Where To Watch
Barbara Stanwyck gave Victoria Barkley her backbone
Stanwyck called the Barkley matriarch "the old broad."
Though women played an important role in history, these stories seem to be lacking when we look at television. Many Westerns, which claim to detail pages from our past, relegate women to the background.
One woman who clawed her way to the forefront of the genre was Barbara Stanwyck. Not only was Stanwyck a dynamic force on the stage and screen, but she also led her own television series, The Big Valley. In it, the actor starred as matriarch Victoria, head of the Barkley family. Off-screen, however, Stanwyck seemed to be aware that roles for women were few and far between in Hollywood.
"I have a friend who feels that the era swung from female to male stories as an aftermath of World War II," Stanwyck said in an interview with The Kansas City Star.
Stanwyck offered her two cents on the matter, and she didn't hold back. "The problem is that they just don't write good roles for women anymore," said the actor. "If they don't write them, where the hell are you going to get a role? Sure, I'd like to do movies, but when you get to my age, you have to be realistic. It's a different plateau, and it's difficult to get a part in a movie."
When she signed onto The Big Valley, Stanwyck went to great lengths to ensure that Victoria Barkley was a character who could hold her own with any Western man.
"I wanted to resurrect the old broad we had before and not be born to the manor and the teacup," Stanwyck said to the Akron Beacon Journal.
Related
