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

by Victoria Wilson

  Admission prices had been: Schwartz, Hollywood Writers’ Wars, 10–11.

  “They weren’t worth”: Mosley, Zanuck, 128.

  “On April 10th”: Ibid., 127.

  Wallis was Zanuck’s replacement: Wallis and Higham, Starmaker, 28–29.

  When Warner took over: Ibid., 23–29.

  Zanuck agreed to make: Variety, April 25, 1933.

  Zanuck left Los Angeles: New York Sun, April 26, 1933.

  Joe Schenck felt it was: Behlmer, Inside Warner Bros.

  Mayer Family Fund: Crowther, Hollywood Rajah, 190.

  “was on top”: Wallis and Higham, Starmaker, 29.

  Twelve: Entrances and Exits

  “Oh, that L. B. Mayer”: Schwartz, Hollywood Writers’ Wars, 13, 10.

  “Looking to the Academy”: Ibid., 13.

  “You worked any kind”: Bellamy, interview with Saunders, 14.

  “It was supposed to be”: SAG Website interviews, SAG historian Valerie Yaros.

  Talbot rode a bicycle: Laura Wagner, “Lyle Talbot,” Films of the Golden Age no. 60 (Spring 2010): 20.

  “met at night, in private”: SAG Website interview with Robert Young conducted for Screen Actor magazine to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the American Federation of Labor charter of the Screen Actors Guild. Courtesy of Valerie Yaros.

  “MGM and Louis B. Mayer”: David F. Prindle, The Politics of Glamour (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988).

  were suing Fay: Variety, March 28, 1933, 28.

  “breaks convention bravely”: Times (London), March 13, 1933.

  The trip took eight: Al Merkent’s log; June Merkent to author.

  Hal Wallis wired Barbara: Hal Wallis to BS, telegram, May 19, 1933, Warner Bros. Archives.

  William Dieterle was to direct: Dieterle was replaced by William Wellman when Dieterle became ill; Michael Curtiz took over from Wellman when he started work on College Coach. AFI, 623.

  Barbara was unaware of it: Julia Gwin, “She’s a Movie Fan Too,” Silver Screen, January 1934, 62.

  “reviewer must have acid”: Florence Hayden, New Yorker, June 1, 1933.

  “a product of the urban”: Percy Hammond, New York Herald Tribune, June 2, 1933; Robert Garland, New York World-Telegram, June 2, 1933.

  and “sluggish”: New York Times, June 2, 1933.

  “hogging the show”: Percy Hammond, New York Herald Tribune, June 2, 1933.

  “She is blessed”: Burns Mantle, New York Daily News, June 3, 1933.

  “I hope Barbara”: Louella Parsons, Los Angeles Examiner, June 15, 1933.

  “Fay has always stolen”: Grant, “I’ll Never Divorce Frank Fay,” 26, 60.

  One day it was: New York Sun, June 17, 1933.

  “is reputed to be”: Variety, June 27, 1933.

  “take children to see”: W. E. Oliver, Los Angeles Evening Herald Examiner, July 14, 1933.

  “Miss Stanwyck’s performance”: Jimmy Starr, Los Angeles Evening Herald Examiner, April 29, 1933.

  “truth in its psychology”: New York Herald Tribune, n.d.

  “Lil a beautiful bum”: Variety, June 27, 1933.

  “the best and by far”: Hollywood Reporter, March 22, 1933.

  “Miss Stanwyck hasn’t had”: Louella Parsons, Los Angeles Examiner, July 14, 1933.

  “I advise you not”: Nancy Bernard Levy to author, March 21, 1998.

  “All this talk”: Grant, “I’ll Never Divorce Frank Fay,” 26, 60.

  The final week cost: Variety, June 27, 1933, 1.

  PART THREE: Valor and Fire

  One: Adjusted Angles of Vision

  “Hollywood, where gossip flourishes”: Elizabeth Wilson, “Carnival Nights in Hollywood,” magazine clipping, n.d.

  “She didn’t like it”: Gene Vaslett to author, October 1996.

  “He’s in the gutter”: Ibid.

  “Pop Fay was a charming”: Vaslett to author, June 2000.

  “little difference between film”: BS to Lisa Kirk in response to Kirk’s letter asking for BS’s help, September 1965.

  “There is a marked”: Bellamy, interview with Saunders, 10.

  Archie Mayo was paid: Ever in My Heart, Warner Bros. Archives.

  the German cabinet decreed: World Almanac and Book of Facts for 1934.

  “too fluffy on one”: Wallis to Koenig, memo, July 26, 1933.

