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.
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