Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman

Aftermath: The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Walk on the Wild Side, Roustabout, The Big Valley, The House That Would Not Die, A Taste of Evil, The Letters, The Thorn Birds, The Colbys

206 Aftermath The฀Barbara฀Stanwyck฀Show,฀Walk฀on฀the฀Wild฀Side,฀Roustabout,฀ The฀Big฀Valley,฀The฀House฀That฀Would฀Not฀Die,฀A฀Taste฀of฀Evil,฀ The฀Letters,฀The฀Thorn฀Birds,฀The฀Colbys When film roles started to grow sparse in the late 1950s, Stanwyck was eager to get into television with a western series. She appeared on several Zane Grey Theater presentations, but the networks wanted her to parrot Loretta Young’s successful anthology show, where Young swirled on camera in a designer gown, introduced each episode, and then proceeded to act in most of them. For the 1960–61 TV season, Stanwyck succumbed and attempted a similar format with The฀Barbara฀Stanwyck฀ Show. The worst part of the format was that she had to introduce each story as Young did; deprived of mobility. Stanwyck turns to the camera in a stiff model’s “pose” before the title comes on, and the effect is less Young-hostessy than taunting-forbidding, as if Stanwyck is saying, “I dare you to watch!” She had to read her intros off a teleprompter and was expected to make little jokes and plug the sponsors; she was very unhappy doing this. There were thirty-six episodes in all, of which she appeared in thirty-two. She won her first Emmy for the show, but it was cancelled after only one season. Almost all of the episodes are so poorly written that Stanwyck can’t sustain much interest in them. She’s hit with more than a fair amount of sexism on this show, playing a lot of “career women” who have to learn their place. And she deals with lots of juvenile delinquents played by Method actors like Vic Morrow; she looks at them as if she’d like to understand what they’re trying to do, yet she’s the one who seems natural and real, while their Actors Studio style has dated. There are several episodes where Stanwyck has to interact with actors who are so inept a f t e r m at H 207 that they would never have been employed for a motion picture; it’s distressing to see her try to perform with these amateurs. When she does get a good subject, as in “Confession,” a murder story that pairs her excitingly with Lee Marvin, the half-hour format leads to jerky writing and abrupt editing that mitigates both the sexual chemistry she has worked up with Marvin and the convincing degeneration of her character as she’s holed up in an apartment overlooking a noisy merrygo -round. “She lives only for two things, and both of them are work,” said Jacques Tourneur of Stanwyck (he directed a few of these shows for her, including “Confession”). In several episodes, she plays Josephine Little, an import/export dealer in Hong Kong who does battle with Red China. “You keep your cotton-pickin’ Red hands off my country!” she cries in “Dragon by the Tail,” which was praised in Congress by Francis E. Walter, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee. When she was cancelled, Stanwyck made some cracks at her sponsors’ expense: “I never even got a free shampoo,” she complained. Finally, Stanwyck got a movie offer, a featured role in Walk฀on฀the฀ Wild฀Side (1962) as a lesbian madam. At first, she was jubilant: “Chalk up another first for Stanwyck!” she crowed. But when gossip columnist Louella Parsons called her and claimed to be shocked that she accepted such a part, Stanwyck got defensive with her. “What do you want them to do, get a real madam and a real lesbian?” she asked. The role was juicy, but perhaps its air of exploitation made Stanwyck uncomfortable (and it definitely added fuel to the fire of the lesbian rumors surrounding her bachelor woman private life at the time). The script, which was based on a Nelson Algren novel set in Depression-era New Orleans, was worked over by many hands, and the film suffers from two miscast and uncharismatic leads, Laurence Harvey and Capucine, the mistress of producer Charles K. Feldman. Capucine is such a weak and bored scene partner that Stanwyck has to work in a kind of void, which can be seen as appropriate, since her character, Jo Courtney, is unrequitedly in love with Capucine’s prostitute Hallie. The movie featured a frustrated dynamic that Stanwyck had never been asked to play before. Stanwyck enters Walk฀on฀the฀Wild฀Side฀with plummy confidence, even doing a...