STAR OF THE MONTH: Barbara Stanwyck

Ruby Catherine Stevens

I'm going to be totally honest: I don't know anything about Barbara Stanwyck. The good news, for my self-esteem at least, is that no one else seems to either. As many bios as I read, as much investigating as I do, the general consensus seems to be that this woman remains unknowable-- a compelling, talented, provocative, damn mystery. The one thing that I do know about Barbara Stanwyck is that she stood apart. Apart. Above. Beyond. Far and away, head and shoulders over everyone else. She was separate somehow-- within, while without. She was a movie star, but she was more finitely an actress. More concerned with delivering passionate, dedicated, and shameless performances than being glamorous, she endeared herself to depression era audiences by more fully representing them as a true working girl and not a beauty queen. With her small eyes, large nose, and tiny mouth, she too falls into the category of unlikely celebre fatales-- a slot also occupied by the pop-eyed Bette Davis and the over-angular Katharine Hepburn. While not remembered as the most gorgeous of the silver screen's offerings, an honor belonging to perhaps Ava Gardner and Lana Turner-- both of whom had affairs with her 2nd husband, Robert Taylor-- Barbara seems sexier, more dangerous, and more interesting. While beauty tends to cripple certain actresses, Barbara's natural attractiveness-- sometimes soft and sometimes threatening-- was elevated by her smarts. She was intriguing, dominating, and indecipherable. While she wore her emotions out unapologetically in her film roles, still she remained evasive-- a question mark forever inviting our curiosity. Barbara was a Hollywood starlet, but she was not of Hollywood. She stood apart. Perhaps this is because little Ruby Stevens always stood apart from Barbara Stanwyck.


Ruby Stevens was born on July 16, 1907 to Byron Stevens and Catherine McGee in Brooklyn, NY. The youngest child, Ruby 'stood apart' even then, being the only one of her siblings to have a name not beginning with the letter "M." Her isolation would only be increased when she lost her mother in a tragic accident-- Catherine was knocked off a streetcar by a drunk. Not long after, Ruby's father took off, allegedly to find work digging the Panama Canal. Soon, the family received word that he too had died, although it remains debatable whether he passed away or merely passed on his family. In any case, he never returned. Thus, the children were shuffled between foster homes and each other, with Ruby remaining closest to her brother Malcolm (called Byron). She would often run away from whatever home she was currently occupying to the front stoop of her old house, where she would stubbornly and forlornly await her mother's return. The feisty fighter the world would remember was herein beginning to take shape. Ruby's saving grace through every harmful hard-knock she would take was her fortitude: her iron will. True, she may have been dealt a dirty hand, but she was going to win the pot even if she had to flat out bluff to get it. This she did by putting on a controlled, tough exterior. She would wear a series of masks-- whatever best suited the occasion-- in order to get past the BS and get to what she wanted: freedom. It is a testament to her inner spirit that she was able to emerge from this maelstrom as gracious, grounded, and dignified as she did.

The young ingenue, showing her soft, delicate side.

God knows, it wasn't easy. After Ruby came to live with her sister, Millie, who was a chorus girl, she too took up the craft. It was easy money, and anyway it was as close as she could get to her real dream-- acting. Ruby adored Pearl White, and when the world of poverty and hunger began to crowd her, she would push aside the negativity by indulging in cinematic dreams. She too would enjoy going to the zoo and studying the cats, whose steely, controlled strut she would mimic in order to put on an exaggerated confidence. She would need these happy thoughts and tricks, especially as life around her grew increasingly dark. While she would recall her showgirl days with fondness-- happy times of youth and high-kicks, when anything seemed possible-- this was mostly the work of a woman who refused even in retrospect to play the victim. The truth was that days in Texas Guinan's nightclubs and the Ziegfeld Follies, particularly as a fifteen-year-old, had been hard, even violent. Women were pinched, prodded, manhandled, and sexually manipulated. How far Ruby went to maintain her ambition, and perhaps even safety, remains a mystery, but there are hints at the pain she suffered. Many friends would catch a glimpse of the cigarette burns she had on her chest-- unwanted trophies of her survivalism. There is rumor that she received these war wounds from Al Jolson himself, though this has never been proven.

The young bride and her husband, comedian Frank Fay-- 

their marriage witnessed little funny business.

