{"id":35885,"date":"2013-06-21T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=35885"},"modified":"2014-06-06T14:18:33","modified_gmt":"2014-06-06T18:18:33","slug":"barbara-stanwyck-sweet-as-pie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=35885","title":{"rendered":"Barbara Stanwyck: From Sweet as Pie to Tough as Leather"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/barbara-stanwyck-sweet-as-pie\/stanwyck-barbara1\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-36655\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-36655\" alt=\"STANWYCK, BARBARA1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/STANWYCK-BARBARA1.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"266\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/browse_list.asp?cid=dr&amp;dept=Barbara+Stanwyck&amp;media=d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Barbara Stanwyck<\/a> could easily be the toughest cookie of &#8217;em all; this Brooklyn-born former cabaret dancer forged her durable film career on a series of hardboiled heroines and predatory femme fatales marked with her inimitable brand of indomitability. Life would vest the woman born Ruby Catherine Stevens in 1907 with\u00a0reserves of flintiness early on; she was two (four in some sources) when her mother died in a streetcar accident, and her laborer father would abandon his five children to work on the Panama Canal shortly thereafter. Her early childhood was spent with an older sister and in a succession of foster homes, and her formal education ended at age 14, when she dropped out to support herself. The lithe youngster put aside what she could for dance lessons, and within two years got her first break as a Broadway chorus girl.<\/p>\n<p>She found steady work through the mid-&#8217;20s hoofing in numerous revues, including the Ziegfeld Follies; breakout recognition came with Willard Mack&#8217;s 1926 Broadway play &#8220;The Noose.&#8221; During the play&#8217;s road tryouts, Mack spied an old poster promoting actress Jane Stanwyck starring in &#8220;Barbara Frietchie,&#8221; and Ruby gained her marquee name. Years later she said, &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t remember my name for weeks. I&#8217;d be at the theater and hear them calling, &#8216;Miss Stanwyck, Miss Stanwyck&#8217;, and I&#8217;d think, &#8216;Where is that dame? Why doesn&#8217;t she answer?&#8217; By crickie, it&#8217;s me!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Barbara got her first film opportunity soon thereafter with a supporting turn in the 1927 silent drama\u00a0Broadway Nights. After another NYC stage success with &#8220;Burlesque,&#8221; the actress married\u00a0older vaudevillian Frank Fay, and the couple went to Hollywood in search of opportunities. She made her talkie debut in 1929&#8217;s The Locked Door, but real traction would keep until the next year&#8217;s <a title=\"Ladies of Leisure\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D60140&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Ladies of Leisure<\/a>, with Stanwyck\u00a0as a gorgeous, gold-digging model who gets a wealthy aspiring artist interested, only to have his parents shun her. The film also kicked off her long and fruitful association with Frank Capra. She&#8217;d\u00a0reunite with the director three times over the next couple of years: as a preacher&#8217;s daughter, enlisted by a con artist to pose as an evangelist, who becomes a renowned faith healer in <a title=\"The Miracle Woman\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D60140&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Miracle Woman<\/a> (1931); in 1932&#8217;s <a title=\"Forbidden\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D60140&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Forbbidden<\/a>, with librarian Stanwyck falling into a shipboard romance with married, rising politician Adolphe Menjou, only to be squeezed for her secrets by mudslinger Ralph Bellamy; and in the controversial-for-its-time <a title=\"The Bitter Tea of General Yen\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D60140&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Bitter Tea of General Yen<\/a>\u00a0(1933), as an American missionary who sojourns to civil war-torn China to unite with her fianc\u00e9, but finds herself carried off and courted by charming warlord Nils Asther. Capra remained among her closest friends throughout their careers.