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The panther stride

by
April 2014, no. 360

A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907–1940 by Victoria Wilson

Simon & Schuster, $48.99 hb, 1044 pp, 9780684831688

Barbara Stanwyck by Andrew Klevan

Palgrave Macmillan, $32.99 pb, 147 pp, 9781844576487

The panther stride

by
April 2014, no. 360

How many words does it take to write a life (or actually half a life) of movie star Barbara Stanwyck? Admittedly, she had a long career – she started in a revue chorus in 1921 at the age of fourteen and played in her last episode of the television series The Colbys in 1987 at the age of eighty – but 1044 pages that take us only to 1940? As Liz Smith quipped in the Chicago Tribune, ‘She was a great actress, but not Winston Churchill.’

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