Ruby found a champion in Willard Mack who cast her in his new show, "The Noose," giving her her first real chance at acting. Her performance was so moving that fellow actor Elisha Cook, Jr. would have to excuse himself so he could vomit. Ruby soon found herself in the arms of Frank Fay, the vaudeville comedian of his day and a performance hero to up-and-comers like James Cagney. The marriage of Ruby and Frank remains an eye-brow raiser, but the impetus behind Ruby's decision to wed the rough, older man is not difficult to decipher. He was successful, and he was powerful, at least in the showbiz world. She hoped to find a protector, perhaps a father figure. Since she latched onto him shortly after the death of another lover-- "Noose" co-star Rex Cherryman-- it is also understandable that in her vulnerable state she grasped blindly onto someone for comfort, even knowing that she could never fully give him her heart. After fighting and failing to get stage roles and enduring several disastrous screen tests and auditions, Ruby was ready for a change of scenery. Fay went West to Warner Bros, and she followed. The odds were against her, yet, strangely, after having been a small fish in a big pond, she would indeed become a great white in Tinsel Town. She would call Hollywood her home for the rest of her life.

The dangerous, blonde Stanwyck, as she appeared in her 

pre-code days as Baby Face et al.

Barbara Stanwyck, as she was now called, would come to define a generation of women. They trusted her on the big screen, because she was one of them: no pretension, no frills, no fallacy. She was the real thing-- grit, gumption, and guts; pain, fragility, and love. In the tales of many Hollywood heroes, it appears that most of these Golden Gods just got lucky. Not Babs. No way. She got where she was going through sheer determination. But she did have some help. Her career really took off when Frank Capra took her under his wing. When she auditioned for Ladies of Leisure, Capra was nonplussed. She was nervous, awkward, and unattractive, or as he put it: "a porcupine." Then, he saw a screen test she had done in color from "The Noose." He did a complete 180, and as he directed her and realized the depth of her talent, his tune would change: "She doesn't act a scene. She lives it." He would also fall madly in love with her in the process. His treatment of her in their films together would establish her future screen presence-- that of the authentic, American female. She was complicated, sexual, strong, emotional, vengeful, and vulnerable all at once. After tickling America's fancy in the naughty Forbidden and provoking their hypocrisy in the interracial romance of The Bitter Tea of General Yen, she continued free-lancing and landed the role of Baby Face-- a film which in itself represents the debauchery and daring of pre-code cinema and its women. As Barbara's Lily Powers sleeps her way to the top, taking no prisoners and showing no mercy, she maintains audience sympathy, because they have seen the slums from which she came and to which she refuses to return. She too possesses the heart of a woman, which despite all her efforts, can still break. This was the Babs epitome: tough on the outside with a soft and creamy center.


In life, Barbara's heart too broke. Her relationship with Fay became-- if it had not always been-- abusive. As her fame and status grew, so too did she outgrow Fay, who became jealous, possessive, and malevolent. Babs probably would have endured his cruelty longer, in her typical martyr-like fashion, had she not her adopted son, Dion, to protect. After Fay showed signs of redirecting his anger at the small boy, Babs pulled the plug on the marriage and said "adios" to Frank. In truth, Babs wasn't cut out for marriage or motherhood, a lesson that she would learn too late. She wanted desperately to create the illusion of the happy home that she had always craved, but having no knowledge or experience of it herself, she was ill-equipped to maintain it. Furthermore, she was far too independent and too self-protective to let any man too deeply into her life, even her son-- with whom she suffered an increasingly estranged relationship as he grew. Her deepest sadness was perhaps not being able to find a soul mate who could meet her eye to eye, who could both dominate her resistant emotional nature and still nurture and protect the little girl inside. After escaping the overpowering menace of Fay, Babs set her sights on a fairer member of the opposing sex, Robert Taylor-- who, like Tyrone Power, was the masculine answer to cinematic objectification. Since jokes ensued that Babs wore the pants in this relationship, it is reasonable to assume that she purposely chose a weaker partner this time around so that for once she would be the one in control and not the doormat. Neither extreme worked. This marriage too ended in divorce.

The early erotic charge of the Taylor-Stanwyck affair would quickly cool once the

 publicity of the notorious "Unmarried Husbands and Wives" 

article scared them into matrimony.

