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

Wilson, Victoria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439194068 ISBN 13: 9781439194065

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2015

Synopsis

Frank Capra called her, "The greatest emotional actress the screen has yet known." Yet she was one of its most natural, timeless, and underrated stars.

Now Victoria Wilson, gives us the most complete portrait we have yet had, or will have, of this magnificent actresses, seen as the quintessential Brooklyn girl whose family was in fact of old New England stock...her years in New York as dancer and Broadway star...her fraught marriage to Frank Fay, Broadway genius, who influenced a generation of actors and comedians (among them, Jack Benny and Stanwyck herself)...the adoption of a son, embattled from the outset; her partnership with the "unfunny" Marx brother, Zeppo, together creating one of the finest horse breeding farms in the west; her fairytale romance and marriage to the younger Robert Taylor, America's most sought-after male star...Here is the shaping of her career working with many of Hollywood's most important directors: among them, Capra, King Vidor, Cecil B. Demille, Preston Sturges, all set against the times-the Depression, the rise of the unions, the coming of World War II and a fast-evolving coming-of-age motion picture industry.

At the heart of the book, Stanwyck herself-her strengths, her fears, her desires-how she made use of the darkness in her soul, keeping it at bay in her private life, transforming herself from shunned outsider into one of Hollywood's-and America's-most revered screen actresses. Written with full access to Stanwyck's family, friends, colleagues, and never-before-seen letters, journals and photographs.

About this title

Review:

"Monumental... A vivid portrait of the entire era in which she flourished." (Peter Bogdanovich)

“Barbara Stanwyck was one of the very great loves of my life and Victoria Wilson's book told me so much more than Barbara herself could tell anybody. She has captured her loyalty--her professionalism--her anger and her undeniable will to stay in the game of life and, perhaps most importantly--her loneliness. Victoria has been ‘steel true’ to her.” (Robert Wagner)

"If ever there was an actress who was ready for prime time, it is Stanwyck, and this enormously informative tribute – juicy, yet dignified, admiring yet detached – is the book to bring her to center stage." (Molly Haskell New York Times Book Review)

“You’ll love this book. The story is full of flavor with details that create a kind of chiaroscuro painted deftly with a soft brush, of our life at that time... Wilson’s scholarliness on the subject of the life of a movie actress, a movie star whose career ran (she worked) for six decades, is awesome... If you are a movie fan, a filmmaking fan, a fan of Hollywood history, a filmmaker, or would be, should be, could be, or even just a person who is completely a TCM addict, this book you should be reading... I finished reading much to my disappointment (wanting more) after 860 pages.” (David Columbia New York Social Diary)

"I was blown away, absorbed, riveted. What great smooth style, what brilliance, what depth. This is huge and wonderful and rich. What an achievement!" (Anne Rice)

“This biography, when completed, will be the last word on Stanwyck.” (Leonard Maltin Indiewire)

“Immensely detailed, authoritative, compulsively readable... It will come to be considered a classic.” (James Curtis author of Spencer Tracy)

"A stunning achievement.” (Meryle Secrest)

“One hopes that the wait for Ms. Wilson’s second volume won’t be as long as World War II, since ‘Steel-True’ is so readable, and as direct as its subject. I couldn’t put it down. . .” (Cathy Horyn The New York Times)

“I am loving your Barbara Stanwyck--you bring that whole period of time so brilliantly to life. I am already in love with her and so so angry at Frank Fay! Thank you for this wonderful, delicious book!" (Susan Cheever)

About the Author:

Victoria Wilson is a vice president and senior editor at Alfred Knopf. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the US Commission on Civil Rights and has served on the boards of PEN American Center, the National Board Review of Motion Pictures, the Writing Program of the New School of Social Research, and Poets & Writers.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1439194068
• ISBN 13: 9781439194065
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1056