“a dash of fire”: Ferber, So Big, 124.
“took the best and”: Ibid., 173.
“a prosperous and blooming”: Ibid., 217.
“used none of the”: Ibid., 290.
“Selina became a farmer’s”: So Big press book, 5.
Twenty-eight hand-cranked: Wellman, Go, Get ’Em!, 243.
“Lots of actresses are”: So Big press book, 4.
Selina Peake didn’t simply age: Ferber, So Big, 172, 292.
Monte Westmore, Warner’s makeup: So Big press book, 4.
“Very few actresses would be”: Ibid.
“Julia Ferber as a human”: Ferber, Peculiar Treasure, 165.
“a small dark figure”: Ferber, So Big, 354.
“do portraits [but] [n]ot”: Ibid.
“fine splendid face”: Ibid., 353–54.
“The title had been”: Ferber, Peculiar Pleasure, 277. The book was originally serialized in Woman’s Home Companion as Selina, but the title So Big stayed on the book.
“No man in the”: Jeopardy press book.
“so bored”: Wellman interview, 80.
Barbara was a perfectionist: Bill Wellman Jr. to author, February 20, 2007.
“Nothing ever seems secure”: Marion Carter, Journal, March 15, 1932.
“Some players are able”: Shopworn press book.
“It was in 1897”: Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 65.
“Give Dickie the close-up”: Grace Mack, Screen Play, June 1932, 57.
“He didn’t have to threaten”: Barbara Stanwyck, Screen Guide, 1946, 47.
Ten days before production: George Brent contract with Warner Bros., December 16, 1932.
“artist who leads [DeJong]”: Davis, Lonely Life, 123, 124.
“the drooping eyelids”: Silver Screen, September 1930.
“Good, now we can go”: Shaun Considine, Bette and Joan (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989), 6.
“She was a stubborn”: Ibid., 20.
“I worshipped her”: Davis, Lonely Life, 55.
At twenty-three, Davis had: Considine, Bette and Joan, 14.
“Whom did this to”: Davis, Lonely Life, 96.
Another producer said she: Janet Flanner, “Cotton-Dress Girl,” New Yorker, February 20, 1943, 26.
“a cotton-dress girl”: Ibid., 19.
“the kid might be”: Davis, Lonely Life, 113.
“Universal had asked to”: Ibid., 121.
The Man Who Played God: Release date February 20, 1932.
“The discovery [in So Big]”: Davis, Lonely Life, 129.
“I never knew who”: Ibid., 124.
“was magnificent . . . She was”: Ibid.
“To Dickie Moore”: Dick Moore to author, n.d.
Production for the picture: February 3, 1932.
“monument of American”: Advertisement for So Big.
She dressed quietly, neatly, comfortably: Steef F. Phillips, “Barbara Defies Hollywood,” Motion Picture, March 1940, 58.
didn’t enjoy getting: Grace Mack, Screen Play, June 1932, 29.
“When I put rouge”: Jack Grant, “I’ll Never Divorce Frank Fay, Says Barbara Stanwyck,” Movie Classic, April 1933.
“I don’t want people”: Sidney Skolsky, New York Daily News, February 22, 1932.
“I can do as”: Barbara Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, James Mack, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 2.
As soon as he’d: Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 9, Superior Court of the State of California.
Two other Warner stars: Los Angeles Evening Herald Examiner, January 22, 1932.
His first (and second): Variety, March 8, 1932.
Those being paid: Ibid.
Barbara insisted Fay receive: “Vaude House Reviews,” Variety, March 1, 1932.
“Barbara, your tact and”: Helen Louise Walker, Movie Classic, June 1932, 17, 60.
“Well, Miss Stanwyck was”: Los Angeles Examiner.
“whose name spells box”: Photoplay, April 1932, 38–39.
originally published as a short story: Saturday Evening Post, October 1931.
He liked how spirited: William Wellman Jr. to author.
“They know a lot about”: The Purchase Price press book.
The manager is irate: “Vaude House Reviews,” Variety, March 1, 1932, 28.
“[The show] is ragged”: Variety, March 1, 1932.
“Miss Stanwyck is being”: “Vaude House Reviews,” Variety, March 8, 1932.
“The most promising young”: Leonard Hall, Photoplay, May 1932, 47.
Following the show’s opening: Variety, March 1, 1932.
State troopers, detectives, and police: New York Times, March 2, 1932.
