I was a small child when Barbara Stanwyck starred in the TV series The Big Valley. My family watched it religiously, and I sat curled up on the couch beside my mother intrigued with Miss Stanwyck as Victoria Barkley. I called her "the nice lady with the silver hair."

I was ten or eleven the first time I saw Barbara Stanwyck in a film. In the pre-cable, pre-VHS, pre-DVD days of the early 1970s, Regis Cordic, the host of WTAE TV's Sunday Afternoon at the Movies, was telling me the background of the film that was to be shown, 1937's Stella Dallas. I listened to him intently and waited with great anticipation of the spectacle I was about to see. When the film began, I was not disappointed. Watching Barbara Stanwyck and the rest of talented cast was a real treat, and I was mesmerized by "The Queen." The last scene of that film is so powerful. I dare you to watch it and not shed a tear. I became a "Missy" fan that day and continue to be one today.

"I would have to say that I have never worked with an actress who was more cooperative, less temperamental and a better workman, to use my term of highest compliment, than Barbara Stanwyck." (Cecil B. DeMille, on directing Stanwyck)

"Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for doing what I love doing." (Barbara Stanwyck).

I hope I can do justice to a great lady with my tribute, Barbara Stanwyck - The Queen.