Barbara Stanwyck Quotes

A star is only as good as her last picture. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara [Stanwyck] and me in our only scene alone in Titanic. It wasn't much of a scene, but it sparked one of the most intense and rewarding relationships of my life. ~ Robert Wagner

She had an old friend from the vaudeville days named Buck Mack who lived with her. Buck had been part of a vaudeville team called Miller & Mack and had been an extra in Citizen Kane. In modern terms, he was a personal assistant: he ran the house, kept everything running smoothly, and watched over her. At first, Buck regarded me as an interloper, but it wasn't long before he saw that Barbara and I genuinely loved each other, and he and I became good friends. Because of the age difference, neither of us wanted to have our relationship in the papers, and with the help of Helen Ferguson, her publicist and one of her best friends, we kept it quiet. There were only a few people who knew about us. Nancy Sinatra Sr. was one of them, because she and Barbara were close friends. I didn't tell anybody at Fox about our affair, although Harry Brand might have known, if only because Harry knew everything. Likewise, I always assumed that Darryl Zanuck knew, although he never said a word about it to me. That might have been because Darryl and Barbara had something of a history, a bad one: Barbara told me that Darryl had chased her around his office years earlier, and I got the distinct impression that she hadn't appreciated the exercise. ~ Robert J. Wagner

Barbara [Stanwyck] was the first woman I ever loved. ~ Robert Wagner

Barbara Stanwyck and I began our relationship on Titanic, although we had actually met years before. For a time, my father had an eight-acre ranch in Chatsworth, across from the racetrack. Martha Scott also lived there, and I used to take care of her horse. We'd go riding, and I would see Barbara and her husband, Robert Taylor, riding. I would go trotting along with them, never thinking I'd be involved with her someday. Later, Barbara had a beautiful ranch at the corner of Devonshire and Reseda, with her agent, Zeppo Marx. It's now a shopping center, but when Barbara owned the ranch, it had paddocks that were impeccably maintained and run, like everything Barbara touched. ~ Robert Wagner

It's weird, because American films in the 1930s and '40s, particularly melodramas, were made for woman, from Bette Davis to Joan Crawford to Barbara Stanwyck to Katherine Hepburn, and for some reason we've taken a step backward in this sense. ~ James Gray

There were giants striding the screen in the 1930s and '40s: four actresses so talented, hardworking and versatile that they became laws unto themselves. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis have also become high-camp figures of fun, as they both had such wildly theatrical offscreen lives, and their performances could sometimes veer into self-parody. But Barbara Stanwyck and Claudette Colbert stand the test of time in each and every film: our memories of them are not overshadowed by scandals or vituperative daughters. One rarely sees a Stanwyck or Colbert drag queen. But these ladies were fully the equal - sometimes the superior - of Davis and Crawford. ~ Eve Golden

Spending time around her house, I came across a cache of 16mm movies in her basement. It turned out that Barbara [Stanwyck] had a lot of her own movies, and I convinced her to spend some time watching them with me. I ran the projector. She had prints of Union Pacific, Ball of Fire, and Baby Face, among others. She didn't particularly like watching them, but she did enjoy reminiscing about their production: how she got the part, what the location was like, that sort of thing. She liked people with humor and always spoke highly of Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, and Frank Capra. Oddly enough, she wasn't crazy about Preston Sturges; she seemed to feel that he expended all his charm and humor for his movies and that there wasn't anything left for his actors. In broad outline, all this sounds a little bit like the scene in Sunset Boulevard where Gloria Swanson sits with William Holden and watches a scene from Queen Kelly, rhapsodizing about her own face. But Barbara couldn't have cared less about how she looked; as I watched her films with her, it was clear that, for her, the movies were a job she loved, as well as a social occasion for a woman who was otherwise something of a loner. ~ Robert J. Wagner

Attention embarrasses me. I don't like to be on display. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

