Alice Guy-Blaché

Biography

Alice Guy-Blaché (July 1, 1873 – March 24, 1968) is generally considered to be the world's first female director. French-born Alice Guy entered the film business as a secretary at Gaumont-Paris in 1896. The next year Gaumont changed from manufacturing cameras to producing movies, and Guy became one of its first film directors. She impressed the company so much with the output (she averaged two two-reelers a week) and quality of her productions that by 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising the company's other directors. In 1907 she married Herbert Blaché, an Englishman who ran the company's British and German offices. The pair soon went to the U.S. to set up the company's operations there. In 1910 she set up her own production company in New York and built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After a period of critical and financial success, her company's fortunes declined and she eventually shut down the studio. Although she secured work directing films for several major Hollywood studios, she returned to France in 1922 after her divorce from Blache. She was never able to secure any directorial jobs there, and never made a film again. In 1964 she returned to…

Directed

1. The Cabbage-Patch Fairy (1896) — Director
2. Falling Leaves (1912) — Director
3. The Consequences of Feminism (1906) — Director
4. Madame's Cravings (1906) — Director
5. The Cabbage-Patch Fairy (1900) — Director
6. Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913) — Director
7. Pierrette's Escapades (1900) — Director
8. Algie, the Miner (1912) — Director
9. At the Hypnotist's (1898) — Director
10. The Race for the Sausage (1907) — Director
11. Disappearing Act (1898) — Director
12. Faust and Mephistopheles (1903) — Director
13. The Burglars (1898) — Director
14. The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (1906) — Director
15. Turn-of-the-Century Surgery (1900) — Director
16. The Glue (1907) — Director
17. At the Floral Ball (1900) — Director
18. Miss Dundee and Her Performing Dogs (1902) — Director
19. A House Divided (1913) — Director
20. A Sticky Woman (1906) — Director
21. The Ocean Waif (1916) — Director
22. Bathing in a Stream (1897) — Director
23. Serpentine Dance by Mme. Bob Walter (1897) — Director
24. Wonderful Absinthe (1899) — Director
25. Midwife to the Upper Class (1902) — Director
26. Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder (1900) — Director
27. The Fisherman at the Stream (1897) — Director
28. Avenue de l'Opéra (1900) — Director
29. At the Photographer's (1900) — Director
30. The Turn-of-the-Century Blind Man (1898) — Director
31. At the Club (1899) — Director
32. A Fool and His Money (1912) — Director
33. Surprise Attack on a House at Daybreak (1898) — Director
34. The Landlady (1900) — Director
35. The Girl in the Arm-Chair (1912) — Director
36. On the Barricade (1907) — Director
37. The Drunken Mattress (1906) — Director
38. Danse Fleur de Lotus (1897) — Director
39. Making an American Citizen (1912) — Director
40. A Story Well Spun (1906) — Director

Also appeared in

1. The Cabbage-Patch Fairy (1896)
2. Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018) — Self (archive footage)
3. Spain (1905) — Self - Presenter
4. Alice Guy, the First Female Filmmaker (2021) — Self - Filmmaker (archive footage)
5. Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris (1907) — Herself, the director
6. The Women Who Run Hollywood (2016) — Self (archive footage)
7. The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blaché (1995) — Self (archive footage)
8. Cinépanorama (1956) — Self
9. Mireille (1906)
10. Animated Portrait Shot by L and A Lumière (1895) — Herself
11. A Solax Celebration (1912) — The Cause
12. Qui est Alice Guy? (1976) — Self