A Life of Barbara Stanwyck Quotes

“I only met her once. She was introduced to me by, of all people, Gertrude Lawrence . . . Stanwyck was gracious and laconic; very tiny; very chic; very controlled. But I met her! I saw the eyes, the lips. Contact was made." —Tennessee Williams”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

“Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight,
The great artificer
Made my mate." —Robert Taylor on Barbara Stanwyck, quoting Robert Louis Stevenson”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

“When John Ashbery was asked where he turned for consolation, he replied, “Probably to a movie, something with Barbara Stanwyck.” —Deborah Solomon, The New York Times Magazine, January 14, 2007”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

“Ruby learned to live on the streets and to make the best of it. “We never played games,” she said. “I never cared for games anyway. The only game I can remember playing,” she said, “is the game of fighting.” She learned at a young age that her survival was based “on self-preservation . . . When you live like that you always take care of yourself first, because there’s no one else to do it.” Malcolm Byron was a quiet boy, never loud or outspoken in the way Ruby was. “He was always a loner,” she said. Malcolm never teased his little sister and was protective of her. Ruby was the “leader of any gang” she and Malcolm played with. “Despite her quietness,” said Malcolm, “the other children would turn to Ruby when they were hurt, or bullied. She never failed them.”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

“Goldwyn said, “The trouble with directors is that they’re always biting the hand that lays the golden egg.”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

“The only safe test at all is time--give enough time to any person or emotion, and you'll get the answer eventually, one way or the other. Sometimes it takes years--and if you get the breaks that's swell and if you find yourself a sucker there's nothing you can do about it but take it on the chin. -Barbara Stanwyck”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

“Ten or twelve families took Malcolm and Ruby in, perhaps more. “There was never a family that had room for the two of us, Byron and me,” said Ruby. “That was the tragedy of it.”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

“My father loved my mother madly and when she died, he went gypsy, I was raised by strangers, farmed out. There were no rules or regulations. Whoever would take me for five dollars a week, that’s where I was. So I really didn’t have any family." - Barbara Stanwyck”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

“My grandparents on both sides were probably horse-thieves. No one ever told us anything about them. Therefore I suspect the worst. I imagine they were born and raised in Ireland. But wherever the family tree is planted, whether its branches are rotten or sound, I’ll never know." —Barbara Stanwyck, 1937”
― Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940