As a person, [Barbara Stanwyck] was a great deal like the character she played in Ball of Fire, a stripper called Sugarpuss O'Shea. She had a wonderful, free, open quality in that picture, and that's what she was like as a woman. Reclusive by nature, she was happy to just stay home, but she read everything. She got me reading books as a way of life and, if I asked her, would help me out with my acting. We only had one scene together in Titanic - I played her daughter's boyfriend! - so there was a limit to what I could learn by working with her. She taught me what to do with my hands, how to get over my self-consciousness, and how to lower my voice, which I thought was still too high. And she taught me to be decisive with things like entrances. "When you walk in," she told me, "be sure you're standing up straight. Walk in with confidence." She didn't want me to sidle into a scene as if I were ashamed to be in the movie. Make the entrance! Take the scene! But I wasn't going there for acting tutorials. ~ Robert J. Wagner

Barbara and I had arrived early, so I got to admire everyone's entrance. We were seated at tables around a dance floor that had been set up on the lawn behind the house. Barbara and I shared a table with Deborah Kerr and her husband. Deborah, a lovely English redhead, had been brought to Hollywood to play opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters. Louis B. Mayer needed a cool, refined beauty to replace the enormously popular redhead, Greer Garson, who had married a wealthy oil magnate and retired from the screen in the mid-fifties. Deborah, like her predecessor, had an ultra-ladylike air about her that was misleading. In fact, she was quick, sharp, and very funny. She and Barbara got along like old school chums. Jimmy Stewart was also there with his wife. It was the first time I'd seen him since we'd worked for Hitchcock. It was a treat talking to him, and I felt closer to him than I ever did on the set of Rope. He was so genuinely happy for my success in Strangers on a Train that I was quite moved. Clark Gable arrived late, and it was a star entrance to remember. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps that led down to the garden. He was alone, tanned, and wearing a white suit. He radiated charisma. He really was the King. The party was elegant. Hot Polynesian hors d'oeuvres were passed around during drinks. Dinner was very French, with consommé madrilène as a first course followed by cold poached salmon and asparagus hollandaise. During dessert, a lemon soufflé, and cof ~ Farley Granger

Eyes are the greatest tool in film. Mr. Capra taught me that. Sure it's nice to say very good dialogue, if you can get it. But great movie acting - watch the eyes! ~ Barbara Stanwyck

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

My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

I was lucky enough to make four pictures with Barbara. In the first I turned her in, in the second I killed her, in the third I left her for another woman, and in the fourth I pushed her over a waterfall. The one thing all these pictures had in common was that I fell in love with Barbara Stanwyck - and I did, too. ~ Fred MacMurray

Barbara Stanwyck movies drove me nuts, like 'Ball of Fire' and 'Double Indemnity.' I used to go cuckoo when I would see those films. ~ Richard LaGravenese

It's perhaps not the future I would choose. I still think it's possible to make a success of both marriage and career even though I didn't. But it's not a bad future. And I'm not afraid of it. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

I took Miss Stanwyck home and had a great time listening to her dish the party and everyone there. We went in for a nightcap, and I ended up spending the night. We enjoyed each other's company to the fullest. ~ Farley Granger

After that, things happened very quickly. She gave me a key to her house, and I gave her a key to my apartment. If we were in town, we spent every weekend together. She cooked for me - she was good in the kitchen, but then she was good everywhere. We watched the Friday night fights on TV, and on Saturday or Sunday afternoons we'd go for long walks in the mountains above Malibu. Occasionally we would go to a movie, slipping in after the lights went down. Whenever we went out, Barbara [Stanwyck] would wear a scarf over her head, or a kind of hat, so it would be hard to tell who she was. For the next four years, we became part of each other's lives. In a very real way, I think we still are. Barbara proved to be one of the most marvelous relationships of my life. I was twenty-two, she was forty-five, but our ages were beside the point. She was everything to me - a beautiful woman with a great sense of humor and enormous accomplishments to her name. ~ Robert Wagner

Egotism - usually just a case of mistaken nonentity. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

There is a point in portraying surface vulgarity where tragedy and comedy are very close. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

