#barbara stanwyck
“According to Hollywood historians, actress Barbara Stanwyck wasn’t only a diva of gay culture, but a hero too—a real-life lesbian who also played one in the movies (Walk on the Wild Side) and probably had flings with Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich. Like many Cancers, Stanwyck fiercely gaurded her privacy and vulnerability. ‘She talks a tough game,’ said a family insider, ‘but…she isn’t so cocksure like she always pretends. But it was a very hard shell she built.’ On TV she played the stereotypical Cancer-type of matriarch in The Big Valley.”-Excerpt from Gay Stars The Ultimate Gay Guy’s Guide to Astrology by Matthew Abergel
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Barbara StanwyckandJames MasoninEastSide, West Side (Mervyn LeRoy, 1949)
Happy Birthday, Barbara Stanwyck (July 16, 1907 -
January 20, 1990)“I’m the living proof that physical beauty is not the most valuable asset of a screen actress. I have the face that sank a thousand ships, but I’ve managed to make a living. Maybe, it’s self-defense, but I think that the inward quality, rather than the surface appearance, is what really matters.”
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Errol Flynn, Barbara Stanwyck, Geraldine Brooks, Helene Thimig, Paul Stanton and John Ridgely in Cry Wolf (1947)
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“Of all the people Barbara Stanwyck was close to, her most consistent relationship was with her very loyal, sometimes live-in girl Friday, the prototypical actress-turned-publicist Helen Ferguson. The two never defined their relationship, but if Stanwyck’s marriages to men were described as lavender, the Stanwyck/Ferguson’s union may very well have been of the Boston variety. Ferguson was by Stanwyck’s side for the bulk of her career, from the Hollywood heyday to the 1960s, when Stanwyck started portraying a series of pioneering women on television shows like Wagon TrainandThe Big Valley.In the book, Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Popular Culture, Luca Prono states that in the 1960s, 1970s, and even into the 1980s, Stanwyck was seen as a cultural and personal template for lesbians. ‘Stanwyck acquired the status of icon within lesbian communities,’ Prono writes. 'Stanwyck was a woman whose screen persona challenged respectability because of the strong and independent women she embodied in the 1940s.’”
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“If one were to try to place Joan Crawford on Kinsey’s Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale (where 0 is exclusively heterosexual and 6 is exclusively homosexual), she would probably rate about a 2 ("predominantely heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual”). At this time, lesbian experimentation was sometimes seen as just a way of expressing freedom and lack of inhibition. ‘At least you can’t get pregnant,’ Joan joked many years later, when the subject of lesbianism somehow came up at a luncheon.“-Excerpt from Joan Crawford The Essential Biography By Lawrence J. Quirk and William Schoell
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“It would have been so different if you hadn’t run away. It would have been you instead of Walter. Or if you had stopped me. When I lifted the cane, why didn’t you stop me? You know how much I hated her. Why didn’t you stop me?”
In April, TCM celebrates all things Oscar with their 31 DAYS OF OSCAR programming, and it frankly boggles my mind how Barbara Stanwyck never won a competitive Academy Award. She received nominations for STELLA DALLAS (‘37), BALL OF FIRE (‘41), DOUBLE INDEMNITY (‘44) and SORRY, WRONG NUMBER (‘48). She was such a good, solid actress. Starting off as a Broadway chorus girl, Stanwyck had been honing her craft in film since 1929. Never really the sweet, ingenue, girl-next-door type, there was often an edge and feistiness to even her most sympathetic characters. The bulk of the 1930s saw her in dramas, but THE MAD MISS MANTON (‘38) unlocked the screwball door.
It turns out Stanwyck could do comedy and drama (no easy feat being a double threat) and sling a line with the best of ’em. On second thought, perhaps she is a triple threat because she could do Westerns (I never saw Bette Davis gallop on a horse and no, rear screen projections don’t count). Or maybe even a quadruple threat because she could dance: (did you see her do that split in LADY OF BURLESQUE, ‘43)? In the 40’s, Stanwyck jumped another hurdle as she crossed the threshold into stone-cold, lethal ladyhood with DOUBLE INDEMNITY.
It’s often too easy to say someone is a good girl or bad guy. As soon as you ask WHY one does what one does…you realize folks are a little more complex than either or. That’s where I put Stanwyck as she delves into the dark side with THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS. I must have seen this movie, conservatively speaking, at least 11,329,853 times since the 1960s. It’s one of my top five favorite films. Stanwyck is great in this. I see her Martha Ivers as a woman trapped. The entire cast is terrific. Everyone fulfills the trope of characters we’ve become familiar with in the world of film noir. Along with Stanwyck, the film stars Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott and in his first screen appearance, Kirk Douglas as Stanwyck’s husband, Walter O’Neil.
Scott’s character here is a girl more on the good side than bad side of noir, and who’s been hurt by men…victimized. Oh, we see she knows she appeals to men, and they want to give her things. But then she’s often left holding the bag. In MARTHA IVERS she’s on parole and will be used by the law to corner Heflin. But before she betrays him, they’ve got a nice budding relationship going. She’s a little wary and can take care of herself, but ultimately she’s a lost, hurt pup. Composer Miklós Rózsa underscores her vulnerability with sweet romantic violins. She has no hidden agenda and just wants a ride out of town in the opposite direction the law wants to send her. She falls for Heflin. This time she might’ve picked right: a man who wants nothing from her. But before they go forward, he must go back.
It took me 40 years of watching this movie to really fall for Van Heflin and now…I’m hooked. I really like him in this film. Heflin plays Sam Masterson, the usual protagonist you see in film noir: the flippant, wise-ass, smart aleck: “The road turned and I didn’t.” He roams from thing to thing…wears the requisite fedora. Sam is easy, breezy. And he stumbles into his past. While Walter might not bruise an olive, Sam doesn’t back away from a fight. Sam shows us a glimpse of hurt when he talks about his “people” who abandoned him. He’s sensitive to the hard-luck girl he picks up along the way without taking advantage of her. He’s also an opportunist. He figures out that from asking D.A. Walter for a favor, it might land him in the chips if he plays his cards right.
As an actor, Heflin faces the big kahuna in this movie: Stanwyck. This is their first pairing but it wouldn’t be their last. They co-star in EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE (‘48) and B.F.’s DAUGHTER (‘49). They’re both so accomplished opposite each other. Stanwyck has had some dashing leading men in her career, but for my money…very, very few of them can hold a candle with her like Van Heflin.
The Oscars likes Acting ( with a capital “A” ). I’ll begrudgingly admit, Stanwyck’s four Oscar-nominations come from showier performances. In them, she’s a terrorized, self-sacrificing, pistol of a showgirl with a cheap blonde wig living with some squirrely professors and wants her lover to murder her husband. She’s not showy in MARTHA IVERS though she does run a gamut of emotions and attitudes on her journey, and nothing beats Stanwyck when she has to desperately plead. Whether she’s steely, contemptuous, dismissive, sarcastic, desperate, desirous, loving or volcanic, Barbara Stanwyck has many gears she can expertly shift into. And any one of them should garner her an Oscar.
THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS is one of the best films noir. Riveting in how it unspools events, it’s all a noir should be, even without the flashback and narration. And please keep your eye out for Ann Doran’s five-minute bit as a secretary. She’s a dream. Simply a dream. They say you can’t go home again. It’s especially true in film noir. Well, time to watch the movie once more. Coming up on my 11,329,854th time.