Fay’s name was taken: Virginia Maxwell, Picture Play, October 1932, 64.
“My marriage means more”: Ibid., 26.
“Well, what about movie”: Ibid., 64.
Fay was back the next: Variety, March 8, 1932.
“The show’s second week”: Ibid.
“Submerges her own ability”: Variety, March 1, 1932, 49.
He also changed: “Vaude House Reviews,” Variety, March 8, 1932.
“Something has happened”: Ibid.
He’d made light in: Sidney Skolsky, newspaper clipping, 1932, Shubert Archive.
“the clumsiest kind”: Variety, April 5, 1932, 14.
“Barbara Stanwyck’s temper”: Cecelia Ager, Variety, April 5, 1932, 16.
“the Coast by way”: Virginia Maxwell, Picture Play, October 1932, 64.
The billboard advertised: Variety, April 5, 1932, 16.
Seven: Prophets of a New Order
“I like pictures better”: Biery, “Let’s Talk About ’Em,” 114.
With the picture were: Louella Parsons, April 15, 1932.
“infinitely better than”: Ibid.
“[She] has undergone”: Ruth Morris, Uncommon Chatter, Variety, May 3, 1932, 40.
Edna Ferber felt that: Colleen Moore, Silent Star, 158.
Fay was admitted to: Barbara Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 6, Superior Court of the State of California.
“I wouldn’t wear an”: Beranger, “Private Life of Barbara Stanwyck,” 9.
“a magnificent actress”: Fox, “Man’s World,” 36.
Wellman took chances: Darryl Hickman to author, March 28, 2007.
“good old Bill was”: Paris, Louise Brooks, 225.
The new picture: April 14, 1932.
“unconsidered appendicle”: Stringer, Mud Lark, 14.
“My response to that”: Fidler, “Barbara Stanwyck Answers Twenty Timely Questions,” 70.
“prairie landscape as flat”: Stringer, Mud Lark, 55.
“They’ll hold you up”: Fox, “Man’s World,” 37.
The field of shocked: John Gallagher, filmography and notes.
“After the first take”: Ella Smith, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck, 47.
It was two in the: Gallagher, notes.
Barbara’s legs were scorched: The Purchase Price press book.
“One for the take”: “Wild Bill,” interview by Eyman, 17.
One print was for: It made $299,000 domestically and $45,000 in foreign sales.
The Mud Lark’s title: AFI, 1715.
The studio formally dropped: Clarke, Featured Player, 112–23.
A headline in Variety: Variety, April 26, 1932, 8.
The ad’s tagline: Variety, May 3, 1932, 14.
Henry Ford was refusing: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 21.
“Here we are in”: Ibid., 9.
Barbara was a lifelong: Gene Vaslett to author.
Frank Fay hated Franklin: Jesse White to author.
Jack Cohn was sitting: Bellamy, interview with Saunders, 19, 20.
If the theater chains: McBride, Frank Capra, 248.
“Dwan sat impassively”: Bernds, Mr. Bernds Goes to Hollywood, 151–52.
“It was the return”: Ibid., 152.
“Riskin brought to Capra”: Joe McBride, “Robert Riski
n Esquire,” Magazine of the Writers Guild of America 3, no. 1 (1999): 48.
“Frank [Capra] provided the”: Philip Dunne, in Joseph McBride, “Riskinesque: “How Robert Riskin Spoke Through Frank Capra and Vice Versa,” Written By 3, no. 1 (1999).
“And I’ve done it”: Beranger, “Private Life of Barbara Stanwyck,” 8.
Eight: Object of Desire
Grace Zaring Stone: Stone later wrote, under the name Ethel Vance, Escape, which was made into a movie with Norma Shearer and Robert Taylor, and Winter Meeting, made into a picture with Bette Davis.
William Archer in his play: The Green Goddess was made into a movie with George Arliss in 1923 by Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan and again in 1930, also with Arliss, directed by Alfred Green, from Warner Bros.
But the screenwriter added: McBride, Frank Capra, 279.
Capra let it be: Ibid., 278.
Instead, Capra gave the role: Ibid.
among them Leo Carrillo: AFI Catalog of Feature Films/The Bitter Tea of General Yen.
Asther lost the race: Barry Paris, Garbo: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 46.
Together they’d attended: Ibid., 41.
“The make-up may have”: Ed Bernds to author, June 9, 1997.
