Barbara Stanwyck: She is Woman, Hear Her Roar!

Website: Barbara Stanwyck - Ball of Fire

I freely admit to having never seen a single Barbara Stanwyck movie. But after reading Axel Madsen's 1994 biography "Stanwyck", I definitely want to. I recently viewed Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor in "Camille" - and I was fascinated by Taylor - he seemed as beautiful as Garbo on screen. When I found out he had been married to Stanwyck, I thought it perfect to read her biography next, since I had it in a stack of books to be read. It was not disappointing - Madsen's in-depth biography brought out Stanwyck in all her stoicism and strength.

The book doesn't rate highly among Stanwyck fans, but having no pre-conceived notions, I enjoyed the book. Sure, the author has his faults (after all, he counts the tell-all book "Hollywood Babylon" as one of his sources), but overall I felt he painted an honest portrayal of an intensely private woman. Of course, he also could have painted an erroneous portral of an intensely private woman. So I'll try to merely dispense the facts I know about Barbara Stanwyck.

She was born Ruby Stevens, on July 16, 1907, to Byron and Catherine Mcgee Stevens, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the youngest of five siblings, born into a poor family. When Ruby was three years old, her mother died of a head injury suffered in a streetcar accident, and a short two weeks after her funeral, their father abandoned them to work on the Panama Canal - they never saw him again.

The Stevens children were bumped around for several years, raised in foster homes but still keeping in contact with each other even when not boarded together. After several years living like this, Ruby's older sister Mildred accepted the responsibility of raising her younger brother and sister. Mildred worked as a showgirl, and soon Ruby learned the routines, too. At the tender age of 13 Ruby quit going to school and took a job wrapping packages in a department store. Millie's boyfriend "Uncle" Buck encouraged Barbara to get into showbusiness, and when she was 15 years old she earned $35 a week as a chorus girl in a Times Square nightclub.

Ruby continued to this line of work, taking small parts in roadshows - including spending time as a Ziegfield follies girl in 1922. Ruby's big break came in 1926 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when her small performance in a play was noted as an unexpected highlight in an otherwise bad review. The play was rewritten so that her part was much expanded, and Ruby was officially on her way to stardom.