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During the Golden Age of Hollywood, Northridge became the hideaway spot for some of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors. Northridge was just far away enough from Hollywood to offer some level of privacy and had larger lots of land available for the stars elaborate tastes.

One of the area’s largest equestrian properties found itself under the ownership of the beautiful actress Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck was born Ruby Stevens in New York’s Brooklyn. At 14 she joined the workforce as a switchboard operator, file clerk and package wrapper at Abraham & Straus. Just a year later under the name Dolly Evans she began her journey into show business as a part of the 1922 Follies revue as a ballet dancer.

A cowgirl at heart, Stanwyck relished residing in her custom designed French and English Tudor inspired 11-acre ranch home. This home renamed ‘Oakridge’ by the second owner is one of the last intact estates in the area. This has been a topic of interest for Northridge tutors, as this residence became the center of a historic preservation dispute between the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission and the University of Southern California. The reason for the dispute is to do with the architect. Traditionally this property is listed as a Paul R. Williams’ celebrity design, but there is doubt into the extent of Williams’ contribution to the property design. In 1944 Stanwyck was the highest paid woman in America, and made over $400,00 that year alone. Having celebrities of that caliber residing in Northridge, made the area increasingly more desirable for the rich and famous.

During Barbara Stanwyck’s era film was a new medium and there was rapid development and growth in the industry, and is of great interest to Northridge tutors. As more movie studios came into being it became necessary to monitor more closely what was being produced, as cinema and TV became more readily available to the public. The 1934 Production Code was enforced. The Production Code prevented profanity, nudity and drug use from being included in movies. It also went as far as to stop showing childbirth. Movies were to be happy stories, with positive messages, the endings tied up ‘neatly’ in a bow. There were no documentaries showing the harsh realities of life, or creating awareness of other cultures or challenging storylines that gave the audience pause for thought. Stanwyck, who later went on to be a spokesperson for the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals ironically was in a movie called “Night Nurse”, a dark gritty flick, at the beginning of her career that was one of the productions that spurred the puritanical policing.