Ruby Stevens was determined, ambitious and tough. She had to fend for herself in so many ways as a child and always felt apart, on her own.

I would say she [Barbara Stanwyck] did her job as best she could an honest day's work for an honest day's pay - and when it was over, it was over.

I've published many biographies over the years and enjoyed working with writers on their research, discussing it, thinking about it and how it revealed their subject - and one day the impulse came to me to write a life of someone. I made a long list of possible subjects and [ Barbara] Stanwyck was on the list.

I bought a gun safe with velvet shelves and a built-in dehumidifier to house the hundreds of original [Barbara] Stanwyck letters I amassed that I first kept in the lettuce crisper of a refrigerator in my basement.