Barbara Stanwyck - Early Life

Early Life

Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens in Brooklyn, New York on July 16, 1907. Ruby Stevens was the fifth and youngest child of Catherine Ann (née McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens; the couple were working-class, her father a native of Massachusetts and her mother an immigrant from Nova Scotia, Canada. Ruby was of English and Scottish ancestry, by her father and mother, respectively. When she was four, her mother was killed when a drunken stranger pushed her off a moving streetcar. Two weeks after the funeral, Byron Stevens joined a work crew digging the Panama canal and was never seen again. Ruby and her brother Byron were raised by their elder sister Mildred, who was five years older than Ruby. When Mildred got a job as a John Cort showgirl, Ruby and Byron were placed in a series of foster homes (as many as four in a year), from which Ruby often ran away.

During the summers of 1916 and 1917, Ruby toured with Mildred, and practiced her sister's routines backstage. Another influence toward performing was watching the movies of Pearl White, whom Ruby idolized. At age 14, she dropped out of school to take a job wrapping packages at a department store in Brooklyn. Ruby never attended high school, "although early biographical thumbnail sketches had her attend Brooklyn's famous Erasmus Hall High School". Soon after, she took a job filing cards at the Brooklyn telephone office for a salary of $14 a week, a salary that allowed her to become financially independent. She disliked both jobs; her real interest was to enter show business even as her sister Mildred discouraged the idea. She next took a job cutting dress patterns for Vogue, but because customers complained about her work, she was fired. Her next job was as a typist for the Jerome H. Remick Music Company, a job she reportedly enjoyed. But her continuing ambition was to work in show business and her sister finally gave up trying to dissuade her.