  “don’t shoot these group”: Wallis to Mayo, memo, July 29, 1933.

  “The Hays office”: Wallis to Mayo and Presnell, memo, August 15, 1933.

  “For the make-up girls”: Asher, “In Exile and Loving It,” 69.

  This time he returned: Ever in My Heart press book, 4.

  “It’s from all of us”: Ibid.

  “I’m building it up”: Ron Miller, Hartford Courant, March 29, 1983, D10.

  “were comparable to”: Fidler, “Barbara Stanwyck Answers Twenty Timely Questions,” 23.

  “We object to hordes”: Frank Cates, “Has America Declared War on All Foreign Players?,” Movie Classic, April 1933, 32, 33, 66–67.

  Fay was too drunk: Variety, September 5, 1933, 5.

  Barbara was in New York: Variety, September 12, 1933.

  A doctor was backstage: Telegraph, September 15, 1933.

  “It isn’t me that’s”: Gwin, “She’s a Movie Fan Too,” 47.

  “Not one stale person”: Article by Barbara Stanwyck, no date.

  No act replaced him: Variety, October 17, 1933, 49.

  Barbara knew he’d been: Vaslett to author, October 2002.

  After his release a: Barbara Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 8, Superior Court of the State of California.

  Amid gossip of trouble: Saturday Evening Post, September 1933.

  “Because I want to”: Stanwyck Fay affidavit, 8.

  “of having no self”: Gladys Hall, “Barbara Stanwyck’s Advice to Girls in Love,” 3, AMPAS.

  “Most couples don’t do that”: Movie Classics, September 1933, 28.

  Soon after, she dissolved: New York Times, March 24 and May 8, 1932.

  After six years of being: Scott O’Brien, “The Inevitable Road to Stardom,” Films of the Golden Age no. 60 (Spring 2010), 41.

  Two: Sinister Provisions

  “We counted our blessings”: Clarke, Featured Player, 137–39.

  Word had spread: Ralph Morgan and John C. Lee, “The Guild,” Screen Actor, September 1941, 19.

  “an autonomous organization”: Ibid., 20.

  During the meeting two: Ibid., 20, 52.

  New officers were chosen: New York Times, October 10, 1933.

  The new slate of officers: Valerie Yaros (SAG) to author, January 21, 2003.

  More than 250 actors: Morgan and Lee, “Guild,” 52.

  Montgomery was appointed chairman: SAG meeting minutes, p. 57, courtesy Valerie Yaros.

  “The studios required you”: Robert Montgomery interview, SAG 1979, 28.

  “The days of slavery”: New York Times, October 13, 1933.

  Actors who produced: Ibid.

  He also called for: Schwartz, Hollywood Writers’ Wars, 30–31.

  “tender, heart-touching, tragic”: W. E. Oliver, Los Angeles Evening Herald Examiner, October 20, 1933.

  “Both Miss Stanwyck and Kruger”: Ibid.

  “Emotion is Miss Stanwyck’s”: Variety, October 17, 1933, 57.

  Three: Leading with Your Ace

  “Keep Stanwyck/These days”: Harry Warner to J. L. Warner, telegram, September 11, 1933.

  Of concern as well: Wallis to Jim Seymour, memos re: Broadway and Back, August 8–September 19, 1933, Warner Bros. Archives.

  Wallis next offered her: Variety, November 21, 1933, 29.

  Three months later: David Mathews to W. G. Wallace, WB memo, March 30, 1936.

  The studio took note: Roy Obringer to Jack Warner, memo, December 13, 1933, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “Dear Louie, You’ve just”: Ibid., 73.

  Warner paid RKO $7,000: Roy Obringer to Mayberry, memo, November 22, 1933, Warner Bros.
Archives.

  “Well, then, get off”: Interview of Joel McCrea with Peter McCrea.

  He’d grown up: Ibid.

  He had attended Hollywood: Ibid.

  That was the end: Ibid.

  He figured that Fay: Ibid.

  During the day at work: Los Angeles Post Record, December 1, 1933.

  “I’m still nuts about”: Interview Joel McCrea with Peter McCrea.

  It was clear to Buck: Buck Mack affidavit, January 10, 1938, 3.

  The federal government claimed: Los Angeles Evening Herald Record, November 24, 1933.

  Two weeks later Warner Bros.: Summons to Appear, December 1, 1933, Warner Bros. Archives.

  He’d put in a tennis: A Lost Lady press book, 20.

  She was going out: Judith Stevens to author, October 18, 1998, 16.

