried to kill herself over Reagan, but knew no details; Owen Crump was evasive; and Eddie Albert growled, “I think I’d better not get into that.” Finally, I turned to [MGM story editor] Sam Marx, the ultimate authority on pre-war Hollywood.

At 84, he was at work on a book about the Paul Bern/Jean Harlow murder case, and had useful contacts in the Los Angeles Police Department. He made a few calls on my behalf, without result. “There are no records of a medical emergency involving Jane Wyman at the time you say,” he told me. “I’d be surprised if there were.”

“Well,” I said, “she was taken violently ill just as she and Ronnie began to shoot ‘Brother Rat and a Baby.’ And they did get engaged in the hospital.”

“Hollywood Receiving Hospital?”

“The file doesn’t say. Why?”

“There was a young doctor there, known as ‘stomach pumper to the stars’.”

“Why would you be surprised if there were a police report?”

“Because as I know from the Bern-Harlow case, studios were very good at keeping that sort of thing secret. Warners would have had several cops on the take, ready to go in and erase records. Then again, Nancy might be lying.”

“When she reacts as quickly as that?”

Marx fell into a close-lidded rumination. “Well, all I can say is, Ronnie got lucky. Janey was a nice young lady.”