Guy-Blaché, Alice

Guy-Blaché, Alice

 orig. Alice Guy

(born July 1, 1873, Paris, France—died March 24, 1968, Mahwah, N.J., U.S.) French-born U.S. pioneer of French and American film industries. The first woman director, she is also generally acknowledged to be the first director to film a narrative story. She directed her first film, The Cabbage Fairy, in 1896 to demonstrate the entertainment possibilities of the motion-picture camera manufactured by her employer, Léon Gaumont. She became the Gaumont film company's head of production, directing nearly all early Gaumont films. About 1901 Guy began to work on longer, more elaborate projects, notably Esmeralda (1905), based on Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Life of Christ (1906). From 1906 to 1907 she directed about 100 films, using experimental sound technology. She married cameraman Herbert Blaché in 1907 and followed him to the U.S., where in 1910 she founded the successful Solax Company. As president of Solax she directed about 45 films and supervised nearly 300 other productions. Only a handful of the hundreds of films she made survive.