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Barbara Stanwyck: Uncommon Heroine Sandra Schackel Boise State University

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Barbara Stanwyck: Uncommon Heroine Sandra Schackel Boise State University Boise State University ScholarWorks History Faculty Publications and Presentations Department of History 4-1-1993 Barbara Stanwyck: Uncommon Heroine Sandra Schackel Boise State University Published as Schackel, Sandra. Barbara Stanwyck: Uncommon Heroine. California History, Vol. 72, No.1, Women in California History (Spring, 1993), pp. 40-55. © 1993 by the University of California Press in association with the California Historical Society.Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by University of California Press in association with the California Historical Society for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/r/ucal) or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com. Barbara Stanwyck: Uncommon Heroine Author(s): Sandra Schackel Source: California History, Vol. 72, No. 1, Women in California History (Spring, 1993), pp. 40- 55 Published by: University of California Press in association with the California Historical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25177325 . Accessed: 10/12/2013 11:42 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press and California Historical Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to California History. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 132.178.2.64 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 11:42:28 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ^^^B^_^ ^^m ,. *?- ft > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HPB^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I^^^^^^^^^^BL'^, AJ I^^^^BB^^^^fl^^^B^HBH Barbara Stanwyck met many challenges in her career. She took on physically demanding stuntwork that was often dangerous, prompting Union Pacific co-star Joel McCrea to remark that Stanwyck "had more guts than most men." Stanwyck took other risks by western woman in film assertive challenging the stereotype of the and portraying characters who took charge of their own destinies. By breaking down such barriers, she provided a role model for other actresses of her time. Here she is pictured in Forty Guns (1957). Courtesy 20th Century Fox Film Corporation and Arts Special Collections, UCLA. 40 CALIFORNIA HISTORY This content downloaded from 132.178.2.64 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 11:42:28 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Barbara Stanwyck: Uncommon Heroine by Sandra Schackel arbara an citizen who Roles for women in and indeed much //T^ Stanwyck, intrepid Westerns, shown no fear of man, terrain, or of cinema, have been limited to two r^has traditionally over a JLx scripts long and illustrious career, stereotypes: the bad woman/prostitute and the is tackling all three in Cattle Queen ofMontana/' good woman/civilizer. Variations on these themes a reported the New York Times when the film opened include the saloon singer, the whore with heart in that city in 1954.x Thirty years into her movie of gold, the spunky ranchwoman, the frontier indeed her career, Stanwyck had demonstrated schoolteacher, and the pioneer mother. Nearly as a versatile and on a man ability accomplished actress, always, the Western heroine depends in more some appearing in than eighty roles by the late capacity, and if she rejects or otherwise denies 1950s. Nominated for four Academy Awards in her male counsel, she is penalized for her "unnatural" none of them career, for Westerns, Stanwyck pro behavior through death, banishment, or, at the fessed to love that in ten genre best; she starred least, loss of the hero's love. These prescriptive Western movies during the 1940s and 1950s.2 In roles for women were well fixed inWestern cinema these to the Western her until the a films, Stanwyck brought 1970s, when third stereotype appeared, oine a can care spunky determination and spirit of inde the strong, independent heroine who take women in pendence unusual for Westerns in this of herself and expects to do so. Several actresses, era. So successful was she, and so enamored of including Candace Bergen in Soldier Blue (1970), was Westerns the American public, that success Kathleen Lloyd in TheMissouri Breaks (1970), and screen as followed her to the small head of the Jane Fonda in Comes a Horseman (1978), illustrate in "The Barkley clan Big Valley" television series this image.4 in the 1960s. Prior to the 1970s, Barbara Stanwyck frequently film and television roles contrast with a Western Stanwyck's played heroine who challenged the her life. These roles in her private mirror, part, stereotypical female image. For example, inMaver longstanding need for security and independence, ickQueen (1956) and in Forty Guns (1957), Stanwyck hence