<\/p>\n<p>The pre-Code period found Barbara splitting her time between Warner and Columbia, and swiftly endearing herself to Depression-era audiences as a wholly relatable working-class heroine. She was an unlucky-in-love &#8220;taxi dancer&#8221;\u00a0in the racy\u00a0<a title=\"Ten Cents a Dance\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D59936&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Ten Cents a Dance<\/a>\u00a0(1931), co-starring Ricardo Cortez. The following year found the actress overcoming adversity as a <a title=\"Night Nurse\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D53807&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Night Nurse<\/a>\u00a0(her first screen pairing with Clark Gable); as a <a title=\"Shopworn\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D59936&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Shopworn<\/a> waitress who catches the eye of\u00a0rich boy Regis Toomey; and as a gangster&#8217;s torch singer girlfriend who flees by becoming a mail-order bride in <a title=\"The Purchase Price\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D25315&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Purchase Price<\/a>. She was one of those <a title=\"Ladies They Talk About\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D59188&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Ladies They Talk About<\/a> in 1933 and slept her way up the corporate ladder of a New York bank that same year in the daring drama <a title=\"Baby Face\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D69144&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Baby Face<\/a>. Political intrigue was the name of the game when Stanwyck walked down the aisle as <a title=\"The Secret Bride\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D82502&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Secret Bride<\/a> in 1934, and, as <a title=\"The Woman in Red\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D82501&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Woman in Red<\/a>\u00a0the following year, Barbara witnessed a suspicious death on a playboy&#8217;s yacht, in a tale based on a novel that may have been inspired by the controversial 1924 death of pioneering filmmaker Thomas Ince.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Stella-Dallas-1937.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-35889 alignright\" alt=\"Stella Dallas (1937)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Stella-Dallas-1937.jpg\" width=\"290\" height=\"429\" \/><\/a>By 1935, the actress was sufficiently established so that she could freelance for the rest of her career, and her marriage with the fading Fay (a union said by some to have been the inspiration for A Star Is Born) was over. Through the balance of the decade her standing continued to rise, with her title turn as the sacrificing mother in 1937&#8217;s Stella Dallas earning Barbara\u00a0her first Best Actress Oscar nomination (she and\u00a0the other principal players brought their characters to the airwaves three months later in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=R11119%20%20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Lux Radio Theater dramatization<\/a>).\u00a0Years later, looking back on Dallas, her favorite of all her film roles, Stanwyck said, &#8220;The task was to convince audiences that Stella&#8217;s instincts were fine and noble, even though on the surface she was loud, flamboyant, and a bit vulgar.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Barbara got her gun\u00a0to play Annie Oakley in\u00a01935&#8217;s somewhat fictionalized biodrama of the\u00a0legendary\u00a0Wild West sharpshooter, and in the gripping (and also factually suspect) Spanish-American War tale <a title=\"Message to Garcia\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D09951&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Message to Garcia<\/a> (1936), she played opposite Wallace Beery and John Boles.\u00a0Stanwyck co-starred with Joel McCrea in the romantic comedy\u00a0<a title=\"Banjo on My Knee\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D60177&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Banjo on My Knee<\/a> (1936) and with soon-to-be-husband Robert Taylor in the following year&#8217;s intriguing historical suspenser <a title=\"This is My Affair\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D60578&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">This Is My Affair<\/a>. Also in &#8217;37, she learned that <a title=\"Internes Can't Take Money\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D81394&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Internes Can&#8217;t Take Money<\/a>\u00a0(That&#8217;s not a typo &#8211; it&#8217;s the way &#8220;interns&#8221; is spelled in the original Max Brand story), in the first entry in MGM&#8217;s popular Dr. Kildare series, and as\u00a0<a title=\"The Mad Miss Manton\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D56230&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Mad Miss Manton<\/a> (1938), Barbara is wonderfully funny as a society girl who&#8217;s convinced she&#8217;s uncovered a murder after\u00a0stumbling upon a dead body in an abandoned house. The decade&#8217;s close found\u00a0her torn between frontier charmers Joel McCrea and Robert Preston in\u00a0Cecil B. DeMille&#8217;s 1939 railroad epic <a title=\"Union