In 2007, the Film Forum in SoHo presented a centennial celebration in the life of Barbara Stanwyck. It seemed that the life and career of this great star was being celebrated everywhere, with new biographies, films being shown on TCM and various tributes both in her native New York and in Hollywood where she worked and lived for 60 years. This TNT biography came out the year after Stanwyck died, and narrated by Oscar Winner Sally Field, is touching, revealing, and sometimes sad. For the great career that this actress had, the 50 minute biography reveals enough to make you want to know more even though you long to respect the privacy of a true lady, even nearly 30 years after she departed her life on earth.
50 minutes seems too short to give credence to a career as great as Stanwyck's, yet there are enough hints revealed to make you want to research into her life through various books, although a few touch on issues about her life that seem to be more scandal based than truth based. Forgetting about those (and even refusing to mention the gossip monger based author), you get to see a bit of Barbara's early years, raised in Brooklyn but orphaned at a young age and left with only a brother as family. She was dancing in nightclubs and on Broadway by the time she was 15, and within a few years when talking pictures came in, went to Hollywood with vaudeville star husband Frank Fay where she found more success and he slipped into alcoholism, giving rumors that their lives were the subject of the 1932 movie "What Price Hollywood" which became "A Star is Born" in 1937.
Only brief mentions of adopted son Dion are brought up. More of that is revealed in some of the more honorable books on her life. There's more detail to her marriage to Robert Taylor, a handsome younger man who found her attempts to mother him somewhat smothering and would cheat on her, culminating in their divorce in 1951 after 12 long years, several affairs, Oscar nominations for her (none for him) and her transition from pre-code tough girl to screwball comedy legend to film noir vixen to victimized lady to the great western matriarch. The timeline here isn't always correct, as she mixed many different genres in, going from murderous wife in "Double Indemnity" to pancake flipping columnist in "Christmas in Connecticut" to terrified wife in "The Two Mrs. Carroll's".
So while the narrative isn't perfect, the choice of clips and most of the tidbits are right on. You get to see her sing and dance, being quite unrefined after being praised as one of Hollywood's great stars, yet getting away from it. You see her go from keep cool cutie to sinister seductress to funny lady to terrified victim to the cotton topped matriarch of a California ranch. Sally Field does what she can with what she's given, perhaps unaware that the script isn't 100% accurate. A great deal of missing years doesn't show her sudden inactivity from the mid 1970's through 1983's "The Thorn Birds", and "Dynasty" and "The Colby's" are totally overlooked. Her many tributes are briefly mentioned, but little detail of her final years are missing, including a horrifying experience when a burglar locked her in her bedroom concert, and later a fire that destroyed much of her memorabilia. For me, though, a Stanwyck tribute is better than no Stanwyck tribute, and hopefully, through her movies, videos of her honors and this biography will influence young actresses to go into the business in the right frame of mind, for their art, not simply for fame.
50 minutes seems too short to give credence to a career as great as Stanwyck's, yet there are enough hints revealed to make you want to research into her life through various books, although a few touch on issues about her life that seem to be more scandal based than truth based. Forgetting about those (and even refusing to mention the gossip monger based author), you get to see a bit of Barbara's early years, raised in Brooklyn but orphaned at a young age and left with only a brother as family. She was dancing in nightclubs and on Broadway by the time she was 15, and within a few years when talking pictures came in, went to Hollywood with vaudeville star husband Frank Fay where she found more success and he slipped into alcoholism, giving rumors that their lives were the subject of the 1932 movie "What Price Hollywood" which became "A Star is Born" in 1937.
Only brief mentions of adopted son Dion are brought up. More of that is revealed in some of the more honorable books on her life. There's more detail to her marriage to Robert Taylor, a handsome younger man who found her attempts to mother him somewhat smothering and would cheat on her, culminating in their divorce in 1951 after 12 long years, several affairs, Oscar nominations for her (none for him) and her transition from pre-code tough girl to screwball comedy legend to film noir vixen to victimized lady to the great western matriarch. The timeline here isn't always correct, as she mixed many different genres in, going from murderous wife in "Double Indemnity" to pancake flipping columnist in "Christmas in Connecticut" to terrified wife in "The Two Mrs. Carroll's".
So while the narrative isn't perfect, the choice of clips and most of the tidbits are right on. You get to see her sing and dance, being quite unrefined after being praised as one of Hollywood's great stars, yet getting away from it. You see her go from keep cool cutie to sinister seductress to funny lady to terrified victim to the cotton topped matriarch of a California ranch. Sally Field does what she can with what she's given, perhaps unaware that the script isn't 100% accurate. A great deal of missing years doesn't show her sudden inactivity from the mid 1970's through 1983's "The Thorn Birds", and "Dynasty" and "The Colby's" are totally overlooked. Her many tributes are briefly mentioned, but little detail of her final years are missing, including a horrifying experience when a burglar locked her in her bedroom concert, and later a fire that destroyed much of her memorabilia. For me, though, a Stanwyck tribute is better than no Stanwyck tribute, and hopefully, through her movies, videos of her honors and this biography will influence young actresses to go into the business in the right frame of mind, for their art, not simply for fame.