Gary Cooper called to invite me to a dinner party he was giving for Clark Gable at his house. When I accepted and he asked if I would mind picking up Barbara Stanwyck, I was delighted. I had always thought she was one of the greatest. The Lady Eve and Double Indemnity are two of my favorite films and feature two of the many terrific performances she gave through the years. I arrived at her door promptly at 6:30 P.M., a huge bouquet of pink peonies in hand. The maid said she would be right down, took the flowers, and offered me a glass of champagne. Barbara came down a few minutes later, looking terrific in something silver and slinky. She carried on about the flowers as the maid brought them in and joined me for some champagne. I was anxious to get things off to a good start with the right kind of small talk, but unfortunately I was out of touch with the latest gossip. I asked how and where her husband was. An expletive told me how she felt about her husband: "That son of a bitch ran off with some kraut starlet." As I struggled to pull my foot out of my mouth, she started to laugh and said, "Don't worry about it, baby, he's not worth sweating over," and the rest of the evening went like gangbusters. We arrived at 7:30 on the dot and were met at the door by Rocky, Mrs. Gary Cooper, who hugged Barbara and said, "He's going to be so glad to see you." Cooper and Stanwyck had made a couple of great films together, Meet John Doe and Ball of Fire, the latter for Sam Goldwyn, whom sh ~ Farley Granger

I've published many biographies over the years and enjoyed working with writers on their research, discussing it, thinking about it and how it revealed their subject - and one day the impulse came to me to write a life of someone. I made a long list of possible subjects and [ Barbara] Stanwyck was on the list. ~ Victoria Wilson

Looking is an important part of Stanwyck's acting: many performers have beautiful eyes (for example, Henry Fonda), or use their eyes expressively (most remarkably, perhaps, Bette Davis), but few use them so attentively to observe and survey others and the world [as Stanwyck]. ~ Andrew Klevan

The boy's got a lot to learn and I've got a lot to teach. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

Because I was so involved with Barbara [Stanwyck], I was off-limits for other women, which was something of a problem for the studio. They wanted to promote the image of a carefree young stud - never my style - so I had publicity dates with young actresses around town like Lori Nelson or Debra Paget. This was a relic of the days when the studio system was in its prime. The studio would arrange for two young stars-in-waiting to go out to dinner and a dance and assign a photographer to accompany them. The result would be placed in a fan magazine. It was a totally artificial story documenting a nonexistent relationship, but it served to keep the names of young talents in front of the public. As far as I was concerned, it was part of the job, and usually pleasant enough. When reporters would ask me about my romantic life, which they did incessantly, I had to say things like, "If I go out with one woman a few times, it's considered a romance. If I date a lot of girls, I'm a Casanova. It's one of those 'heads-you-win-tails-I-lose' deals. I don't think it's anybody's business what I do." The last sentence contained my true feelings. ~ Robert J. Wagner

When I was a kid I adored Katharine Hepburn, especially when she played Jo, the ballsy sister in Little Women. All the kids in school started calling me "Jo." I also loved Barbara Stanwyck, Ann Sheridan, Bette Davis, Claire Trevor - I didn't know them but after seeing them in so many movies, I felt like I knew them. They weren't feminists, they were just strong women, and I always admired anyone who had some guts. All those sweet, quiet, polite, ladylike little things just bored me to death. Back then there were so many wonderful women's stories being filmed, and so many strong actresses. But by the time I started doing movies they were mostly making men's stories. It has always saddened me that I never got to work with directors like George Cukor and William Wyler, directors who could really pull such marvelous performances from actresses." - Jane Russell ~ Ray Hagen

I'm a tough old broad from Brooklyn. Don't try to make me into something I'm not. If you want someone to tiptoe down the Barkley staircase in crinoline and politely ask where the cattle went, get another girl. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

Sponsors obviously care more about a ninety-second commercial and want to pay you more than any guest star gets for a ninety-minute acting performance. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for what I love doing. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