Pacific\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D67968&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Union Pacific<\/a>, and later that year she\u00a0starred opposite longtime close friend William Holden when he made his screen debut in Clifford Odets&#8217; <a title=\"Golden Boy\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D48907&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Golden Boy<\/a>. Holden, who played the title role on Broadway, always claimed that Stanwyck saved his nascent film career when she stood up to studio bigwigs who were considering\u00a0dropping him from the project. Upon accepting her lifetime achievement Oscar in 1982, she remembered the actor (who died just a few months earlier) and stirred the audience by saying, &#8220;A few years ago I stood on this stage with William Holden as a presenter. I loved him very much, and I miss him. He always wished that I would get an Oscar. And so tonight, my golden boy, you got your wish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Miss Stanwyck (known to her close friends as Missy)\u00a0would be at the crest of her popularity and power over the WWII years, as evidenced by her turns as the shoplifter put in prosecutor Fred MacMurray&#8217;s holiday-season care in 1940&#8217;s <a title=\"Remember the Night\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D05044&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Remember the Night<\/a>; the cynical reporter promoting put-up populist Gary Cooper in Capra&#8217;s <a title=\"Meet John Doe\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D21970&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Meet John Doe<\/a>\u00a0(1941); the cardsharp targeting rich patsy Henry Fonda in Preston Sturges&#8217; <a title=\"The Lady Eve \" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D69086&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Lady Eve <\/a>(1941);\u00a0and as a brash showgirl who turns stodgy academic Cooper&#8217;s life around in Howard Hawks&#8217; 1941 comedy Ball Of Fire (Rumor had it that she got the part, which garnered her a second Best Actress Oscar nomination,\u00a0only after Ginger Rogers dropped out).\u00a01943&#8217;s <a title=\"Lady of Burlesque\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D61995&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Lady of Burlesque<\/a> was a hoot, with Barbara starring as a burlesque queen who teams with comic Michael O&#8217;Shea to determine the murderer of a young woman strangled by a G-string. Some audience members weren&#8217;t ready for Missy&#8217;s role in this entertaining whodunit when it was discovered the story was based on a mystery novel\u00a0by real-life ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee. In a much less sympathetic performance&#8211;but one that landed her a third Best Actress nom from the Academy&#8211;calculating housewife Barbara\u00a0lured insurance salesman MacMurray into a murderous scam in Billy Wilder&#8217;s hit noir thriller\u00a0<a title=\"Double Indemnity\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D49648&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Double Indemnity<\/a>. It&#8217;s worth noting that MacMurray&#8217;s career wasn&#8217;t going as well as Stanwyck&#8217;s at this point, and it was this\u00a0against-type role,\u00a0which just about every Hollywood leading man had already turned down, that got him back on track. It also cemented a lifelong friendship between the two leads. Barbara later\u00a0reminisced about filming and said, &#8220;During Double Indemnity, Fred MacMurray would go to rushes. I remember asking Fred, &#8216;How was I?&#8217; Fred&#8217;s response was &#8216;I don&#8217;t know about you, but I was wonderful!&#8217; Such a true remark. Actors only look at themselves.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The post-war period found her continuing to click with audiences, although the critical response would be uneven. Among\u00a0her key performances during this time were the perennially popular holiday-themed comedy <a title=\"Christmas in Connecticut (1942): A Veritable Feast of Talent\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/christmas_in_connecticut\/\">Christmas in Connecticut<\/a>\u00a0(1945); <a title=\"The Strange Love of Martha Ivers\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D18308&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Strange Love of Martha Ivers<\/a> (1946), which introduced audiences to Kirk Douglas; and <a title=\"My Reputation\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D48686&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">My Reputation<\/a> (also &#8217;46), where she&#8217;s\u00a0a widowed mother of two whose friends disapprove when she falls for Army officer George Brent.