I watched a lot of classic movies as a kid, and Barbara Stanwyck stood out in my mind as one of the better heroines of the black-and-white film era. I wanted to know more about her, and this book proved to be an excellent gateway into her world. It's straightforward and informative, and neither too academic nor too sensational. At the beginning, the author states that the book will deal some with Stanwyck's personal life, though a lot of the details are lost to history, but the main dish will be a study of her film performances. Classic film fans will definitely appreciate the presentation of all these amazing scenes.
Not much is known about Stanwyck's childhood, but everyone speculates that she lived through some severe hardships and extreme poverty at the very least. She didn't even get a high school education. Her mother died when she was very young and her dad basically abandoned his family, so Barbara, born as "Ruby", was sent to foster care with her brother. As a teenager, she became a chorus girl and eventually joined the Ziegfeld Follies. She gradually transitioned from a dancer to an actress, then married a comedian named Frank Fay and moved to Hollywood with him. After a couple of abysmal films, her career took a turn for the better when she got to work with director Frank Capra, who saw her potential. Stanwyck and Frank Capra definitely had a sort of love connection, not necessarily in the romantic sense, but in the way that a director can get completely swept up in the performance of his favorite star, and the way an actress can 100% devote herself to giving a director her utmost.
Stanwyck has always been likable to me--and to countless other fans--because she has that tough exterior, but the harder edge of her characters never quite poisons her. The book notes that she's a performer that we can enjoy even today, and not just as a novelty act or as someone who was good for her time. She has a certain realism that resonates, and she always brought her best and truest emotions on the very first take. The book plunges us right into the depths of those emotions, and recaps some of these films as if they were playing out before the reader's eyes--it's a very engrossing way of approaching the subject.
If I have any objections to this amazing book, they relate to the constant speculation about Stanwyck's personal feelings. The author never outright says that Stanwyck was thinking or feeling a certain way during her movie scenes, but the book continually implies a whole host of emotions we have no way of knowing if Stanwyck felt. The book often says that Stanwyck delivers a certain lines if she's remembering certain events from her past, and while these suppositions are certainly a cool mental exercise, I'm not quite comfortable with guessing at how an actress' performance might directly relate to the actress' life experiences. And at any rate, I think that most readers would probably go ahead and make these life/performance connections without being instructed to do so.
I keep feeling sympathy for Stanwyck, but it never really flips over into "pity" territory, because no matter what happens to her, she's an absolute soldier. This woman never seemed to be fully helpless, either in real life or on screen, even in her most vulnerable moments. If you have any interest in classic film, great actresses, or intriguing biographies, you'll want to look into this new biography of Barbara Stanwyck.
