Barbara Stanwyck (born Ruby Catherine Stevens; July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was one of the greatest screen actors of Hollywood's studio era, who appeared in both films and television and had many successes during The Pre-Code Era and The Golden Age of Hollywood.
She had a rough childhood. Stanwyck was orphaned at the age of four when her mother died from a car crash caused by a drunk and her father disappeared while working at the Panama Canal. Stanwyck's sister Mildred got a Promotion to Parent at the ripe old age of nine. Mildred got a job as a dancer in a traveling theater troupe, and Ruby tagged along sometimes, thus getting a taste for show business. At age 16 she got a job dancing in the Ziegfeld Follies. This led to parts on the stage, and starring roles on Broadway by the time she was 20. That, in turn, led to parts in movies in the late silent era, and by 1930, starring roles.
Stanwyck made 85 films over a 38-year motion picture career. She continued to be a leading actor for decades, at a time when fellow stars such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman ebbed and flowed in their fortunes and star power. Her incredible range was the main reason – she could play anything from a self-sacrificing, noble mother (Stella Dallas) to a slutty, gold-digging schemer (Baby Face), a con artist with a heart of gold (The Lady Eve), a murderous femme fatale (Double Indemnity), or a screwball comedy heroine (Ball of Fire).
Directors almost unanimously praised her, whether it was Frank Capra, William A. Wellman, Preston Sturges, Samuel Fuller, or Douglas Sirk, and even a notoriously prickly actor-hating director like Fritz Lang called her "an angel".
Stanwyck was nominated for four competitive Academy Awards but never won. As she got older she moved to television roles (her last film was in 1964), most notably the steely family matriarch Victoria Barkley in the Western series The Big Valley, and won three Emmys. She also received an honorary Oscar in 1982 for her body of work, and in 1999 the American Film Institute named her the eleventh-greatest female star of classic Hollywood.
She was married to actor-comedian Frank Fay from 1928 to 1935 and to Robert Taylor from 1939 to 1951. She had one adopted son with Fay. She died of congestive heart failure and COPD at the age of 82 in 1990.
Barbara Stanwyck's works:
Filmography
- Ladies of Leisure (1930)
- Illicit (1931)
- The Miracle Woman (1931)
- Night Nurse (1931)
- Forbidden (1932)
- The Purchase Price (1932)
- So Big! (1932)
- Baby Face (1933)
- The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)
- Ladies They Talk About (1933)
- Stella Dallas (1937)
- The Mad Miss Manton (1938)
- Golden Boy (1939)
- Union Pacific (1939)
- Remember the Night (1940)
- Ball of Fire (1941)
- The Lady Eve (1941)
- Meet John Doe (1941)
- Lady of Burlesque (1943)
- Double Indemnity (1944)
- Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
- My Reputation (1946)
- The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
- Cry Wolf (1947)
- Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
- No Man of Her Own (1950)
- The Furies (1950)
- Clash by Night (1952)
- Titanic (1953)
- Executive Suite (1954)
- Forty Guns (1957)
- The Night Walker (1964)
- Roustabout (1964)
Live-Action TV
- The Barbara Stanwyck Show
- The Big Valley (TV series, 1965-69)
- The Thorn Birds (TV miniseries, 1983)
Tropes
- Deadpan Snarker: Much of her movie and television roles, often in an Only Sane Woman way.
- Dramatic Half-Hour: The Barbara Stanwyck Show was formatted in half-hour emissions.
- Leg Focus: She danced occasionally and had gorgeous, shapely legs that made her a popular pinup girl.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Barbara's voice stuck out in her film career because she spoke in her natural Brooklyn accent, whereas other Hollywood actors at the time were taught to speak in a more genteel sounding Mid-Atlantic accent.
- Smoky Voice: Stanwyck apparently started smoking at nine. She didn't quit until a few months before her death.
- Stage Names: An interesting case of someone born with a fairly generic name (Ruby Stevens) choosing a more unusual stage name, with "Barbara" coming from a character she played in a Broadway play, and "Stanwyck" from the surname of one of the other actors in the play.
- Those Two Actors: Did...
- Three films with Gary Cooper.
- Three films with Henry Fonda.
- Four films with Fred MacMurray.
- Six films with Joel McCrea.
