Barbara Stanwick

She didn’t have the cat beauty of Ava Gardner , or the glamor of Grace Kelly , or the sweetness of Ingrid Bergman , or the personality of Katharine Hepburn , but she had a gift far more necessary than all of these to succeed as a movie star: charisma. And she had it in spades. The Stanwyck, called “the Queen” in her glory days, had something magnetic on screen, an overwhelming natural appeal that connected with the viewer and left them totally helpless. It would seem that when she entered the scene, her presence filled every atom of air. And so, everything around her fell at her feet, became her property. The guy who felt that curious sensation the most was insurance salesman Fred MacMurray ., when back in 1944 he went to visit her in her whitewashed house in the California valley and she appeared wrapped in a towel at the top of the stairs, as if she were a vestal straight from Olympus. Impossible not to succumb, of course. The title in Spanish accurately explained what that meant: Perdición . Anyway, luckily there aren’t many Phyllis Dietrichsons around the world.

Barbara Stanwyck was really called Ruby Catherine Stevens and was born in Brooklyn (New York) on July 16, 1907. It seems that the stage name comes from a theatrical poster where she read: “Jane Stanwyck in `Barbara Freitchie’”. She did not have a very easy childhood, let it be said, since her mother died when she was only 4 years old and her father abandoned her shortly after. Before reaching the world of cinema, she came to work as a telephone operator – where she earned the pittance of 14 dollars a week – and as a showgirl in vaudeville shows – 40 dollars a week – with the hope of succeeding on Broadway. Throughout the 1920s she appeared in various shows and it was in that orbit that she met who she became her first husband, the actor Fran Fay. She made her screen debut with a role in the silent filmThe Wandering Duet (1927). But the young married couple wanted more and she moved to Los Angeles in 1928, determined to achieve glory in Hollywood. Such was Fay’s obsession with making her wife a celebrity that the script for A Star Is Born (1937) is said to be based on the story of her marriage. In any case, already in Hollywood, Barbara’s talent did not go unnoticed, and after her roles in the esteemed The Locked Door (1928) and Mexicali Rose (1929), she worked for the next five years with directors such as Frank Capra . in Light Women , The Miracle Woman , Forbidden Love andThe Bitterness of General Yen , Archie Mayo in Ilicit , William Wellman in Night Nurses , So Big! and The Purchase Price. Her ease in both drama and comedy, a genre in which she proved to be a true teacher, immediately earned her the favor of critics and the public. She stood out especially in the drama Angel Face (1933), in George Stevens ‘s biographical western Annie Oakley and in King Vidor ‘s superb romantic drama Stella Dallas (1937)., for which role he earned his first Oscar nomination. After her divorce in 1935, the actress remarried the gallant Robert Taylor , although they would divorce in 1951. The following years saw the consolidation of her brilliant career, which includes a whopping close to a hundred of movies.

It would be in the 40s when he starred in all his masterpieces. The year 1941 was truly spectacular: she accompanied Henry Fonda in The Three Nights of Eve , the stupendous romantic comedy signed by the unjustly forgotten Preston Sturges ; she was the reporter who made Gary Cooper fall in love in the Caprian fable Juan Nadie ; and she earned her second Oscar nomination thanks to the deceitful, charming blonde “Sugarpuss” in Howard Hawks ‘ explosive comedy Fireball . The following year, 1942, she did fantastic roles for Wellman, in the western A Great Lady and in The Variety Star.. And so came 1944, the year that brought together Billy Wilder , the master of crime fiction Raymond Chandler and Barbara Stanwyck. Starting with the play “Double Indemnity” by James M. Cain (also the creator of “The Postman Always Rings Twice”), Wilder and Chandler wrote a perfect, razor-sharp script that brought to life a character who she would become the archetype of the femme fatale, provocative and implacable, a temptation that from then on would always have the curls, the face and above all the look of the Stanwyck. “It was Mr. Capra who taught me that the eyes are the great tool of a movie,” said the actress. She was again nominated for an Oscar, but lost it to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight.. Despite everything, according to the government, in that year of 1944, Stanwyck became the highest paid woman in the country: she earned $400,000.

The actress subsequently did fabulous work in the noir genre – The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Voices of Death (1948), for which she was nominated for an Oscar for the fourth time, Meeting at Night (1952) and Only Witness ( 1954)–, but he also stood out in the western – Violent men (1955), 40 pistols (1957)–, the melodrama – the exquisite There is always tomorrow (1956), by Douglas Sirk – or the drama – The black cat(1962)–. Little by little her career was turning towards television, where she had estimable roles in “The Untouchables”, “Charlie’s Angels” or “Dynasty”. In 1982, the Academy awarded her a highly deserved honorary Oscar “for her superlative creativity and her unique contribution to the art of film performance.” Barbara Stanwyck died in Santa Monica on January 20, 1990.