Customer Reviews

Life and Loves of Barbara Stanwyck

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Why would anyone want anything by this hack writer who is obssessed with Robert Taylor?? She wrote a book on Stanwyck back in the 1980s and it was schlock, full of errors and obviously meant to degrade and besmirch Stanwyck's name. Jane Ellen Wayne has no shame and if she can dare ask how one can review a book one hasn't read, well, the answer to that is: Just read ANY book by this hack and you will know how one can review a book without having read it. She gets all her sources from the tabloids, she doesn't have any primary sources to back up her ridiculous tabloid style of writing. Avoid anything by this woman at all costs. The GREAT BARBARA STANWYCK deserves better than anything by this evil, demented woman. The definitive STANWYCK biography has yet to be written and when and if it is written, it will NOT be Jane Ellen Wayne who wrote it!!

I've read a couple of books on Barbara Stanwyk many years ago, so the basics based on my recollections seem consistent with the information this book supplies. That said, there were a few revelations in this account of Stanwyck's life pertaining to her first husband Frank Fay, her adopted son Dion Anthony Fay, and second husband Robert Taylor. Additionally, author Wayne attempts to debunk the myth that Robert Taylor was gay or had gay tendencies. Wayne also tends to approach the subject of Stanwyk's long alluded to lebian tendencies as inconclusive.
So why read this book/why did I like it? I thought it gave a pretty good rundown of Stanwyk's personal background, her career, and her personality. If you haven't read anything about Stanwyk before it's interesting and informative and provides some revelations. She was in many ways an uber-private person and quite an enigma as an actress who never had an acting lesson, wasn't particularly beautiful based on common perceptions of beauty, and was largely uneducated. This book is an essential primer for Stanwyk fans twenty years after her death.

I have always admired Barbara Stanwyck's work in the movies though I was not a fan of the Big Valley. The book gives a good synopsis of her movies in cronological order while telling the story of her life. What I was surprised about was what a truely terrible mother she was. She did not abuse her adopted son, she just abandonded him at boarding schools and had no emothinal connection to him at all. Stella Dallas really was some great acting. Good photos.