The Crisis Every Woman Faces
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The Crisis Every Woman Faces


BARBARA STANWYCK TALKS ABOUT THE CRISIS EVERY WOMAN MUST FACE
Author: Claire Susans
From November 1967 Movie Mirror
Fear is a shadow which often clouds the past and turns happy memories into 
sorrow.
The first sign creeped in a long time ago. One by one, Barbara Stanwyck's hair
began to turn gray. Prematurely. Her then husband, Robert Taylor, asked her to 
dye it. But she was too young and too comfortable to give it more than a 
thought.
And then, one day, she looked into a mirror and suddenly noticed she was getting 
wrinkled. 'Why, I'm getting old!' she thought. This time, she felt a tiny jolt. 
And then she brushed it aside. She had a husband and an adopted son. What are a 
few wrinkles and gray hairs to a woman who's loved?
But today there are more than a few wrinkles and gray hairs. And she's no longer 
loved. Her husband has left her. Her adopted son has left her, too. Today 
Barbara Stanwyck is facing the crisis every woman fears most--the dreadful 
crisis of growing old alone.
"It's true that I'm alone," she says. "But I have my work, my friends. My life 
is really quite full."
Quite full--every weekday. She gets to the set early, whether or not she 
actually has to work that day. She not only memorizes her own lines, but every 
other player's lines, too. She involves herself so completely in the action that 
it is all she can do at the end of the day to get herself home, through a light 
dinner, a quick skim through the next day's script and then, thankfully, to 
sleep.
But it's the weekends when Barbara Stanwyck realizes just how alone she is. The 
weekends when all her "friends" are busy with their own families and loved-ones. 
Barbara has no family. She has no love. And even in Hollywood, there are few 
places that a woman can go to alone.
"I haven't dated anyone romantically in a long time," she says. "No one's come 
along who's affected me that way. Romance can't be forced, dreamed up, 
arranged."
But, sometimes, when she absolutely must have an escort, dates can be arranged. 
What Barbara does--for special, special occasions--is to borrow a friend's 
husband. Of course, like anything else borrowed, her date must be returned to 
his wife at the end of the evening. And Barbara goes home alone.
"I don't think anyone's hilariously happy living alone," she says, "but you 
learn to adjust..."
Part of adjusting includes spiritual "adoptions" of people Barbara feels that 
she can mother. William Holden, David Janssen and Lee Majors are just a few of 
the men she affectionately calls her "boys."
"She is very motherly to me," Lee Majors says. "From the first day we met, she 
went out of her way to make me comfortable. In a way, she sort of 'adoped' me."
When Lee was up for his first movie role, Barbara was every bit as nervous and 
hopeful as he was. "She kept asking me, every other day, if I'd heard anything," 
he says. "When I finally did, she congratulated me with a big kiss. She was very 
happy and very proud."
On their own set, Barbara keeps a constant and watchful eye on Lee. When he's on 
camera, she makes it a point to stand nearby and mouth his lines with him. Then, 
when she's satisfied that he's done a good job, she goes over to him and 
whispers, "You're wonderful. I love you."
"We play a game," Lee says. "In the morning I come on to the set, and of course 
she's already there and ready for work, and I sort of pass her by without saying 
anything. Then I hear this mad yelp: 'Get over here,' she says. 'You haven't 
checked in with me yet.' Then she gives me a kiss and our day is started."
Another Big Valley star Dick Long, has this to say about Barbara: "She tries to 
present the image that she's tough and lets nothing get to her. But everyone who 
works with her knows otherwise."
"Like the time she found an abandoned dog on the set. It got right to her. The 
next thing I knew she had her expensive camel's hair coat off and had the dog 
all wrapped up in it--because it was cold. She's real tough, isn't she?"
She's also "adopted" a nephew who lost his mother when he was very young. She 
supervised his upbringing and paid for his schooling but he is grown and gone 
from under her wing now. She next became the legal guardian of the three teenage 
daughters of producer Peter Godfrey when he was stricken with Hodgkins disease. 
But they, too, are grown and lead their own lives.
Of course, Barbara, more than anyone, realizes just how fragile a spiritual 
adoption can be. She never had any real influence over any of her adoptees. She 
could love them and advise them--but she could never be their mother. And they 
all left her, dropped her when their need for her was finished.
Once she had a real adopted son of her own--fully, bindingly and legally 
adopted. But as she herself says: "That's long gone now."
His name is Dion Anthony Fay, and he was adopted by Barbara in December, 1932 
when she was married to Frank Fay.
"He's the best Christmas present anyone ever had," she said at the time. "I 
never thought I'd be one of those hysterical mothers--but when he crooks just 
one tiny baby finger, I come crawling on my hands and knees. And I love it!"
Barbara might have loved being Dion's mother, but she hated being Fay's wife. 
She finally divorced him and began a long and bitter custody battle for the boy.
Fay wanted visiting privileges and Barbara tried to block that. "He drinks to 
excess and once, drunk, threw my son into the swimming pool," she told the 
court. But Fay was, nonetheless, allowed to see the boy twice a week. Barbara, 
if nothing but vastly protective, continued her fight over the years--until Fay 
finally gave up.
But the fight did something to them all. When Dion was going to kindergarten 
she'd told reporters: "It's brutal being separated from him. I don't care if 
Dion never learns anything. I'm going there and take him home!" And she had to 
be persuaded to change her mind and leave him in school. For two weeks she spent 
every day at school with him, just to make extra sure that he would be all 
right.
But now after the court battle, Barbara had to face another brutal separation. 
She had to send Dion away to school.
In 1947, she sent him to one of the military schools on the West Coast. But he 
was forever getting into trouble and running away from school. The next thing 
anyone heard from him was in 1952 when he enlisted in the Army, apparently 
against Barbara's wishes. Nobody knows what happened after that--maybe Barbara 
was too over-protective, maybe she couldn't stand his going out on his own or 
maybe the custody fight left too much bitterness for them to overcome. In any 
case, mother and son never saw or spoke to each other again after that day. It 
is known that he has since married and had a child, but Barbara is completely 
lost to him and has never seen her grandchild. So Barbara's spiritual adoptions 
are clearly designed to make up for the real adoption she lost out on. As Lee 
Majors says: "I don't want to pry into her personal life as far as her own son 
is concerned. But maybe she sees something in me that reminds her of him."
That, then, is how Barbara, with all she might have had, came to face the crisis 
of growing old alone. But here is how she faces it:
"I believe in love. And I haven't turned my back on it," she says now. "Just 
because I do believe in love I can afford to wait--and I am waiting. I just know 
that somewhere there must be a man who feels about love the way I do and who 
wants to share it equally."
"But there's no hurry. Now that I have the courage to love again--I have the 
courage to wait for love that's right."
So Barbara waits and hopes--and faces her crisis with the idea that "it's never 
too late" for love.