“I’ll take dust”: Eleanor Barnes, Illustrated Daily News, July 23, 1932.
fourteen-year-old daughter: She became the writer Eleanor Perényi.
“grotesquely miscast”: Eleanor Perényi to author, January 5, 1998.
Connolly saw being a character: “Walter Connolly, Actor, 53, Is Dead,” New York Times, May 29, 1940.
“I kept away from pictures”: “Film Work and Actor: Walter Connolly Discusses Some Phases of Hollywood’s Artistic Problems,” New York Times, March 18, 1934.
The set dresser even: The Bitter Tea of General Yen press book.
the New York Times announced: New York Times, May 8, 1932.
It was the ending: Perényi to author, January 5, 1998.
“People want to see”: Hal Hall, “An Interview with Frank Capra,” American Cinematographer, February 1931, 38.
“those arty things”: Frank Capra, in George Stevens Jr., ed., Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age at the American Film Institute (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 98.
He believed the camera: Ibid.
“A cinematographer can”: Hall, “Interview with Frank Capra,” 20.
Walker’s invention of “variable diffusion”: Walker and Walker, Light on Her Face, 186–87.
When Capra wanted something: Capra, in Stevens, Conversations, 39.
Connolly, who was used: The Bitter Tea of General Yen press book.
Wong was originally: AFI, 171.
Toshia Mori, who came from: The Bitter Tea of General Yen press book.
“For me, Bitter Tea”: Bernds to author, May 1997.
“Capra, very calmly, was”: Ibid.
“The head cameraman”: Bernds to author, June 9, 1997.
“I chose that picture”: Biery, “Let’s Talk About ’Em,” 114.
Nine: A Path to Motherhood
“I want one so badly”: Faith Service, Motion Picture, December 1932.
“All my life, I think”: Ibid.
Hoyt gave Barbara the news: Ann Hoyt, affidavit, January 10, 1938, Superior Court of the State of California.
“I knew those babies”: Faith Service, Motion Picture, December 1932.
“I wonder if”: Ibid.
Barbara’s room was at: Tony Fay to author, October 9, 2002.
Barbara fired Miss Richter: Barbara Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 2, Superior Court of the State of California.
Ann Hoyt and several doctors: Ibid.
who had previously worked: Margaret Griffin (niece of Nellie Banner) to author, July 18, 2002.
“All I wish for”: Louis Sobol, The Voice of Broadway, April 1, 1935.
Maud, Bert, and Al: Al Merkent log, June Merkent to author.
Barbara made arrangements for: Gene Vaslett to author, January 31, 1997.
survey of box-office reaction: Variety, August 23, 1932, 3.
Warner agreed to pay: Roy Obringer to Morris Ebenstein (Warner Bros., New York City), November 3, 1932.
Warner agreed to a new: Variety, September 6, 1932, 2.
Warner had three one-year: Warner Bros. contract, September 19, 1932.
“Did you ever notice”: Faith Service, Motion Picture, December 1932.
Ten: A Most Dangerous Man Menace
“Yes, we could smell”: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 18.
“But believe me”: Clarke Warren, “Barbara Stanwyck Frankly Considers Sex,” Screen Play, January 1933, 23.
“Barbara Stanwyck is going”: Ibid.
Once out west: Gussow, Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking, 21.
“I never was the type”: Warren, “Barbara Stanwyck Frankly Considers Sex,” 46.
Warner wanted to shoot: Variety, November 8, 1932.
“If Genesius was the”: Films in Review, March 1968, 135.
Barbara was taking home: Memo from payroll office, Warner Bros. Archives.
She returned from the studio: Judith Stevens to author, June 2, 1999, 13.
Baby Face was an original: Contract between First National and Cosmo Hamilton, February 28, 1927.
By 1925 the dog was: Mosley, Zanuck, 68, 69.
gangster comedy for Dolores Costello: The Little Irish Girl; Gussow, Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking, 40.
dual role for Montagu Love: The Social Highwayman; ibid.
comedy about gold diggers: Footloose Widows; ibid.
Jack Warner referred to: Ibid.
“He isn’t available”: Mosley, Zanuck, 77; Gussow, Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking, 55.
“suffer the indignities”: Howard Smith to Zanuck, memo, November 11, 1932, Warner Bros. Archives.
for one dollar assigned: W. B. Dover to Chase, memo, November 11, 1932, Warner Bros. Archives.
