Alice Guy-Blache, the first woman director

Alice Guy was born in Paris, the fifth child in her family. Her parents lived in Santiago, Chile, but her mother traveled to Paris for the birth. Guy's grandmother in Switzerland cared for her until she was three or four years old. In 1877, Guy's mother collected her and brought her to Santiago, where Guy met her father for the first time.

Around 1879, her father took her back to France to enroll her in boarding school, where two of her sisters were studying. In 1884, the chain of bookstores her father owned in Chile were bankrupt; her parents returned to France, and Guy was enrolled in a less expensive boarding school. Her brother, who had been sick for some time, died, soon followed by her father.

In 1894, Guy washired by Léon Gaumont, to work for a photography company owned by Felix Richard. When, shortly thereafter, Richard lost a patent suit and went out of business, Gaumont bought his inventory and started his own company, with Guy working for him.

On March 22, 1895, Gaumont and Guy were invited by the Lumière brothers to view their cinématographe - a 35mm motion picture camera - in action.

This was when the turning point came in Guy's career. She persuaded Gaumont to let her direct a film using the Gaumont camera. In 1896, Guy wrote, produced, and directed La Fée aux choux (The Cabbage Fairy).

In 1897, Guy was made the head of film production, which would be her job until 1906. By that time, she had produced more than 400 films.

From 1902 to 1906, Guy directed more than 100 phonoscènes, which were films made for the chronophone (a synchronized-sound system introduced by Gaumont in 1902). In 1906, Herbert Blaché, a manager at Gaumont, acted as Guy's cameraman. On Christmas Day, 1906, the two became engaged - Guy was 33 and Blaché was 24.

In 1907, the two married and when Blaché was sent to the United States on business, Guy resigned in order to accompany him. The two were unsuccessful in their attempts to create a chronophone franchise, but in 1908, Blaché was hired by Gaumont to manage a studio in Flushing, New York that would produce English-language phonoscènes.

In 1910, Guy created a company, Solax, renting the Gaumont studio space. By 1912, Solax had become so successful that Guy built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, at an alleged cost of more than $100,000. The company produced two one-reeler films per week. At least half of the films made were written and directed by Guy; she also oversaw all the production. At that time, D.W. Griffith was working at Biograph, a few miles away.

On March 1, 1913, Dick Whittington and His Cat was released. It was three reels (45 minutes) long, with a $35,000 budget.

In June of 1913, Blaché's contract with Gaumont ended and Guy made him president of Solax so that she could concentrate on writing and directing. Three months later, Blaché resigned and started his own film company, Blaché Features. The company used the Solax plant, inventory and actors, so that the two companies were easily confused for some months. Eventually, Blaché Features outstripped Solax in terms of production.

From August 1913 to August 1914, Blaché and Guy took turns in producing and directing three- and four-reel films for Blaché features. In the time period of 1914-1916, feature-length films of five reels or more were in increasing demand. Guy and Blaché joined production company Popular Plays and Players. The films were shot in the old Solax Studio in Fort Lee, which at that time still belonged to the Blachés.

In 1916, after two years of cooperation, the Blachés decided to end their work with Popular Plays and Players. Guy directed seven feature films, including The Ocean Waif.

In 1917, the Solax studio was rented to other companies. Guy, now 44, was a highly-regarded film director, but her recent films hadn't enjoyed commercial success.

In 1918, Blaché found Guy work in directing The Great Adventure for Pathé Players. This film is commercially successful. That same year, Blaché moved to Hollywood with Catrine Calvert, an actress who had starred in four films under Guy's direction. Guy moved into a New York City apartment.

In 1919, Léonce Perret hired Guy to write and direct Tarnished Reputations, at a rate of $2,000 for six weeks of work. The film actually took ten weeks to complete, during which time Guy came down with the Spanish influenza, which killed four coworkers. Blaché, then in New York, invited her to join him in California.

In 1920, Guy and her children moved into a Los Angeles bungalow. Though Blaché didn't live with them, he hired Guy as his directing assistant on the Alla Nazimova films The Brat and Stronger than Death.

Tarnished Reputations opened on March 14, 1920. It was the last film that Alice Guy-Blaché would direct.

After a turbulent life after directing, Guy died on March 24, 1968, in a New Jersey nursing home, aged 95.

She isn't just the first woman director. She was one of the first directors ever, starting in the film business at the very beginning, well ahead of the far more famous D.W. Griffith. She is said to have made more than 400 movies, of which only one-fourth survive.

Come to think of it, concerning the enormous numbers of silent films lost to us, that's an above-average survival rate.

So, then, why is there so little about her? Where is the DVD set of her films? The TV specials about her? Why is she barely remembered these days?

I'd like to know.