Stanwyck [Hardcover]

Axel Madsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1994

Reveals the complex, lonely woman behind the screen star's imperturbable facade, examining her Dickensian childhood, her turbulent first marriage, her estrangement from her son, and the sexual dynamics of her marriage to Robert Taylor. $25,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Madsen ( Chanel ) picks a tough subject in movie legend Barbara Stanwyck, who was born in Brooklyn in 1907 and orphaned at age three. She scrambled up through the Broadway chorus line and, by the time she reached Hollywood, was such a hard worker that Madsen has to struggle to avoid recounting endless lists of movies, memorable and otherwise. On the orders of MGM, Stanwyck married leading man Robert Taylor. We hear a lot about their troubled relationship, which Madsen portrays as a "lavender" marriage to conceal Taylor's homosexuality. Yet the meat here lies in the detailed descriptions of Stanwyck's movies, which include such classics as Stella Dall a s, The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire and Billy Wilder's spectacular Double Indemnity . The overall impression we're left with is of a talented woman who cared mainly for her career. Stardom and riches failed to buy her serenity in a youth-obsessed Hollywood, where Stanwyck died alone at the age of 84. Madsen's bio breathes intimacy on every page and avoids a gossipy tone. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Barbara Stanwyck was one of this century's finest film actresses. She received three Academy AwardR nominations and won an honorary Oscar, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, and three Emmys. Author of the excellent William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (Crowell, 1973), Madsen would appear to be an appropriate biographer for such a star. Unfortunately, his results this time are less impressive. He has no penetrating insights to impart, and some questionable statements and infelicities of style detract. Madsen's Stanwyck is about on a par with the identically titled book by Jane Ellen Wayne (LJ 12/85)-which is to say, average. The definitive book on Stanwyck's films is Ella Smith's Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck (LJ 1/15/74; Crown, 1985. rev. ed.); the definitive book on Stanwyck's life has yet to be written.
John Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 434 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006017997X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060179977
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,586,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Neither a very good nor a very bad book, March 3, 2002

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Stanwyck: A Biography (Paperback)

People are reacting pretty strongly in their reviews of this book, I suspect primarily because of the claims that Madsen makes about Stanwyck's sexuality. But the fact is that while this isn't a terribly good book, it is also not a truly horrible one, either. If one wants a basic, serviceable biography of Stanwyck, which lays out the main facts and events in her life, this one will do.

The virtue of the book is that is it fairly thorough and comprehensive. One gets a feel for her life, for the way she viewed both herself and the world, and for some of the dynamics in her relationships. A portrait emerges of a woman who was both very admirable and quite disappointing. One admires her drive and enormous professionalism as an actress, and is impressed by how giving and helpful she was to her fellow professionals. Away from her vocation as an actress, however, Stanwyck emerges as someone less than admirable. Other accounts of her life have emphasized her difficulty with intimate relationships, her failure as a mother (not quite "Mommie Dearest" but definitely not a role model), and her lamentable political commitments. Although not the political activist that her husband Robert Taylor or his friends John Wayne and Ronald Reagan were, she nonetheless was pretty much part and parcel of the Hollywood Anticommunist movement that ruined so many people's lives in the 1940s and 1950s.

On the negative side, Madsen's prose is drab at best. Madsen seems to be the essence of the "professional" writer, who lives by writing a certain number of pages in a certain amount of time. There is a workmanlike dullness to his pages, and multiple signs of minimal rewriting, such as almost verbatim repetition of passages and restatement of quotes. Constant repetition is a prime mark of sloppy writing and inattention in the final editing.

But I suspect that most people will hate or love this book based on its portrayal of sexuality. I am an utterly nonhomophobic, and really couldn't care less what someone's sexuality is. Some of my greatest personal heroes were gay, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Marcel Proust, and Cole Porter, and some of my favorite Hollywood actors and directors were gay or bi. I have three general statements to make about this issue in regard to this book.