Toward the end of her life a burglar broke into her house and pistol-whipped her. She was an elderly woman by then, and it sent her into a downward spiral. When she was in the hospital dying, I called, and she asked me not to come and see her; she wanted me to remember her as she was. I felt I had to honor her request. As we talked, she told me she was wearing the four-leaf clover necklace I had given her. Barbara [Stanwyck] was cremated wearing it, and her ashes were scattered over Lone Pine. The fact that a piece of me remained with her at the end was and is some consolation for her loss. ~ Robert Wagner

The more you kick something that's dead, the worse it smells. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

Money talks. It starts rumors about careers and complicity and speaks of the tragedies and triumphs of our social lives. ~ Barbara Kruger

Love is something you fall into. ~ Barbara Kruger

Just remember the world is not a playground but a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love. ~ Barbara Jordan

Let me claim that Africa and I kept company for a while and then parted ways as if we were both party to relations with a failed outcome. Or say I was afflicted with Africa like a bout of a rare disease from which I have not managed a full recovery. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Yes. I think the anti-Wal-Mart is Costco, which pays much better and has much better health benefits and which is profitable and offers low prices. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

There is a deep connection between technical, scientific, and artistic creativity. ~ Barbara Oakley

The East Turkestan Islamic Movement, named for an old Uighur name for Xinjiang, is a shadowy group that operates largely out of Afghanistan and Pakistan and is devoted to expelling the Chinese Communist Party from northwestern China. ~ Barbara Demick

More space for their clothes. I can't tell you how many times I've had nowhere to hang a single damn suit because a woman's closet was so stuffed. Hire a closet planner. She'll think you're brilliant." "She hired one herself a few years back. I need something she hasn't thought of herself. ~ Barbara Delinsky

A woman may be called a wife and mother for most of her life, while a man is called a husband and father only at his funeral. ~ Barbara Holland

She understood that even the worst days contained only twenty-four hours. One did what one had to do to get through them, and afterwards, one slept. ~ Barbara Hambly

Our way was to share a fire until it burned down, ayi? To speak to each other until every person was satisfied. Younger men listened to older men. Now the Beelezi tell us the vote of a young, careless man counts the same as the vote of an elder.' In the hazy heat Tata Ndu paused to take off his hat, turn it carefully in his hands, then replace it above the high dome of his forehead. No one breathed. 'White men tell us: Vote, bantu! They tell us: You do not all have to agree, ce n'est pas necessaire! If two men vote yes and one says no, the matter is finished. A bu, even a child can see how that will end. It takes three stones in the fire to hold up the pot. Take one away, leave the other two, and what? The pot will spill into the fire. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I'm not questioning the monotheistic god. I think there's absolutely no evidence for the existence of such a god. When I say that, I mean I'm - part of that is that the idea that God could be all-powerful and also benevolent is on its face contradictory. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

In the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war. ~ Barbara Tuchman

What allows us, as human beings, to psychologically survive life on earth, with all of its pain, drama, and challenges, is a sense of purpose and meaning. ~ Barbara De Angelis

Now is the operative word. Everything you put in your way is just a method of putting off the hour when you could actually be doing your dream. ~ Barbara Sher

My health is very good. ~ Barbara Bush

What you don't necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you're really selling is your life. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Every vote counts and every vote must be counted. ~ Barbara Mikulski

I decided I got to say whether I was Christian or not, and so I've relaxed enormously since then. I'm the one who gets to say that, and not someone else. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

If America was trying to keep the bubonic plague out of its hemisphere, Canadians would import it just to show their independence of American foreign policy. ~ Barbara Amiel

The American system of democracy is founded on the concept that every citizen has the right to vote, to know that their vote is counted, and that the vote is counted accurately. ~ Barbara Mikulski

When we inject people with positivity, their outlook expands. They see the big picture. When we inject them with neutrality or negativity, their peripheral vision shrinks. There is no big picture, no dots to connect. ~ Barbara Fredrickson

Summer's heat had never really arrived, nor the cold in it's turn, and everything living now seemed to yearn for sun with the anguish of the unloved. The world of sensible seasons had come undone. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

No one is free until we are all free.

