Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) rose from the ranks of chorus girl to become one of Hollywood's most talented leading women-and America's highest paid woman in the mid-1940s. Shuttled among foster homes as a child, she took a number of low-wage jobs while she determinedly made the connections that landed her in successful Broadway productions. Stanwyck then acted in a stream of high-quality films from the 1930s through the 1950s. Directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra treasured her particular magic. A four-time Academy Award nominee, winner of three Emmys and a Golden Globe, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Academy.
Dan Callahan considers both Stanwyck's life and her art, exploring her seminal collaborations with Capra in such great films as Ladies of Leisure, The Miracle Woman, and The Bitter Tea of General Yen; her Pre-Code movies Night Nurse and Baby Face; and her classic roles in Stella Dallas, Remember the Night, The Lady Eve, and Double Indemnity. After making more than eighty films in Hollywood, she revived her career by turning to television, where her role in the 1960s series The Big Valley renewed her immense popularity.
Callahan examines Stanwyck's career in relation to the directors she worked with and the genres she worked in, leading up to her late-career triumphs in two films directed by Douglas Sirk, All I Desire and There's Always Tomorrow, and two outrageous westerns, The Furies and Forty Guns. The book positions Stanwyck where she belongs-at the very top of her profession-and offers a close, sympathetic reading of her performances in all their range and complexity.
Industry Reviews
Callahan soars when he takes aim at Stanwyck's acting and films, so much so that Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman's primary value may be as a friendly reference book to pull off the shelf every time you see a Stanwyck picture and wish to hear an erudite, witty voice offer much more than two cents. . . . Callahan writes of her with the ever-present respect one shows a great artist, and Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman is brimming with penetrating observations. . . . [His] writing is often humorously piquant, hitting the reader like a lime spritz in a margarita.--Matthew Kennedy "The Bay Area Reporter"
Barbara Stanwyck was better than Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn. That's the bold contention of Dan Callahan's well-written Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman.--Michael Musto "The Village Voice"
From the sublime (The Lady Eve and Double Indemnity) to the outrageous (Forty Guns--'She's a high-ridin' woman with a whip!'), the workaday (The Woman in Red) to the why'd-she-make-it bizarre (Red Salute), Barbara Stanwyck possessed extraordinary range and a screen persona that was both tough and tender. Dan Callahan's marvelously detailed book brings this nimble, legendary star and her long, astonishingly varied career to radiant life.--Ed Sikov, author of On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder; Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis; and others
Mr. Callahan could be the best writer on film acting, certainly the best that I know of. As word gets around about his excellent new book, Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman I think most cinephiles will agree with me.-- "byfilmpossessed.blogspot.com"
