Director Jacques Tourneur once said of Barbara Stanwyck: “She only lives for two things, and both of them are work.” With a career that spanned six decades on the stage, screen, radio, and in television, Stanwyck was a prolific actress—86 films in 38 years, before turning to TV—who was best known for a strong and realistic screen presence. She also became one of the few actresses of her generation to get top billing over her male costars, and by 1944, Stanwyck had become the highest-paid actress in the country.

But Stanwyck’s appeal among moviegoers and filmmakers arose from her versatility—combining grit, vulnerability, sex appeal, toughness, professionalism, and nobility. She was disciplined enough to work in any genre, from dramas and film noirs, to screwball comedies and Westerns (frequently doing her own stunts). Stanwyck contained multitudes, and played sex pots with “modern ideas about love,” and “fallen women” in her early career with as much authenticity and pathos as she did reserved, detached characters in her later years. 

As our 11-film “Working Girl: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck” series reveals, her strong work ethic and resourcefulness as an actor quickly made her a favorite among Hollywood’s top directors, including Cecil B. DeMille (UNION PACIFIC), Frank Capra (THE MIRACLE WOMAN), Billy Wilder (DOUBLE INDEMNITY), Preston Sturges (THE LADY EVE), Samuel Fuller (FORTY GUNS), Anthony Mann (THE FURIES, screening in a rare 16mm print from the Academy Film Archive), and even B-movie pioneer William Castle (THE NIGHT WALKER), as well as Fritz Lang, William Wellman, Jacques Tourneur, Howard Hawks, George Stevens, John Ford, and Douglas Sirk. This series only scratches the surface of Stanwyck’s output; and if we’re lucky maybe we’ll get to her episode of “Charlie’s Angels” or the entirety of “The Thornbirds” miniseries in the next round…