Barbara Stanwyck and Her Millions

Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck was one of the leading ladies of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She was a glittering figure and a dazzling image. Yet, her early life was far from grand. At three, she was orphaned and later in life, she would say, “I just wanted to survive and eat and have a nice coat.” Her childhood was so full of “struggle, confusion and pain,” in the words of her biographer Axel Madsen, “but she never learned to blame anybody.”

“Alright, let’s just say I had a terrible childhood. Let’s say that poor is something I understand.” But she never let poverty become her hindrance to success. Dropping out from school at a very early age, her first job was as a wrapper of packages at Brooklyn’s Abraham & Straus department store. Here, she early $14 a week and became an early milestone because she never again depended on her family for financial support.

Her next worked involved telephone card filing and then as a dress pattern cutter. Then, she worked as a typist in Manhattan. She was 16 when she obtained a bit part in a stage play. She eventually progressed into appearing in heavier and meatier stage roles until she tested for the film outfit First National. Her first film was released in 1927. But it was not until 1930’s Ladies of Leisure that Stanwyck broke into popularity. 

Throughout the 1930s and 40s, Stanwyck was one of Hollywood’s most prolific and best actresses. Her performances in Stella Dallas (1937), Ball of Fire (1941), Double Indemnity (1944) and Sorry, Wrong Number (1947) earned the raves of critics and moviegoers alike.

With Stanwyck’s rise to popularity also followed the rise of her fortune. For Ladies of Leisure, Stanwyck was paid $1,000 a week, a fortune at a time when the rest of the country was reeling behind the effects of the Great Depression. The box-office success of Ladies … earned her a three-picture contract, which paid her $12,000 for the first picture, (Ten Cents a Dance), $16,000 for the second picture, and a whooping $50,000 for the third picture. Stanwyck’s hard work and hard bargain with studio executives, as well as her professionalism and kindness to her fellow actors and the crew made her everyone’s favorite. In fact, she was called The Director’s Actress.

And if the former chorus girl needed the confirmation that she made it, the Treasury Department listed Barbara Stanwyck as the woman who earned the most in 1944—over $400,000.

By the time she turned fifty, Stanwyck was already a very rich woman. Compared to so many actresses of her era, Stanwyck had more than enough. Her best friend Joan Crawford was one step away from bankruptcy court until her married Pepsi Cola president Alfred Steele. Bette Davis was so financially crippled that she was forced to appear in John Paul Jones for $50,000.

Stanwyck was a millionaire. Her self-discipline, frugality and years of his business manager Morgan Maree’s management of her finances at one point made her the biggest stockholder in Atlantic Pacific & Tea Company.

Now, that’s sooooo far away from $14 a week she used to earn when she was 16.