First, I speculate that Mr. Madsen is himself gay and sees it as his job as a gay writer to "out" a famous individual who was gay but is not popularly perceived as being gay. I assume he is gay partly because of his constant reference to individuals as being gay when the issue of their sexuality is utterly irrelevant. Thus, he might mention that Barbara knew a certain individual, a "gay" producer. Not a "producer," but a "gay producer," though his being homo, bi, pan, or asexual is without the tiniest bit of relevance. But part of the assumption of the outing movement is that if all of us--straight and gay--realize how many people are gay, our attitudes towards homosexuality will change. I can't argue this point at length, but I find "outing" to be reprehensible, especially when evidence is minimal. I also assume that he is gay because bi sexuality has featured as a dominant issue in some of his other books. It is unquestionably an issue that preoccupies him.

Second, though Madsen alludes to Stanwyck's bisexuality, he doesn't really adduce any actual evidence of this. Much of his "evidence" seems to be based on the perception by many lesbians that she was "one of us." There are also multiple references to a possible lesbian relationship with her publicist, but when looks closely, this appears to be more speculation than fact. Although it has long been held that Robert Taylor, Barbara's husband, was at least bi and perhaps gay, the evidence for Barbara seems to be pretty weak, at least as presented by Madsen. And glancing through the pages of Madsen's THE SEWING CIRCLE, which discusses love relationships among women in the thirties and forties, I didn't find anything much more convincing that was contained in these pages.

Third, to those who are so terribly offended by suggestions that Barbara Stanwyck might have been a lesbian or bisexual, I have to say: haven't we gotten past stuff like this yet? To be blunt, who cares if someone is gay or bi? Is THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD less enjoyable because Errol Flynn was unquestionably bisexual? Although Madsen's evidence isn't very convincing or substantial, if it were, it wouldn't really matter all that much.

In the end, Madsen's biography is disappointing as much because it is flatly written than because he successfully or unsuccessfully uncovers Stanwyck's sexual secrets. But the book also fails because he is never able to help us get a sense of the immense excitement that Barbara Stanwyck generated in dozens of films in a long film career. Dislike this book if you must, but please dislike it for the correct reasons.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Generic bio, made interesting only by its subject matter, September 9, 2000

By 

Brandan Thomas (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stanwyck (Hardcover)

Poor Barbara Stanwyck! She made the unpardonable error of living a relatively scandal-free life in Hollywood. If what Madsen says about her sexuality is true, he fails to back it up with any substantiative evidence; Stanwyck made few enemies during her reign in Hollywood; with the exception of Maureen O'Sullivan, and who was she? Whatever she did, she was discreet, unlike her contemporaries Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Her personal life was her personal life, and while many of us would give our left arm to really know the more intimate details of her personal life, you have to respect her for keeping a hermetically sealed lid on it.

Also, Madsen does not use enough photographs in this book, it would have been nice to see more.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars She deserves better..., December 15, 2006

By 

Miss Brianna (Beverly Hills, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stanwyck (Paperback)

Flat, passionless, lazy, pointless...I don't think there are enough words in the English language to communicate that this is a completely crap biography. Why did Axel Madsen even bother? He doesn't seem to have any enthusiasm for his subject. He gets so lazy in points that he gets concrete facts wrong. (Barbara DID share a scene with Ava Gardner in "East Side, West Side" - did he not even bother to watch Miss Stanwyck's movies?) It's like he wanted the money, researched which actress hadn't had a biography written on her in awhile and decided he would pound out some boring pages on this one. Just look at the title - "Stanwyck" - it just screams passion project!

Barbara Stanwyck was a fascinating mixture of brains, beauty, talent, humility and guts. She had a hell of a rough life but never outwardly felt sorry for herself. She gave intelligent, honest and layered performances in every movie she worked on, no matter the quality of the overall picture. Many of the great directors and leading men of her time site Barbara Stanwyck as the greatest actress they ever worked with. They don't say it in trite statements, they gush about her for paragraphs. She deserves something far better than this rubbish. Hopefully a more thoughtful biographer will come along some day and do her the justice she deserves. But Axel Madsen seems to think the world of himself and not much of anything for poor Missy. Well, in the words of Miss Stanwyck herself: "Egotism - usually just a case of mistaken nonentity." Go ahead and ignore this one.