the of assertive moved the many portrayals strong, beyond civilizer role to play tough, women. Yet behind this she remained women. a image vulner take-charge As result, part of her popu able and sensitive to the pressures of the profes larity in both movies and on television stemmed sion as well as cultural that expectations limited from her ability to carry out adventurous, demand the lives of most women. In not many ways, Stanwyck ing tasks usually assigned to women in films out on lived roles the big screen that eluded ordi prior to the 1970s. Although she starred in a wide women because was not to of nary society yet ready variety roles, including comedies, for the most allow women those kinds of freedoms. is Through part Stanwyck remembered for her portrayals such was acting, Stanwyck ahead of her time in the of strong, determined women who met men on 1940s and 1950s inWestern films that allowed her even terms or dominated them from the onset. to women who take of the portray charge ranch, Stanwyck's treatment of strong-willed, inde the county, and the people around her.3 pendent women was not limited to Westerns but SPRING 1993 41 This content downloaded from 132.178.2.64 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 11:42:28 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions dominated most of her other films as well. In Acad emy Award-nominated Double Indemnity (1944) Stanwyck is the mastermind behind both the seduc tion of insurance salesman Fred MacMurray and their bizarre plot to kill her husband. Similarly, in The Lady Eve (1940) and Ball of Fire (1941), Stan wyck remains the boss despite falling in love with men the she intends to trap. In time, Stanwyck's choice of roles came to reflect a tension between narrow the confines of female destiny and her drive to expand beyond those constrictions. Very a a woman was much product of the times when none expected to put marriage before career, she rose on theless to stardom the strength of roles that diverged from the traditional formula. In I ^di ^S^^^i Y V.^fl^L~ a doing so, Stanwyck proved to be role model for later actresses.5 Born Ruby Stevens on July 16,1907, in Brooklyn, was at Stanwyck orphaned the age of four and spent the next ten years of her life in foster homes. Although Hollywood lore frequently capital on ized her waif-like early years, Stanwyck insisted was it not that grim: "Foster homes in those days were weren't cruel?they just impersonal."6 By her early teens, Stanwyck had discovered her love for entertaining by dancing to hurdy-gurdy music TTzeRed Pony featured Maureen O'Hara and Henry a as a Fonda in a set in California in city streets. At age fifteen she landed job story turn-of-the-century chorus and with the about a poor family whose kind but rough father tries girl eventually appeared to understand his son's rebellion. O'Hara Follies and in other revues. She ten-year-old Ziegfield stage on woman as a expands the good civilizer role worked her the show business pioneer gradually way up mother trying to hold her family together. Courtesy the lead in a in ladder, securing Broadway play Phoenix Films, Inc., and Alameda Newspaper Group. screen 1926. The following year she made her debut in a silent film, Broadway Nights, and in 1928 followed her vaudeville performer husband, Frank Fay, to Hollywood, where she signed contracts with both Columbia and Warner Brothers.7 By then, an in Ruby Stevens had become Barbara Stanwyck, but industry. Stanwyck explained in interview never "I came I she would lose the traits she had developed 1981, from very poor surroundings and a a a in her early years?a gritty determination, strong had towork my tail off just to get penny, penny, sense so see me of independence, and the desire to excel in that I could her. She's influenced all my West an her profession.8 life/'9 Stories of the made impression also. Stanwyck starred in her first Western in 1935, Stanwyck spoke warmly of the pioneers who to playing the title role inAnnie Oakley, but her inter opened the West settlement. In her words, "all over on est inWesterns had been with her since childhood. the immigrants coming the covered wagons a As youngster growing up in the tenements of and atop the trains, the little Jewish peddler with was on Brooklyn, her idol Pearl White, the silent hero his calicos and ginghams his back, the good ine of the Perils of Pauline serials of the early movie men, the bad men, they all made this country/'10 To 42 CALIFORNIA HISTORY This content downloaded from 132.178.2.64 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 11:42:28 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TTzeTfl// Men featured Jane Russell?pictured with Robert Ryan?and Clark Gable in a tale a a about cattle drive?with Indian fights, blizzard, and the customary battle between the over woman.
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