  Frank and Barbara put down: Bank of America v. Frank Fay, Barbara Stanwyck Fay, Corporation of America, John Doe Co., Richard Roe Co., Henry Poe Co., February 20, 1939, 2.

  The Bank of America paid: BS to Bank of America, December 15, 1933, Warner Bros. Archives.

  Four: A Beautiful Ghost

  Ever in My Heart didn’t do well: Gross income breakdown of pictures, Schaefer Collection, courtesy of Ned Comstock.

  Among the featured players: Variety, January 2, 1934, 127.

  “But it’s the man’s story”: S. R. Mook, Modern Screen, October 1934, 97.

  “Tailored smartly to suit”: Variety, April 10, 1934, 13.

  “high entertainment [with] superb”: Variety, n.d.

  Gambling Lady was a hit: It cost $230,000 and made back, domestically, $478,000. Warner earnings to February 27, 1942, Schaefer Collection, courtesy of Ned Comstock.

  “We don’t want to”: Hal Wallis to Henry Blanke, memo, May 2, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  Wallis sent the script: List of scripts and dates submitted to Stanwyck, memo, n.d., Warner Bros. Archives.

  “It is doubtful if”: Edith Lewis, Willa Cather Living, 24.

  “beautiful ghost”: Cather and Bohlke, Willa Cather in Person, 79.

  “an excitement that came”: Cather, A Lost Lady, 31.

  “as belonging to a different”: Ibid., 42.

  “There was no fun”: Cather and Bohlke, Willa Cather in Person, 77.

  “I didn’t try to make”: Ibid.

  “that she had had a hand”: Cather, A Lost Lady, 171.

  “just out of college”: Graham Baker to Hal Wallis, memo, July 10, 1930, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “we can get a splendid”: Gene Markey to Hal Wallis, memo, February 21, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “In as much as we”: Jim Seymour to Hal Wallis, memo, May 25, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  For their work: Budget, A Lost Lady no. 881, 2.

  and was finished: AFI Catalog.

  “If there are any”: J. L. Warner to Jim Seymour, memo, June 18, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “massacre of innocent youths”: Memoirs of Will H. Hays, 450.

  “Protests against salacious films”: Ibid., 451.

  “At last we [have]”: Ibid., 454.

  Warner Bros. informed Barbara: Roy Obringer to BS, May 31, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  Warner Bros. was to pay: to Warner Bros. from James Lytle (Internal Revenue Service), September 10, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  Warner production supervisors, writers: Hal Wallis to supervisors, writers, directors, department heads, memo, August 23, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  Willa Cather had received letters: Janis P. Stout, ed., A Calendar of the Letters of Willa Cather (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 163.

  “whether for the purpose”: Lee, Willa Cather, 330.

  “kept her distance from”: Fanny Butcher, in Cather and Bohlke, Willa Cather in Person, xxviii.

  Five: Normal People Leading Normal Lives

  Three hundred million tons: World Almanac and Book of Facts for 1934, 152.

  By 1934, huge rocks: Johnson, Heaven’s Tableland, 164.

  Congress approved Roosevelt’s request: Ibid., 174.

  In July, President Roosevelt: Variety, July 3, 1934.

  “How the lights were placed”: Gwin, “She’s a Movie Fan Too,” 47, 62.

  Jack Warner wasn’t interested: Roy Obringer to Hal Wallis, memo, October 9, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  He worked as the master: Variety, October 16, 1934, 15.

  They had to take: August 7, 1934, letter, signed Barbara Stanwyck, Warner Bros., and Bank of America.

  “If the rest of Hollywood”: New York Evening Post, March 31, 1934.

  “Dramatic action only implied”: Reader’s report, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “Sell this to her”: Hal Wallis to Tom Buckingham, memo, July 10, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  The pictures Warner was: Bernard Drew, Film Comment, March–April 1981, 45.

  Wallis told his staff: Hal Wallis to Miss Juergens (secretary to Roy Obringer), memo, August 29, 1934.

  A studio lawyer advised: Ralph Lewis to Hazel Juergens, August 29, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  The picture’s budget: $215,000: Weekly Production Cost, September 11, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  Buckingham became ill: Variety, September 12, 1934.

  “to own you”: Schwartz, Hollywood Writers’ Wars, 20–21.

  She went to work: September 11, 1934, Warner Bros. production notes.

  “The script was bad”: Ella Smith, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck, 68.

  Dion wouldn’t keep still: Barbara Stanwyck Fay, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 4.