Another wrench thrown into the Babs romance debacle is her controversial sexuality. Some allege that she was a strict homosexual and that both of her marriages were frauds. But this doesn't seem completely acceptable. It is known that she had sexual relationships with men, including Taylor-- which provoked the cataclysmic "Hollywood's Unmarried Husbands and Wives" Photoplay article on 1939-- and even a scandalous affair with the much younger Robert Wagner-- which makes her eyeballing of him in that initial Titanic elevator scene quite telling and hilarious. It seems she had an eye for the "pretty boys," which is too evident in her friendships with men like Gary Cooper (with whom she may too have had a tryst) and the devoted William Holden, whom may have been the only man she ever truly loved, albeit in a completely platonic way. She too was so deeply grieved by her divorce from Taylor that she remained bitter about it for the remainder of her life, claiming alimony even though she could most certainly have maintained herself financially. 


It too is assumed that the mysterious cuts that appeared on her wrists were not the result of a mishap with a broken window, as she claimed, but rather self-inflicted wounds that she administered after learning of Taylor's affair with Lana Turner. Was she that deeply in love with him, or-- if this story is indeed true-- were these damaging mutilations more emblematic of her own insecurity and her anger that yet another man had betrayed her: that the dream life was indeed just a dream? Then, one cannot completely ignore the many questionable rumors about love affairs or sexual relationships she may have had with members of her own sex, including Joan Crawford-- who was a close friend and a woman with whom she had much in common. But are these merely rumors? Or was Barbara a bi-sexual who occasionally took sensual comfort in the arms of a female friend? Since her nature was to evade, it would make sense that she refuse to "take a side," as it were. Her inability to settle down and open up emotionally may have manifested itself in multiple, inconclusive sexual relationships with both men and women. Since she grew defensive, then silent, whenever the subject of her sexual nature was raised, it appears that the world will never know.

Her dangerous, protective gaze in Stella Dallas-- the character's ambition 

mirrored her own, but Stella lacked Barbara's determination.

As conflicted, painful, and lonesome as her personal life was, her work never varied. Because she did not place herself above her characters, she would inhabit them fully and richly-- whether playing the sadistic femme fatale of Double Indemnity or the con-artist with second thoughts in The Lady Eve. Over time, she came to prove that she could play anything and play anything truthfully. For this, her audiences worshipped her. Her co-stars did too, particularly the men. Coop, Joel McCrea, Cecil B. DeMille... They were all enchanted and a bit hypnotized by her talent. Her commitment, wherein she would heedlessly perform her own stunts and proudly show off the bruises, endeared her to her co-workers and the crewmen, who adored her and greeted her warmly each day on the set. She was earthy, not an artiste nor a stuck-up prima donna. And she was gifted. The only thing she couldn't play was "dumb." Her filmography, though filled with the occasional clunker, is so overridden with memorable performances that she remains the envy of every wannabe ingenue in Hollywood. Golden Boy, Remember the Night, Ball of Fire, Clash by Night, Sorry Wrong Number, and Stella Dallas. Oh, Stella Dallas... Does acting get any better than this? Babs's turn as an inept social climber turned sacrificial mother is one of few films that turns me into a blubbering idiot every time. Yet, due to the political processes of the Hollywood studio system, she never won an Oscar for Best Actress. As a free-lancer, she was without studio protection and thus without studio pull. She would settle for a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Babs reduces Henry Fonda to a sexually intoxicated buffoon stuttering about 

"a b-b-burglar" in The Lady Eve.

As Babs aged and times changed, she maintained her work ethic. She made the transfer to television easily, starring in her own show and later in "The Big Valley." Despite being a city girl, Barbara always loved Westerns, and even had a ranch of her own. After a life of struggle, the peace and serenity of a simpler life of roping horses on the open plains probably came like a wave of welcome relief. Despite her continuing desire to create, it could not be denied that her services were not requested as much as they had been in her hey-day. Though still luminously beautiful in her old age and just as riveting, Hollywood has always been about youth. At the end of her life, Barbara thus became melancholy, yearning for the work of her younger days and admitting to close friends that she felt like she had been "forgotten." After strong television performances in the likes of "The Thorn Birds" and silly but necessary contributions in "Charlie's Angels," Barbara Stanwyck passed away on January 20, 1990 at the age of 82. Her ashes were scattered upon land that had once served as the location for many of her Western shoots. Ruby Stevens had fought her way through one hell of a life, and her ultimate success had been accomplished: she had died a legend.