\u00a0As one of <a title=\"The Two Mrs. Carrolls\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D27189&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Two Mrs. Carrolls<\/a> (1947), Stanwyck realizes husband Humphrey Bogart has a dark secret, and that same year she was again in\u00a0danger in the offbeat and intriguing thriller <a title=\"Cry Wolf \" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D45448&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Cry Wolf<\/a>\u00a0as a recently widowed woman who travels to her husband&#8217;s family estate, where she learns that sinister patriarch Errol Flynn is hiding more than a few skeletons in the clan&#8217;s closet. Her final Academy Award nomination came for her turn as Burt Lancaster&#8217;s invalid housewife, who believes she has eavesdropped on a plan to kill her, in <a title=\"Sorry, Wrong Number\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D28846&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Sorry, Wrong Number<\/a> (1948). Also in &#8217;48, she helped bring to the screen John P. Marquand&#8217;s topical drama <a title=\"B.F.'s Daughter\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D45449&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">B.F.&#8217;s Daughter<\/a> as a wealthy industrialist&#8217;s daughter whose husband (Van Heflin) makes no secret of his disgust over Stanwyck&#8217;s decadent and privileged lifestyle. Then, in 1949,\u00a0<a title=\"East Side, West Side\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D48686&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">East Side, West Side<\/a>\u00a0found Barbara and husband James Mason experiencing trouble from gorgeous Ava Gardner.<\/p>\n<p>By the early &#8217;50s, Stanwyck&#8217;s 12-year marriage to Robert Taylor had ended; the still-trim and attractive actress had no shortage of projects through the Eisenhower era, as best evidenced by a trio of 1950 efforts: the terrific noir tale <a title=\"The File on Thelma Jordon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D11407&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The File on Thelma Jordon<\/a>,\u00a0reminiscent of her\u00a0Double Indemnity turn; Anthony Mann&#8217;s moody Western melodrama, <a title=\"The Furies\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D10450&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Furies<\/a>; \u00a0and\u00a0the compelling mystery, <a title=\"No Man of Her Own\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D42203&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">No Man of Her Own<\/a> (based on an oft-filmed\u00a0Cornell Woolrich novel),\u00a0with Barbara excelling as a single, pregnant woman\u00a0who befriends a newlywed pair on a cross-country train and, after a train crash that kills the couple, poses as the dead man&#8217;s widow to his wealthy family.\u00a0The actress once again found herself in jeopardy as the star of&#8211;naturally enough&#8211;<a title=\"Jeopardy\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D48685&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Jeopardy<\/a>, a 1953\u00a0drama where she tries to convince her kidnapper to help save the life of her trapped\u00a0husband (played by her real-life friend Barry Sullivan).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/barbara-stanwyck-sweet-as-pie\/titanic-1953-2\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-36685\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-36685\" alt=\"TITANIC 1953\" src=\"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/TITANIC-1953.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onecinephile.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/TITANIC-1953.jpg 200w, https:\/\/onecinephile.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/TITANIC-1953-187x300.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>Also in &#8217;53,\u00a0<a title=\"Titanic\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D44350&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Titanic<\/a> found Barbara and estranged husband Clifton Webb among the passengers and crew trapped on board\u00a0the doomed luxury liner after its fateful encounter with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. 1954&#8217;s <a title=\"Executive Suite\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D48683&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Executive Suite<\/a>\u00a0bolstered her ability to play the power struggle game, as a manufacturing\u00a0company&#8217;s ruthless chief shareholder, in the still effective\u00a0boardroom drama. She rode hell-bent for leather as the <a title=\"Cattle Queen Of Montana\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D28361&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Cattle Queen of Montana<\/a>\u00a0in &#8217;54, seeking revenge when her rancher pa is killed by Indians, getting help from Ronald Reagan along the way. Continuing her Western period, she was the perfect picture of ambition as Edward G. Robinson&#8217;s wife in <a title=\"The Violent