““Ruby learned to live on the streets and to make the best of it. “We never played games,” she said. “I never cared for games anyway. The only game I can remember playing,” she said, “is the game of fighting.” She learned at a young age that her survival was based “on self-preservation . . . When you live like that you always take care of yourself first, because there’s no one else to do it.” Malcolm Byron was a quiet boy, never loud or outspoken in the way Ruby was. “He was always a loner,” she said. Malcolm never teased his little sister and was protective of her. Ruby was the “leader of any gang” she and Malcolm played with. “Despite her quietness,” said Malcolm, “the other children would turn to Ruby when they were hurt, or bullied. She never failed them.””
![“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…” quote by Victoria Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a84/victoria-wilson-35630_barbara_i-ve-published-many-biographies-over-the_244674.jpg)
![“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.” quote by Victoria Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d01/victoria-wilson-35630_barbara_i-would-say-she-barbara-stanwyck-did-her_1548970.jpg)
![“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.” quote by Victoria Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/8ed/victoria-wilson-35630_barbara_i-bought-a-gun-safe-with-velvet-shelves_2092132.jpg)