From Ladies They Talk About... of which she certainly

still is one.

Barbara Stanwyck remains just as enticing to modern audiences as she did to her contemporary fans. Her talent is still envied; her private life is still much gossiped about. Her allure compels almost tactically from beyond the grave, as if she too made a Chaney or Garbo-like decision the pull a great, impenetrable curtain between her work and her true identity, forever inviting fascination. When one goes searching for Barbara's secret self, one is destined to emerge from his mental travels just as perplexed as ever. It is her great humanity that draws us, for in the end, what else is there? She seemed so tough, so strong, so self-assured... When you start to break through the mask and see the fragile person inside, it leaves you a bit dumbfounded. She reveals herself as a small child. As a woman, you want to mother and nurture her; as a man, you want to kiss her tears. But just as quickly as the revelatory, big screen, emotional moment occurs, she throws out more smoke and mirrors and disappears behind her husky, assertive drawl and her sharp, snake-eyed stare. In her work, she inspired people to live fully, affectionately, dangerously, romantically... to enjoy the life that she never did. It is only in her work that she lives and breathes with total honesty; with no secrets. It is in her work that you find Barbara Stanwyck... and sometimes even the little girl she began as: Ruby Stevens.

HISTORY LESSON: Art Imitating LIfe

Linda Darnell's too good to be true life story was the inspiration 

for one of her biggest films.

I have referenced multiple times in the past the fascinating mirror effect of reality and fiction. One such article, The Blurring of Violence, dealt with the way life has appeared at times to imitate art-- or at least claim to. Today's turn will examine the way art has imitated life in the movies, or more particularly how it has directly imitated the lives of its stars. Of course, there are a string of biopics about our celebrity favorites, from the Good, to the Grand, to the Ugly, (aka Man of a Thousand Faces, Chaplin, and Harlow), but while these direct tributes of celebrity life are fascinating-- a movie about a movie star making movies-- there too are examples wherein filmdom more indirectly borrows stories from stars' lives to spice up their scripts. Here are some occurrences when art has imitated the lives of its artists:

Linda Darnell's rise to fame and celebrity stature was just the sort of Cinderella story that made Hollywood the dream town of youths all over the nation. While "overnight success" is not really achieved overnight, the hard work and persistence that Linda put into her dream would pay off suddenly and shockingly to the 15-year-old when she signed with Twentieth-Century Fox in 1939. Suddenly, a switch was flipped-- Monetta Darnell was off, and Linda Darnell was on. After her breakthrough roles in Hotel for Women and Daytime Wife, Darryl F. Zanuck and company decided to capitalize off Linda's sudden appeal and "road to super-stardom" story. Thus, by the age of sixteen, a script was already being penned for the new starlet by Jessie and Ivan Kahn about her up-to-now life story... sort of. While the film did tell the tale of a small town girl turned movie gem, the old Hollywood spit and polish made things much more palatable to a glamour loving public, thus Linda's eccentric mother Pearl, for example, was not included in the plot. However, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star-- as it was originally titled-- did include some facts in its fictions. When Linda first came to Fox, she rode on the train with two fellow discoveries: Dorris Bowden and Mary Healy. In the film, later titled Star Dust, these two supporting characters were rolled into one, and Mary herself took on the role of "Mary Andrews." In the film, Mary's character was made to be a flop in pictures who finds happiness in the real world. This made Linda's light shine a little brighter as character Carolyn-- one of the few lucky, "chosen" ones. (This plot point was somewhat premonitory in that Mary's career never did take off like Linda's, and she made few feature films). Director Walter Lang also replicated Linda's original Fox screen test of "Two Nuts on a Sidewalk," even using her same wardrobe, though Linda admitted that the fake test was better than her original one. John Payne was added into the mix as another movie hopeful and love interest-- with a constantly broken nose-- to give the film a little romance, though Linda had no such beau upon her Hollywood arrival. Strangely enough, she was falling for cinematographer Pev Marley behind the scenes on this project. When the film premiered, Linda's name was above the title, with Fox declaring that Linda was a star before she'd had any real time to prove her mettle. In a little twist of life imitating art, Linda would immortalize her hand prints outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre after the film's premiere on March 18, 1940, just as her character had at the end of Star Dust. For one so young, it was totally unprecedented and a living dream come true. (Ironically, the movie that declared Linda a star was the same one she watched the night she suffered the fire that claimed her life. Linda is with Mary Healy and John Payne, left).

