Barbara Stanwyck is an American actress.
In 1923, Stanwyck auditioned for a place in the chorus at the Strand Roof, a night club over the Strand Theatre in Times Square. A few months later, she obtained a job as a dancer in the 1922 and 1923 seasons of the Ziegfeld Follies, dancing at the New Amsterdam Theater.
In 1926, impresario Willard Mack was casting his play The Noose, casting Stanwyck, a chorus girl, in the role of a chorus girl onscreen. The play became one of the most successful plays of the season, running on Broadway for nine months and 197 performances. She changed her name to Barbara Stanwyck by combining the first name of her character, Barbara Frietchie, with Stanwyck, after the name of another actress in the play, Jane Stanwyck.
In 1927, she became a Broadway star, and she was cast in her first leading role in Burlesque. Her first film appearance was in a silent film called Broadway Nights.
Stanwyck's first sound film was The Locked Door in 1929, followed by Mexicali Rose. She made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood.
After her career in film declined in 1957, she was given a career in television. Her own series, The Barbara Stanwyck Show , which aired from 1961-1962, earned her an Emmy Award.
She was nominated for an Academy Award four times, and won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. She was the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1981, the American Film Institute in 1987, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Golden Globes, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Screen Actors Guild. Stanwyck has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is ranked as the 11th greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.
Ruby Catherine Stevens was born on July 16, 1907 in Brooklyn, New York on July 16, 1907. Ruby was of English and Scottish ancestry. She married Burlesque co-star, Frank Fay, with whom she adopted a son, Dion Anthony "Tony" Fay, after moving to Hollywood. The couple divorced on December 30, 1935. A year after she divorced Fay, she was linked to actor Robert Taylor. They married in 1939 and divorced in 1950.