Warner had released: W. B. Dover to Roy Obringer, memo, November 23, 1932, USC Warners Archive.
The screenwriter, who was: Zanuck to BS, November 11, 1932.
“build her up”: Baby Face press book, 5.
Alfred Green, the director: Green, interview with Hal Wiener, Los Angeles Evening Herald, May 16, 1931.
“It is a new line”: “Easier to Reach Top Than to Remain There, Barbara Stanwyck Says,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 5, 1933, 1.
“Every time his name”: Gene Vaslett to author, June 7, 1999.
“The country is in chaos”: Warner, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood, 208.
Jack Warner had organized: Stephen Talbot, “On with the Show,” Washington Post, January 21, 2001.
“so many evils into”: Cecil B. DeMille, Autobiography, ed. Donald Hayne (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959), 326.
Barbara reminded Fay: Barbara Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 3, Superior Court of the State of California.
The judge was told: Ibid., 2–3.
“requires the balance”: Florence Lawrence, “Producer Finds Revue Requires Unusual Tricks,” newspaper clipping, n.d.
Dion was frightened: Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 5.
He frightened her: Margaret Griffin (niece of Nellie Banner) to author, July 18, 2002.
“bulg[ing] with talent”: Relman Morin, newspaper clipping, n.d.
It had closed with: Fred Allen, Much Ado About Me (Boston: Little, Brown, 1956).
By the end of: Variety, January 10, 1933, 45.
Eleven: Bold and Bad
“I believe in creative”: Roxy, Variety, December 20, 1932.
The Rockefellers themselves had: Ibid.
“courage and vision”: December 14, 1932.
“completion of the great”: December 16, 1932.
“No picture half so”: Philip K. Scheuer, New York World-Telegram, January 14, 1933.
“poetry and beauty”: Thornton Delehanty, New York
Evening Post, January 12, 1933.
Louella Parsons thought Barbara: Louella Parsons, Los Angeles Examiner, January 14, 1933.
The Chinese legation wanted: F. L. Herron to Will Hays, memo, January 17, 1933, AMPAS.
“a eulogy of the Chinese”: Wilson to Hays, memo, January 21, 1933, AMPAS.
“missionary angle”: Geoffrey Shurlock to Dr. Wingate, memo, January 19, 1933, AMPAS.
In New York, The Bitter Tea was released: AMPP, memo, December 28, 1932, AMPAS.
In Massachusetts, the firing: AMPP, memo, December 19, 1933, AMPAS.
In Ohio, Clara Blandick’s dialogue: AMPP, memo, January 25, 1933, AMPAS.
“I think it one”: Eileen Creelman, New York Sun, September 13, 1934; Capra, oral history, 1956, Columbia University.
she was helping Fay: Larry Kleno to author, November 27, 2002.
Headlines in the press: Variety, January 10, 1933, 3.
“I [don’t] have a penny”: Grant, “I’ll Never Divorce Frank Fay,” 26, 60.
Tattle Tales’ first week: Variety, February 7, 1933.
Fay had been drinking: Barbara Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 7, Superior Court of the State of California.
Tattle Tales had been booked: Variety, February 21, 1933, 51.
Barbara struggled with the effects: Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 7.
In New York, the picture: Capitol Theatre Program, February 17, 1933, no. 7.
“Barbara Stanwyck and a good”: Variety, February 28, 1933, 15.
“as a retreat, the sort”: Ibid.
“a girl’s seminary”: Los Angeles Examiner, February 24, 1933.
“new role for her”: New York Sun, February 24, 1933.
By early the following: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 39.
Eugene Meyer: Meyer bought The Washington Post on June 1, 1933.
“Hard on H[oover] to go”: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 39.
“What this country needs”: Stephen Talbot, “On with the Show.”
“As we saw it”: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 40.
“will endure as it”: Jack Warner to Edward G. Robinson, memo, March 9, 1933, Rudy Behlmer, Inside Warner Bros. (New York: Viking, 1985), 10.
The following day, deposits: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 45.
“Capitalism was saved”: Raymond Moley, in Ibid.
He called their bluff: Mosley, Zanuck, 125.
“I expect to fulfill”: Movie Classic, June 1933, 23.
Barbara asked for: Jack Warner to BS, amendment letter, March 9, 1933, Warner Bros. Archives.
A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 Page 109