Katharine Hepburn (right) was superbly represented by another Kate, Cate Blanchett, in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator in 2004, but Kate actually brought a little of her true life to the screen over 60 years prior in the film Stage Door. When still a struggling thespian, Kate had performed in the play "The Lake" in the early '30s. It was a critical disaster that resulted in one of her most scathing reviews a la illustrious drama critic Dorothy Parker: "Hepburn ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." The negative reviews were certainly devastating to the young actress, who took her work very seriously. Having had previous raves for "The Warrior's Husband," the sudden change in mood was hard to swallow, especially since "The Lake" was basically her Broadway debut. Director/Producer Jed Harris was little help, having pushed her in his direction against her natural instincts, thus instigating a flawed performance. He too blamed her for the play's failure. As per usual, Kate took the lumps and pressed on chin up. Fast forward 4 years to Kate accepting the role of the socially oblivious but goodhearted actress Terry Randall in Stage Door. Kate would poke a little fun at herself, and perhaps at Dorothy as well, during an important plot point. Having snagged a role in "Enchanted April" from another actress, Terry finds herself underwhelming in her performance and unable to deliver the following lines with conviction: "The calla lillies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower. I carried them on my wedding day. And now I place them there, in memory of someone who is dead." These were actually the self same lines that she delivered on stage in "The Lake!" However, in Stage Door, as in her life, she was able to prove herself. After learning that the actress she had inadvertently wronged had killed herself, her performance in "Enchanted April" became jaw-droppingly honest and poignant. Terry could act after all! So could Hepburn. In later years, Dorothy Parker would recant her earlier assessment, saying that she believed Hepburn to be one of the finest actresses in the biz and that her original, infamous quotation had been a "joke." Good recovery, Dot. (Use of the play "Enchanted April" was another inside joke, as a film of that name had been an RKO failure a couple of years prior.)

Kate's co-star in Stage Door, Ginger Rogers, also indulged in a little game of live and tell. After Ginger won the "Texas State Charleston Competition" at the tender age of fourteen, she and her mother, Lela, rode across the enormous state in a continuing performance circuit. Immediately after this, she began an engagement working with bandleader Henry Santrey, which meant that she and Lela would continue traveling all over the United States. Needless to say, there were a lot of train rides. Because the dough needed to maintain one's career-- affording hotels, wardrobe, and food-- often made the cost of living higher than the rate of pay, the dynamic duo had to find ways to cut corners and save cash. One way was train fare. Mother and daughter came up with a scheme pretty early to have Ginger pretend to be two years younger, making herself twelve and thus eligible for child rates. To complete the illusion, along with her acting skills, Ginger carried a large Egyptian doll named "Freakus" around to both cover her face and make herself appear physically smaller. The plot worked like a charm until, fortunately, Ginger got far enough in her career to afford lawfulness and avoid a life of little white cons. However, she got a pleasant surprise when Billy Wilder sent her the script for The Major and the Minor, since Ginger's character pulls the exact same stunt as in her youth: she pretends to be a child in order to afford cheaper train fare only to find herself trapped in the illusion after meeting the handsome Ray Milland. Freakus, however, was substituted with a balloon (see left). Though feigning an eighteen year age difference was more difficult than a mere two year one, Ginger still pulled off the feat flawlessly. If it ain't broke... don't grow up.

Hollywood storytelling is not always a laugh, as our continuing subscriptions to rag-mags and website tell-alls can attest. The poster boy for movie star breakdowns in 1923 was America's favorite playboy, Wallace Reid (right). Having just lost his battle with morphine addiction, Wallace was cremated and put to rest at Glendale Forest Lawn cemetery, but his memory and untimely passing remained quite palpable in the public. His sad end would inspire a film, spearheaded by his grieving widow Dorothy (Davenport), about the devastating effects of drug abuse on family. Left alone with two young children, Wally Jr. and Betty, Dorothy became totally devoted to educating the nation about drug use. She equally wanted to finance a hospital in her husband's name that would care for addicts seeking mental and physical redemption. Wally's mother, Bertha, was opposed to the idea, not wanting her son to be remembered for the way he died, but Dorothy was adamant. She joined up with Harold Lloyd in forming the "Anti-Narcotics League of Los Angeles," which she too hoped to finance with profits from the movie, which was originally titled The Living Dead. 