Men\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D62581&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Violent Men<\/a> (1955); Joel McCrea, as U.S. Cavalry <a title=\"Trooper Hook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D84154&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Trooper Hook<\/a>\u00a0(1957), protected Barbara from ruthless renegade Indians; and in the Samuel Fuller-penned <a title=\"Forty Guns\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D76604&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Forty Guns<\/a> (also &#8217;57), she was a tough rancher ruling over a small Arizona town with the help of 40 hired gunmen (as a trivia tidbit, her character&#8217;s name in that film was Jessica Drummond, the same as her role in My Reputation 10 years earlier). When the press asked about her four-year hiatus from the big screen after Forty Guns, she simply said, &#8220;Nobody asked me. They don&#8217;t normally write parts for women my age because America is now a country of youth. We&#8217;ve matured and moved on. The past belongs to the past.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As with many in her peer group, the inevitable transition to TV work came; her eponymous omnibus drama series that ran a season on NBC over 1960-1961 garnered Stanwyck an Emmy. The next several years brought more episodic small-screen work, along with the occasional movie project. She was a New Orleans bordello madame in\u00a01962&#8217;s Walk on the Wild Side, with Jane Fonda and Laurence Harvey, and was the traveling carnival head honcho who made Elvis Presley sing for his supper in 1964&#8217;s\u00a0<a title=\"Roustabout\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D34543&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Roustabout<\/a>. 1964 would also\u00a0see Barbara make her final big-screen appearance, opposite ex-husband and co-star Robert Taylor, in shock impresario William Castle&#8217;s chiller The Night Walker. The following year \u00a0marked the start of a\u00a0four-season run as\u00a0ranchland matriarch Victoria Barkley in the popular ABC western <a title=\"The Big Valley\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D68078&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Big Valley<\/a>, a role which resulted in another Emmy and two more nominations.<\/p>\n<p>The early &#8217;70s saw a few telefilm efforts before she entered a decade away from performing. Not being beholden to any one studio in her heyday gave Stanwyck autonomy, but the lack of one&#8217;s backing probably cost her a competitive Oscar; She was sometimes referred to by her peers as &#8220;The Best Actress Who Never Won an Oscar.&#8221; The situation was finally rectified with an honorary Academy Award in 1982. Back in the spotlight, she returned to TV for the 1983\u00a0mini-series <a title=\"The Thorn Birds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviesunlimited.com\/musite\/product.asp?sku=D83839&amp;loc=buzzsearch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Thorn Birds<\/a> (resulting in her final Emmy) and a one-season stint in 1985 on the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys. She packed it in after that, devoting herself to\u00a0charity\u00a0work before passing\u00a0away from heart failure and pulmonary ailments\u00a0at 82 in 1990. Prior to her death, the iconic star\u00a0left some pretty good advice for future actresses taught to her by director Frank Capra. &#8220;Eyes are the greatest tool in film,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Mr. Capra taught me that. Sure, it&#8217;s nice to say very good dialogue, if you can get it. But great movie acting &#8211; watch the eyes!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whether she was playing a shopgirl, a showgirl, a cowgirl, or anything in between, Barbara Stanwyck was a favorite with movie and TV audiences for over 50 years. Movie FanFare looks at the life and career of the Brooklyn-born actress who, surprisingly, never won a competitive Academy Award.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5589],"coauthors":[1711,1715],"class_list":["post-35885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-staff-notes","tag-barbara-stanwyck"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Barbara Stanwyck: From Sweet As Pie To Tough As Leather<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Barbara Stanwyck. known in Hollywood as a versatile and professional actress, was a favorite with directors. Take a look at the career of Barbara Stanwyck\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=35885\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Barbara Stanwyck: From Sweet As Pie To Tough As Leather\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barbara Stanwyck. known in Hollywood as a versatile and professional actress, was a favorite with directors. 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