  “the agony of quarreling”: Hall, “Barbara Stanwyck’s Advice to Girls in Love,” 2, 3.

  “The humiliation of such”: Gladys Hall, 1935.

  The nurse took him: Ann Hoyt, affidavit, January 10, 1938, 5–6.

  Barbara’s allegiance to Fay: Red Salute press book, 2.

  Barbara also gave him: The Woman in Red press book, 14.

  “Dear Kid”: Jane Ellen Wayne, Robert Taylor, 62 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), and Gladys Hall Papers, 1918–1969, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.

  “[as] not [being] very”: Ella Smith, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck, 68.

  “You know, iron rule”: BS to Rex Reed, 1981, 18–19.

  In order for Warner: Roy Obringer to Jack Warner, memo, September 15, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “Don’t go to see”: Muriel Babcock, Los Angeles Examiner, October 27, 1934.

  “a dismal drama”: Eileen Creelman, New York Sun, October 4, 1934.

  “it fails almost ludicrously”: Richard Watts, New York Herald Tribune, October 16, 1934.

  “Everything and everybody is”: Variety, October 9, 1934.

  Six: Another Routine Job

  “pretty good vehicle”: Sam Bischoff to Hal Wallis, memo, July 26, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “objectionable from the Point”: Joseph Breen to Jack Warner, November 15, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  Hal Wallis wanted Joel McCrea: Hal Wallis to Maxwell Arnow, memo, October 8, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “It seems to me this”: Harry Joe Brown to Hal Wallis, memo, October 26, 1934.

  “If there is going”: Hal Wallis to Koenig, memo, October 22, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “I kept thinking of”: The Woman in Red press book, 14.

  “There was little”: The Marx Brothers Scrapbook, 117.

  “didn’t have the power”: Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck, 68, 73.

  “more than a routine”: Ibid.

  “She was always cooperative”: Ibid., 73.

  “It would be the same”: The Woman in Red press book, 15.

  “I think she could”: Larry Kleno to author, April 2003.

  In addition, there was: Variety, December 4, 1934, 3.

  “Hollywood knows so little”: Asher, “In Exile and Loving It,” 69.

  Jack Warner was determined: Variety, December 11, 1934, 3.

  In a few of the scenes: The Woman in Red press book, 13.


  At the end of: Ibid., 16.

  “I cannot understand why”: J. L. Warner to Joseph Breen, November 7, 1934, AMPAS.

  “Between you and me”: Joseph Breen to J. L. Warner, November 9, 1934, AMPAS.

  “All I did was”: Helen Louise Walker, “Barbara Stanwyck Loves a Good Scrap,” 62.

  “Who the hell [is]”: Beauchamp, Without Lying Down, 316.

  Wong’s reputation in China: Hye Seung Chung, Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the Politics of Cross-Ethnic Performance (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), 98.

  Asther hadn’t worked with: Variety, January 10, 1935, 1.

  With the casting of a white man: Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 151–52.

  “Boys—this is our”: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 113–16.

  In November, at a hearing: World Almanac and Book of Facts for 1935, 169; the hearing was November 20, 1934.

  the beloved Marie Dressler: Beauchamp, Without Lying Down, 319.

  Barbara received 17 percent: Hollywood Citizen-News, no date.

  “In my opinion this”: Jack Warner to Hal Wallis, memo, December 6, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  “Everyone I have talked to”: Hal Wallis to Jack Warner, memo, December 6, 1934, Warner Bros. Archives.

  The largest strike ever: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 111–13.

  Members of the Screen: John C. Lee, “The Guild—the Contract—Actors Win Pact,” Screen Actor, 1941, 9.

  “[Capra] adored him”: McBride, Frank Capra, 242.

  the top of his list: James Cain to BS, November 26, 1950, Alice L. Birney Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

  “a saucy little number”: Ibid.

  “give herself away”: Bernard Drew, Film Comment, March–April 1981, 45.

  Seven: Average Screenfare

  “You can’t be bubbly”: Screenland, March 1964.

  “What is needed to”: Ada Patterson, Screenland, September 1933, 28.

  Nellie looked up to see: Nellie Banner, affidavit, 3, Superior Court of the State of California.

  Frank was the only: Ibid.

  Byron had no interest: Judith Stevens to author, October 15, 1998.

  Warner Bros. continued to list: Variety, January 1, 1935, 37.

  Clive Brook, to co-star: In the end John Boles took Brook’s role; AFI, 1582.

  Jaffe was asking $50,000: February 25, 1935, memo from Sam Jaffe, Stanwyck Legal File no. 2929, Special Collections, UCLA.