The one thing that really stands out when I think back are the movies.
I remember our house being filled with movies, hundreds of VHS tapes with films my Dad had recorded from the television, piling up in precarious towers in our spare room; my Mum making trips to the local video store to get a weekly supply of movies; the living room with its multiple copies of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guides; and my bedroom, plastered in film posters. From a young age, I was introduced to the magic that lay within movies, and this ended up transforming my life in so many ways. I would sit transfixed by the screen, watching the glamorous Marilyn Monroe, the icy Hitchcock blondes, and sassy Katharine Hepburn. I loved how these women were powerful, strong, sexy and vulnerable all at once. And sometimes, I related strongly to one of the characters on screen, like the young Liz Taylor in National Velvet at the time I too was obsessed with horses. It’s a very powerful thing to see yourself or someone you would like to be reflected as the hero of a movie. She made me feel like I could do anything. And so, if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up (after ditching the idea of a being an Olympic-level horse rider), my answer would have been, “a film director.” I wanted to create that same type of special magic, including inspiring heroes and fascinating stories that would appeal to future film buffs; to ignite the same love for movies that I had felt. This continued throughout high school, when I challenged myself to learn more and more about the art of cinema. I devoured seven movies a week, read all the books I could get my hands on, and sat in the front row of film class, eagerly hanging on to every word the teacher said.
Then, I decided that my school peers needed to love movies as
much as I did. I started my own Film Club where I elected myself President, transforming a school badge I found on the ground with white-out and a marker to wear as a symbol of my new self-appointed role. I still giggle to think that I called myself “President,” which is not a typically Australian term, especially because all the actual roles at school were “Captain” or “Vice-Captain.” Every week, I would book the screening room at school with a movie of my choice. It was always a classic film. And even though I was painfully shy, I forced myself to get up on stage during school assembly to plead my case as to why everyone should see Citizen Kane. Nobody ever came to my club, and eventually the school Principal asked me not to get up in assembly anymore.
Around this time I also began to create my own videos using my step-father’s camcorder, interviewing my fellow students with my fist held tight, as if it were holding a microphone, asking hard-hitting questions about their futures. I edited the videos using the method of record/pause/record/pause on my trusty VHS tape player, and showed them eagerly to my classmates.
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
