Forget the myth of the small-town girl being whisked off to Los Angeles to become a star. Many of Hollywood’s biggest leading ladies and sex symbols hail from big-city Brooklyn.
Barbara Stanwyck (left) was born Ruby Stevens in Flatbush in 1907. She had it rough: Her mother was killed when a stranger pushed her from a streetcar, and Barbara bounced around foster homes until getting a foothold as a Ziegfeld girl at 15.
Mae West, aka Mary Jane West (right), comes from Bushwick. Born in 1893, she got her start performing at the Royal Theater on Fulton Street.
I don’t know what neighborhood Clara Bow (left) grew up in, but reportedly her strong Brooklyn accent worked against her when she started acting in the teens.
Rita Hayworth, born Margarita Carmen Cansino (right), didn’t stay in Brooklyn long; her family moved to L.A. in the 1920s.
Tags: Barbara Stanwyck, brooklyn-born actresses, Clara Bow, famous Ziegfeld girls, Hollywood's golden age actresses, Legendary actresses, Mae West, Margarita Carmen Cansino, Mary Jane West, Rita Hayworth, Ruby Stevens
July 24, 2010 at 4:57 am |
“Her mother was killed when a stranger pushed her from a streetcar”
that’s just horrifying, and i see from wiki that it got worse:
“Two weeks after the funeral, Byron Stevens joined a work crew digging the Panama canal and was never seen again”
July 24, 2010 at 5:02 am |
Wow. Even Hollywood starmakers couldn’t make up a backstory like that.
July 24, 2010 at 7:31 pm |
Clara Bow was from Sheepshead Bay. She was the most famous graduate of my first elementary school – PS. 98 on Avenue Z and East 26th.
PS. 98 closed after I finished 2nd grade and all the kids were moved over to PS. 52 on Nostrand Ave. When the school closed there was a big assembly, and one of the speeches was about her rise from local kid hanging out around the area’s seedier race tracks to Hollywood diva.
The old PS. 98 building itself dates back to the 1860s, and was said to have originally been a hospital for Civil War veterans, later remodeled into a school. It’s still there, and now houses a yeshiva. I don’t know if any of the kids in the yeshiva know that Clara Bow once sat in their classrooms.
July 25, 2010 at 12:08 am |
Clara Bow was in 1905 on Bergen St in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
July 25, 2010 at 12:10 am |
Clara Bow was born in 1905 on Bergen St in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
July 25, 2010 at 7:10 pm |
Thanks! I guess Clara Bow moved to Sheepshead from Cobble Hill. That would be a long hike for elementary school.
July 26, 2010 at 1:17 am |
Barbara Stanwyck’s career supposedly moved from contract actress to sexy leading lady with the help of Edith Head. As Edith said, she corrected her
“figure “problem” -a long waist and a comparatively low rear end” by “widening the waistbands on the front of her gowns and narrowing them slightly in the back. I could still put her in straight skirts, something other designers were afraid to do, because they thought she might look too heavy in the seat. Since she wasn’t the least bit heavy, I just took advantage of her long waist to create an optical illusion that her derriere was just as pertly placed as any other star’s.”
Miss Head also says that Clara Bow Bow was the first big star she worked with at MGM and Mae West was the second.
July 26, 2010 at 1:27 am |
Fascinating. Edith Head did the costumes for so many great movies, like The Heiress and Double Indemnity.
July 29, 2010 at 5:53 am |
Just on a side note, Lauren Bacall was named Miss Greenwich Village of 1942, got to put in a plug for my home town’s famous stars.
August 1, 2010 at 1:02 am |
acc. to wiki, lauen bacall “is first cousin to Shimon Peres, current President and former Prime Minister of Israel.”
jumpin’ jehosaphat!
August 10, 2010 at 10:57 am |
Dane Clark was born and raised in Brooklyn. I believe Flatbush.
And I know she does not count for this topic, but she was famous, so forgive me, Winston Churchill’s Mother was from Brooklyn! How weird is that?? I know!
Did you mean when Barbara Stanwyck became a, “leading,” man? heehee
addie
February 5, 2013 at 6:04 pm |
Veronica Lake was born and lived in Brooklyn. I believe Williamsburg. Tarbender