PLAYED BY: Barbara Stanwyck
MARITAL STATUS/OCCUPATION: Single/unemployed
MATERNAL QUALITY WE ADMIRE: Self-sacrifice. Small-town girl Stella — loud and coarse — attracts the attention of an emotionally vulnerable executive at the local steel mill. They wed and have a girl together. Shortly afterwards, he moves to New York and leaves Stella to raise little Laurel. Years later, when Laurel grows into a refined young lady, Stella realizes that she is unable to provide any kind of life for her daughter and hatches a plan to drive Laurel away from her and into the family of her wealthy and soon-to-be-divorced husband.
CONSOLING A THREE-YEAR-OLD LAUREL AFTER HER HUSBAND THREATENS TO TAKE HER AWAY: “There, there. You’re here with Mommy and nobody in this whole world is ever gonna take you away. Nobody. Nobody.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjVtqW9lEbo]