Compiling a screenplay with C. Gardner Sullivan and signing on friend Elinor Ince as a producer (wife of Thomas), the movie got underway with the acting talents of luminaries such as James Kirkwood, Bessie Love (shooting up, left), and Dorothy herself. Jesse Lasky and the boys at Paramount had no hand in the film, which is perhaps emblematic of their guilt-- they were at least partially responsible for Wallace's dependence on morphine. Despite all of the intention, the plot was a bit over-dramatic and convoluted, involving the corruption of a taxi driver who becomes a substance abuser and, thereafter, a thief to support his habit. He then inexplicably pulls his lawyer down into the bowels of addiction with him, and the families of both men suffer as a result. However, while the lawyer finds absolution, the taxi driver does not and is killed in the end. The film was imperfect, but few critics would throw stones knowing that it was a legacy of love for Dorothy and a commemoration of one of their favorite, fallen soldiers. Some did argue that Dorothy was simply trying to profit off Wally's name-- in the film's opening she had credited herself as "Mrs.Wallace Reid"-- but with two kids to feed, who could blame her? Ironically, while the film was meant to save lives, it nearly ended two. Actors Harry Northrup and George Hackathrone were nearly killed in a collision when they had to jump from a car before being hit by a speeding train, (Oh, the days before special effects). While the end product of Human Wreckage had little to do with Wallace's life, it was a testament to what he had suffered and was notorious for its honest depiction of drug use, down to the painful realizations of withdrawal. If the story was able to save even one life, Wally certainly would have been proud.

Norman Maine (Fredric March) tries to balance his love of his wife, Vicki Lester (Janet Gaynor), 
with his jealousy over her career, as Adolphe Menjou looks on in 1937's A Star is Born.

There has been a great amount of controversy surrounding the back story of A Star is Born, a film that has been made thrice ('37, '54, and '76). The plot varies little between the different versions and involves-- similarly to Star Dust-- the meteoric rise of a young ingenue in the film business, as her lover/tutor/husband's career crashes and burns. The character of "Vicki Lester" is coached into her career by fading idol "Norman Maine," whose decent into alcoholism in response to his jealousy over his new wife's career leads him to suicide. Even today, rumors abound in Hollywood, but just who the true source of this tragic tale is remains a hot debate. Many pinpoint MGM's silent leading man, John Gilbert (right), as the inspiration for Norman Maine's tragic hero. This is somewhat understandable when one compares the downward slide of Gilbert's career with that of Maine's--  in addition to his unfortunate taste for alcohol. However, many differences suggest otherwise. Gilbert was much more a victim in reality, whereas on screen the Norman Maine character is pretty much assumed the culprit of his own downward spiral-- a mixture of changing audience tastes, his addiction, and self-loathing. Some too may draw comparisons between the relationship of Norman and Vicki and Gilbert and Garbo, but Gilbert's kind guidance of Greta during her early studio days is vastly different from Maine's complete metamorphosis of and public campaign for Vicki in the film. Too, Gilbert did not commit suicide but suffered a heart attack, so the two characters there also have a divide. Yet, the method of Maine's self-annihilation-- drowning himself in the ocean-- does bring to mind a story as told by Marion Davies. Apparently, John-- who would occasionally fall into bouts of despair-- once fell under the spell of his own melancholia while at one of Marion's beach parties. Dramatically and drunkenly, he declared to all within ear shot that he was determined to kill himself. Some onlookers called his bluff and dared him to drown himself in the ocean. In defiance, Jack dove headfirst into the waves. A worried Marion called after him to stop, but the less sensitive wisecrackers assured her that Jack would not complete the task. When he was indeed washed back ashore not much later, he began weeping at his own cowardice to the jeers of onlookers. Marion's heart went out to her deeply disturbed friend, and she balled the jesters out. Since John's life is still causing inspiration, as seen in the latest The Artist, it is possible that A Star is Born also absorbed some of his tragic tale. 

