Richard Corliss's profile of John Travolta in the July 30 begins with Travolta talking about old Hollywood stars and his presenting an honorary Oscar to Barbara Stanwyck in 1982.

"If you'd met Stanwyck," he explains, "she would have crushed you with her ability to adore and adorn you, just like a Southern belle." …. "Oh, you came here to give me my Oscar!" he whispers in a dewy approximation of Stanwyck's purr to Henry Fonda in "The Lady Eve." … He says in his own voice, "And I'm standing here thinking she's an 80-year-old woman, and I am captivated."

Well, yeah. It was Barbara Stanwyck …

(more…)