Jane Wyman attends a CBS party in Los Angeles in this Jan. 14, 1990, file photo. Wyman, an Academy Award winner for her performance as the deaf rape victim in Johnny

New York ? Jane Wyman, an Oscar-winning movie and TV actress best known for the role she least enjoyed discussing, died Monday at her home in Palm Springs.

Details of her unhappy early childhood were always shrouded in mystery and her age was unclear; some sources said she was 93, while her official Web site said that she was 90.

From 1941 to 1949 she was the first wife of future President Ronald Reagan, and after their divorce neither had much to say about the other.

In a rare 1968 reference, Wyman said, “It’s not because I’m bitter or because I don’t agree with him politically. I’ve always been a registered Republican, but it’s bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that’s all. Also, I don’t know a damn thing about politics.”

When he died in 2004, she issued a statement calling him “a great president and a great, kind and gentle man.”

Wyman had been largely out of the public eye since the end of the 1981-1990 CBS-TV prime-time soap “Falcon Crest,” in which she starred as iron-handed vineyard patriarch Angela Channing.

She reportedly spent much of her time in later years painting. One of her last public appearances came in 2001 at the funeral of her daughter, Maureen, where she used a cane.

Sarah Jane Fulks was born in St. Joseph, Mo., and on her second run at Hollywood, in the mid-1930s, became a contract actress at Warner Bros.

She always remembered her first line: “I’m Bessie Fuffnik. I swim, ride, dive, imitate wild birds and play the trombone.”

After 10 years trying to break out of the stereotype of a brassy blonde in bit parts, she won a best-actress Oscar nomination in 1946 for “The Yearling.”

She lost, but won three years later for her portrayal of a deaf rape victim in the 1948 drama “Johnny Belinda.”

She got two other best actress nominations, for “The Blue Veil” (1951) and “Magnificent Obsession” (1954).

In 1955 she switched to television, hosting “The Jane Wyman Theater.” In the ’60s and ’70s she devoted much of her time to raising money for the Arthritis Foundation.

She was married two – or maybe three – other times. She is survived by her son, Michael, a radio talk show host, and two grandchildren.