Dr. Martin Luther King ~ Barbara Artson

Charles's old ally Don Enrique, King of Castile, also died before taking sides, and his son, Juan I, though heavily pressed by Charles V to support Clement, preferred to maintain "neutrality," saying that, while faithful to the French alliance, he could not go against the conscience of his subjects. Common people, nobility, clerics, learned men, he wrote, were all Urbanist. "What government, O wise prince," he pointedly inquired of Charles, "has ever succeeded in triumphing over public conscience supported by reason? What punishments are available to subjugate a free soul? ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Had I known that these legs were to carry a Lord Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I was a lad. Duke of Grafton ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

[I]n the long run it's worthwhile to see the manuscript as a text capable of improvement. ~ Barbara Sjoholm

Today, Chanel sells nothing other than its griffe; the griffe is an absolute symbol for 'fashion' which, having become historical, is now able to sell this history better than it could sell fashion. Chanel's lasting success proves that fashion has become self-referential: the fetish of the mere name shows how it has begun to revolve around itself. The House of Chanel produces what Coco most abhorred: a thing of the past, dead. The visible, outwardly displayed griffe has become the opposite of individualized style: instead it confirms the latent uniform collectivity, which had always defined Chanel-wear; in the end, it signifies membership of an expensive club. The Chanel woman does not want to display her own taste, she wants to belong. In order to be certain, she is laden with Chanel signs and accessories, like amulets to protect against the evil eye; on the pocket, on the belt, on the dress buttons, on the watch, on costume jewelry, proudly stand the initials of the founder of the house, to which she knows she belongs. ~ Barbara Vinken

SOME DAMNED FOOLISH THING in the Balkans, Bismarck had predicted, would ignite the next war. The assassination of the Austrian heir apparent, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914, satisfied his condition. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

The great wisdom traditions of the world all recognize that the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

God doesn't need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Our society is not perfect and this will come as no surprise to many of you. ~ Barbara Amiel

When I got on the line again the operator was asking for more coins, so I dropped them in. Mama and I listened to the weird bonging song and didn't say anything to each other for a little bit.

'I just lost somebody I was in love with,' I finally told her. 'I just told him goodbye, and I'm never going to see him again. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

With enough of us connecting heart with heart, center with center, innovation with innovation, prayer with prayer, through the internet and the noosphere, we can have a major impact on a more gentle transition toward the next stage of evolution. ~ Barbara Marx Hubbard

hot breakfast on a cold winter morning ~ Barbara Ann Kipfer

A mother's body remembers her babies-the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has it's own entreaties to body and soul. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

God's will is a mysterious thing sometimes. But I don't have to understand. It's enough for me to know that whether He reveals why He's done something or not, He is all-knowing. ~ Barbara Cameron

We had all commenced that thrusting and parrying that always goes on when you meet new people. How I hated those games. I wondered if they went on forever. Did you ever grow up enough not to have to jockey for position? Could you ever just say, 'Hi, I'm Rachel Gold. I like to read and eat. Who are you? ~ Barbara Cohen

It's only too late if you don't start now. ~ Barbara Sher

I guess the reality is, everybody today has so many gadgets. ~ Barbara Broccoli

The arrogance of the able-bodied is staggering. Yes, maybe we'd like to be able to get places quickly, and carry things in both hands, but only because we have to keep up with the rest of you. We would rather be just like us, and have that be all right. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Creativity is not being afraid to be different. It takes madness to jump at an idea that no one else believes in. ~ Barbara Januszkiewicz

Think first of the action that is right to take, think later about coping with one's fears. ~ Barbara Deming

I never learn anything from listening to myself (Ovid Byron, in Flight Behavior) ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Sometimes grown ups don't act their right old age ~ Barbara Park

Community colleges are one of America's great social inventions a gateway to the future for first time students looking for an affordable college education, and for mid-career students looking to get ahead in the workplace. ~ Barbara Mikulski