Life & Times Barbara Stanwyck movies: a treasure trove

Barbara Stanwyck movies are all over careers. When hers eclipsed his, he fell into 50 years old. In the recent retrospective of alcoholism and wife beating. Later, their her films at the BFI Southbank season, half story became the plot of a movie, A Star were over 80 years old. Yet what stands out is Born. from this body of work is how modern the Her co-stars were a roll call of stars on films are, not in their plots or settings but the rise including Clark Gable (Night Nurse), in the characters she played and how she John Wayne (Baby Face), Kirk Douglas played them. (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers), Burt Stanwyck was never meek, decorative, Lancaster (Sorry, Wrong Number), Henry or incidental to the plot. Whether a young Fonda (The Mad Miss Manton), James woman sleeping her way to the top in Baby Mason, Cyd Charisse, and Ava Gardner (East Face (in 1933, before the Hays code), a Side, West Side), Humphrey Bogart (The preacher in Capra’s The Miracle Woman, or Two Mrs. Carrolls), David Niven (The Other an eroticised missionary’s wife in The Bitter Love), Marilyn Monroe (Clash by Night), and Tea of General Yen, she chose a range even Elvis Presley (Roustabout). She had of parts in which strong-minded women more regular partners in Gary Cooper (Meet made a difference to how the story turned John Doe, Ball of Fire), William Holden out. In her 82 films she had top billing in all (Golden Boy, Executive Suite), Joel McCrea (The Great Man’s Lady, Banjo on my Knee), but three. Barbara Stanwyck. Courtesy of the BFI. She held out against the studio system in and Fred MacMurray (Remember the which stars on long-term contracts could Night, There’s Always Tomorrow, Double be told what to do and was unusual in Indemnity). All worth a watch. dried up she moved to TV, winning three working for several studios, often in quick She was Oscar-nominated four times Emmys, including for The Big Valley (one succession. She was prepared not to work as leading actress, losing out on each of 19 TV Western series in 1950s and 1960s if the right script did not appear. That she occasion, the studios backing their in-house America but the only one starring a woman). was able to do this is perhaps explained by stars. But she got an honorary Oscar aged Stanwyck was self-effacing about her the average gross income of a Stanwyck 75 and then an AFI lifetime achievement looks (‘average nice-looking’ she said). film — $87 million. She became rich and in award. Walter Matthau said in 1981: When her hair turned grey in her 40s 1944, having made 10 films in 4 years, was she kept it that way. The Lady Eve, with the highest-earning woman in America. ‘She has played five gun molls, two burlesque 25 costume changes, was the first of 20 Born Ruby Stevens of Scots-Irish descent queens, half a dozen adulteresses, and films in which she was dressed by Edith in Brooklyn, New York, in 1907, she was twice as many murderers. When she was Head, the legendary eight-Oscar-winning orphaned at 4, when her mother died and good, she was very, very good. And when costume designer. Stanwyck credited Head her father deserted his four daughters. she was bad, she was terrific.’ with changing her image and in gratitude Brought up with relatives and in foster hauled the designer off to her dentist to homes, she learned to be resilient, making Phyllis Dietrichson, the cold-hearted have her teeth fixed. It was the sort of thing her name as a dancer and then an actress femme fatale and murderess in Billy Stanwyck did quietly with her wealth, often in Broadway shows. With her first husband Wilder’s Double Indemnity was her helping former colleagues in hard times. Frank Fay, a greater Broadway star, she most famous role, but she could also do From her first movie, a silent, in 1927, to moved to Hollywood, both trying for movie comedy, as in Christmas in Connecticut, The Thorn Birds on TV in 1982, she had a and especially in the Preston remarkably long career. A private person, Sturges classic The Lady Eve she was happiest working and wanted no The Lady Eve. 1941. A female con artist falls in love with her target in (re-released in 2019) running memorial or funeral. All she left when Preston Sturges’s comedy, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. rings round Henry Fonda, she died in 1990, aged 82, was a treasure Image courtesy of the BFI. and with a closing line that trove of work, almost of all of which is still the critic Roger Ebert judged available on YouTube, TV movie channels, equal to ‘Nobody’s perfect’ in or Amazon’s secondary marketplace, Some Like it Hot. sometimes only in region 1 format (but In her 40s and 50s she compatible DVD players have never been starred in Westerns, showing cheaper), and often in foreign-language off her skill as a horsewoman packaging, but always watchable in English and her willingness to do without subtitles. Enjoy. stunts, acquiring not only Graham Watt, injuries in the process but also Emeritus Professor, University of Glasgow, Glasgow. the admiration of stuntmen Email: [email protected] and honorary admission to their hall of fame. As film work DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp19X703973

302 British Journal of General Practice, June 2019