{"id":22024,"date":"2010-07-16T14:53:53","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T18:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=22024"},"modified":"2010-07-16T14:57:02","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T18:57:02","slug":"my-only-problem-is-finding-a-way-to-play-my-fortieth-fallen-female-in-a-different-way-from-my-thirty-ninth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=22024","title":{"rendered":"Barbara Stanwyck: The Self-Proclaimed “Tough Old Broad From Brooklyn”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI love him because he\u2019s the kind of guy who gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. I love him because he doesn\u2019t know how to kiss, the jerk!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So says Sugarpuss O’Shea in Ball of Fire<\/i>, about Gary Cooper’s character, the stuffy professor. There\u2019s sadness in her eyes as she speaks (or perhaps sadness is too tepid a word): the sadness that does not come from self-pity, but from acute self-awareness. He \u201cgets drunk on a glass of buttermilk\u201d. His innocence shames<\/em> Sugarpuss. Yet she loves him. She loves his innocence. With all of this, we cannot forget that epithet at the end of the monologue: \u201cthe jerk\u201d! Classic Stanwyck. She doesn’t go mushy when love comes knocking at her door. She gets angry. Being vulnerable makes her cranky. He doesn\u2019t know how to kiss, the jerk! He has no business, the bad kisser, capturing her heart like he has! How dare he? But with all of that, she is declaring herself. The goodness of the writing shows in the specificity: Love is based on her man \u201cgetting drunk on a glass of buttermilk\u201d (and isn’t that how Love works, often) – and the overall confidence of her acting, something that was never shaken. I know Stanwyck has done more dramatic scenes, but to me \u2013 that small monologue near the end of Ball of Fire<\/em> is my favorite.<\/p>\n

It’s her birthday today. <\/p>\n

She is one of my favorite actresses.<\/a><\/p>\n

Another classic scene from Ball of Fire<\/i>, Stanwyck’s first entrance, and a glorious cameo from Gene Krupa and his orchestra. <\/p>\n

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\u201cI love him because he\u2019s the kind of guy who gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. I love him because he doesn\u2019t know how to kiss, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,39],"tags":[347],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22024"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22024"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22026,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22024\/revisions\/22026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}