By the time I graduated high school, I had changed my answer about what I wanted to do with my life. Because after reading all of those film books and watching so many movies, I had come to the conclusion that it was just too hard to be a female director. Or for that matter, a female cinematographer, producer, editor, writer, etc. It seemed like the odds were so stacked against getting work in those jobs, and I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to make it. So instead I went to work in television, making my way slowly up the ranks in behind-the-scenes roles.
All of that led to my real dream job. I’m now a film reporter who lives in Hollywood and makes a living talking about films, interviewing movie stars, and traveling the world to attend film festivals. I know, I’d be jealous of me, if I weren’t already me. I actually didn’t know this could be a real job when I was young; but when I think about it, I am still President of my own Film Club, I just use television, social media, and YouTube to plead my case for people to watch classic and independent movies. And I’m still interviewing people, only now with a real microphone. My original reason for wanting to be a director, to ignite a love of movies in others, is what I continue to strive for every day.
This is exactly what I hope to do with this book. Because amongst all of those film books I read when I was young, I didn’t come across many stories of the women who worked in Hollywood. Their absence told me that film was exclusively a man’s world, which is simply not true.
This is not meant to be a complete history of women in Hollywood. That would take a good couple of years to research, and multiple volumes of books to tell. There are many women that I have had to leave out, and that was hard, but I wanted to describe the plight of women in film in a different way. I have handpicked a few stories about women from each era of American cinema. These women are inspiring in their accomplishments, and their stories are illuminating as far as what they’ve had to struggle against. Each story stands for a wider problem or a solution in Hollywood, with statistics and expert opinion weaved in.
I’d like this to be a guidebook, an entry into the world of women in film. Some stories you may already know, some you may be surprised by. You can flip directly to the story you want to read, or go from the beginning and work your way to the end. However you do it, I hope you will be as enamored of these ladies as I am, and join me in keeping the pressure on Hollywood to let more women in.
What if I told you that in the 1900s through to the early 1920s, there were more female filmmakers actively working at the top of Hollywood than there are today? Admit it, you’re surprised. Everyone is when I tell them this, even people who work in the film industry. And here’s more: during this time, half of all movies made in the United States were written by women, many famous actresses ran their own production companies, and the first person to be titled “Film Editor” was a woman.
The beginning of cinema—especially the silent era—offered more opportunities to women than we’ve seen since. So what happened? Let’s start at the birth of cinema and go from there.
The idea of moving pictures was born in the late 1870s, when photographer Eadweard Muybridge set up a series of cameras alongside a racetrack. Eadweard was trying to discover if horses lifted all four feet off the ground at one time while galloping. Spoiler alert: they do. In order to show the photos in quick succession, he made an early projector, to which he gave a catchy name: Zoopraxiscope.
In the 1890s, Thomas Edison invented the first motion picture camera, called the Kinetograph. To play the footage, you needed a Kinetoscope, where one person would squint into a peep-hole to view the images. Shortly after, the Lumiére Brothers in France created the Cinematographe, which projected motion pictures onto a screen, creating a shared viewing experience.
These inventions were sold around the world in touring exhibitions, with companies such as photography studios buying the cameras to start experimenting with them. At first, it was a simple matter of recording what was happening around them. One of Thomas Edison’s first films was of a laboratory assistant sneezing.
Then, inspired by the theater, filmmakers started telling stories, approaching them like filmed plays. Makeshift cinemas started to pop up around the country, mostly at vaudeville theater shows, where they were offered as an extension to their live acts. These were called Nickelodeons, because admission cost five cents, and their popularity grew very quickly. By 1910, as bigger theaters were being built, the cheap price of a ticket attracted a large rowdy working-class audience, who often chose the movies over the pub for a good night out.
The growing crowds created a big demand for content. Studios were built, and the process of producing films became more streamlined. Movie-making was both fast and furious, with each studio cranking out at least two short films per week.
During the late teens, film production began to center in Los Angeles. This was partly because of its ideal weather for filming and space to build studios, and partly because of Thomas Edison. He had tried to monopolize film production in New York by suing for patent infringement on his inventions, so everyone escaped to Los Angeles where they were free to use his inventions with less likelihood of legal trouble.
Silent films became longer and more intricate, and the films were screened in new movie “palaces,” elaborate theaters with lavish aesthetic design features that were designed to attract a more upmarket crowd. To fill the seats, theater owners specifically targeted female audiences.
The thought was that if you could entice white middle-class women into theaters, it would push out the raucous working-class crowd. These women would bring their husbands, and the theaters could charge more for tickets, advertising it as an elegant night out. So the palaces were built near shopping centers, coupons were placed in magazines, and free childcare was offered. This completely excluded non-white audiences of a lower class.
Movie studios wanted to cater to this middle-class female audience, so female writers and directors were hired to ensure the content would appeal. Karen Ward Mahar, author of Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood, says these women were “believed to lend a moral tone to the movies that the middle classes appreciated.”
The silent era saw actresses such as Mary Pickford, Lilian Gish, Theda Bara, Greta Garbo, and Clara Bow become hugely popular. The fame of these women was almost a reflection of the changing ideas about ladies during these decades. For example, Mary Pickford was the innocent Victorian-era girl, while Clara Bow was the sexy 1920s “New Woman.”
The New Woman was part of the first wave of feminism in the U.S., which saw protests for women’s rights grow throughout the teens and into the twenties. The movement was successful in winning the right for white women to vote in August of 1920 with the 19th Amendment.
By the end of the 1920s, silent films featured complex plots, artistic cinematography, and glamorous movie stars, and attracted big audiences. But a new filmmaking technology threatened this silent utopia. The ability to record sound heralded the arrival of “talkies,” which forced a complete rethinking of how to make movies—such as where to hide the giant microphones. All of this was wonderfully lampooned in 1952’s Singin’ In The Rain.
This brings us to why women were pushed out of the industry. Firstly, many filmmakers, writers, and actors struggled to make the transition to this new style of making movies.