Stella Dallas is a 1923 novel by Olive Higgins Prouty and published by Houghton Mifflin, written in response to the death of her three-year-old daughter from encephalitis. It tells the story of the eponymous protagonist, a working-class woman who marries a rich businessman but struggles to adapt to her new life. After the marriage fails, she sacrifices her own happiness for the sake of her daughter. The novel was subsequently adapted into a stage play in 1924 and movies in 1925, 1937, and 1990. The 1937 King Vidor and Sam Goldwyn production brought Academy Award nominations to Barbara Stanwyck and Anne Shirley. The novel was also the basis for the radio serial Stella Dallas, which aired daily for 18 years as a soap opera.
Adaptations (3)
Stella Dallas has been adapted into 3 films, from 1925 to 1990. The most recent is Stella (1990).
Stella Dallas1925 · film · 110 min · dir. Henry King · IMDb ↗IMDb7.3An eccentric lower class woman struggles to gain respect in high society after marrying a wealthy man, and the problem gets worse when their daughter starts growing up.
Stella1990 · film · 109 min · dir. John Erman · IMDb ↗Barmaid Stella Claire and blueblood Stephen Dallas have very little in common -- except they've fallen in love. When their relationship fails, Stella decides to raise the child they had, Jenny, alone. But Jenny and Stella are far from the perfect mother-daughter pair.