But these likenesses between John and Norman are not the only bases for the film. Another popular lovers' feud often referred to with Star is that between Barbara Stanwyck and her first husband Frank Fay (together left). Babs was a struggling young actress of twenty-one when she married 36-year-old vaudeville comedian Fay in 1928. Under the more popular entertainer's protection and guidance, Babs was able to kick-start her own career and soon had movie offers. This story alone has spawned rumors, including those that allege the marriage was one of appearance only. There is argument that both Barbara and Frank were homosexuals who wed to cover their sexual preferences and protect their careers. However, if this was the case, it makes the situation that followed somewhat nonsensical. Almost immediately after the nuptials, the young bride went to Hollywood where she began working at United Artists, while funny man Fay continued on the road. Eventually, he made the move to Hollywood and was signed at Warners, but he failed to catch on with movie audiences like his wife had. This led to envious arguments that often turned physical. Friend and neighbor Joan Crawford was witness to more than one brawl. Allegedly, Frank wanted Barbara to give up her career and join him on the road when his contract was canceled in 1931, but she refused. After the duo adopted son Dion, Fay's drinking only increased.  The battling couple was a well-guarded secret in the press, but the bruises that Babs often sported were common knowledge around town. When an inebriated Fay threw son Dion into the family pool, Babs decided enough was enough and pulled to plug. They finally were divorced in 1935. Barbara would go on to become one of the most beloved and acclaimed actresses of her generation, and Fay's name would slowly disappear from the limelight. The sadistic nature of the relationship-- with the male as the dominating force-- could well have been one more bone in the spine of the Star story, especially as the inverted careers of the man and wife were the same as in the film.

Yet, there is even another story that could have served as source material: that of everyone's favorite flapper, Colleen Moore and producer husband John McCormick (together right). Colleen was an old-fashioned but ambitious young woman when she decided that acting was "the thing" for her. However, even as a youth, she was business savvy, and she understood that her atypical looks and somewhat boyish figure did not make her the symbol of female eroticism the guys usually went for. Still, there was something about her--including the fact that her eyes were two different colors--that caught the attention of John, who met her one night when the duo went dancing with Mickey Neilan and Blanche Sweet at the Sunset Inn. Not used to flattery and a wise little thing herself, the cynical Colleen merely raised an eyebrow when John asked her to marry him after three measly dances. But, before she knew it, she was head over heels as well, and the two were wed a mere day before her birthday. At first, life seemed grand. With John's support and her own ambitious spirit, Colleen's career started gaining steam, but as in the case of Babs and Frank, John's jealousy of her rising star and taste for alcohol impaired what had at first seemed a match made in heaven. Colleen kept the facts of her personal misery a secret for many years, never being one for gossip, but she did finally unleash the truth. John had been physically abusive, once nearly throwing her out a window, and finally-- when she told him she was going to leave him-- nearly choking her to death. His angry words, "You can't leave me. You're nothing without me! I made you a star!" would echo in her ears for years to come... and quite possibly in the script of Star. 

Mrs. Norman Maine ( Judy Garland) takes a hit from her alcoholic husband 

(James Mason) in 1954's A Star is Born.

One particular factor that ties the factual and fictitious versions together is a phone call that Colleen made while still married to John. At the time, Colleen's career was thriving, but she received word that her husband was about to be fired from their home studio. Though the marriage was troubled, Colleen was loyal. She called up top dog Richard Rowland and stated loud and clear, "This is Mrs. John McCormick. I just called to say 'hello." The message apparently was heard, and John's job was temporarily saved. The marriage was not, and Colleen finally left John and never looked back. History did, for in A Star is Born, the famous ending line uttered by the grieving widow/superstar, which she delivers to fans, is: "Hello, everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine." (Strangely, this is not dissimilar from Dorothy Reid's credit as Mrs. Wallace Reid in Human Wreckage...). Whether the tragic romance of Vicki Lester and Norman Maine was based in part on one or all of these tales is still uncertain. It is quite possible that the age old battle of the sexes and the conflicts that arise when gender roles are eclipsed (in her case) or failed (in his) are enough of a starting point for any good screenwriter. In any case, the elastic nature of the silver screen continues to give and take with its stories and its stars, giving audiences a little truth mixed with the fiction. As long as the material is good, the pond from which writers reel in ideas doesn't matter. Keep 'em comin'.

(A friend just tipped me off to the story of John Bowers as well, who may very well have been a significant source in the A Star is Born story).