A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

by Victoria Wilson

  “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.