Alice Guy-Blaché
Born: 1873-07-01 in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, France
Died: 1968-03-24
Known For: Directing
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 the U.S. and lived in Mahwah, New Jersey - not far from where her original studios were - with her daughters, where she died in 1968.
Filmography
2025
- Fantastic Flowers ... (Director)
- Imitation of Waves - Guy's Visions ... (Cinematography)
2021
- Alice Guy, the First Female Filmmaker as Self - Filmmaker (archive footage)
2018
- Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché as Self (archive footage)
2016
- The Women Who Run Hollywood as Self (archive footage)
2007
- Butterfly Dances ... (Director)
2005
- Gaumont Treasures 1897-1913 ... (Director)
1995
- The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blaché as Self (archive footage)
1976
- Qui est Alice Guy? as Self
1956
- Cinépanorama as Self
1920
- Tarnished Reputations ... (Director)
1918
- The Great Adventure ... (Director)
1917
- Behind the Mask ... (Director)
- The Adventurer ... (Director)
- When You and I Were Young ... (Director)
- The Empress ... (Director)
- House of Cards ... (Director)
1916
- The Scarlet Woman ... (Director)
- What Will People Say? ... (Director)
- The Ocean Waif ... (Director)
1915
- Heart of a Painted Woman ... (Director)
- The Vampire ... (Director)
- Barbara Frietchie ... (Producer)
- The Song of the Wage Slave ... (Director)
- My Madonna ... (Director)
1914
- The Lure ... (Writer)
- The Dream Woman ... (Director)
- The Monster and the Girl ... (Director)
- The Tigress ... (Director)
- The Woman of Mystery ... (Director)
1913
- The Pit and the Pendulum ... (Director)
- A House Divided ... (Director)
- A Severe Test ... (Director)
- Matrimony's Speed Limit ... (Director)
- Burstup Homes' Murder Case ... (Director)
- The Coming of Sunbeam ... (Director)
- Cousins of Sherlocko ... (Director)
- The Roads That Lead Home ... (Producer)
- The Rogues of Paris ... (Director)
- Dick Whittington and His Cat ... (Writer)
- The Thief ... (Director)
- Kelly from the Emerald Isle ... (Writer)
- Beasts of the Jungle ... (Writer)
- Officer Henderson ... (Director)
- Burstup Homes ... (Director)
- Napoleon ... (Director)
1912
- A Fool and His Money ... (Producer)
- Falling Leaves ... (Director)
- Algie, the Miner ... (Producer)
- Canned Harmony ... (Director)
- The Girl in the Arm-Chair ... (Director)
- Mignon ... (Director)
- Fra Diavolo ... (Director)
- The Hater of Women ... (Director)
- The Sewer ... (Producer)
- Two Little Rangers ... (Director)
- The Strike ... (Director)
- Frozen on Love's Trail ... (Director)
- Dublin Dan ... (Producer)
- Broken Oaths ... (Director)
- The New Love And The Old ... (Producer)
- Phantom Paradise ... (Director)
- Parson Sue ... (Director)
- A Terrible Lesson ... (Director)
- Mrs. Cranston's Jewels ... (Director)
- The High Cost of Living ... (Director)
- A Comedy of Errors ... (Director)
- In the Year 2000 ... (Director)
- A Solax Celebration as The Cause
- God Disposes ... (Director)
- The Love of the Flag ... (Director)
- Playing Trumps ... (Director)
- The Wooing of Alice ... (Director)
- Blighted Lives ... (Director)
- The Face at the Window ... (Director)
- Making an American Citizen ... (Producer)
- Child of the Tenements ... (Director)
- Hearts Unknown ... (Director)
- Treasures on the Wing ... (Director)
- Hubby Does the Washing ... (Director)
- His Double ... (Director)
- The Reformation of Mary ... (Director)
- The Detective's Dog ... (Director)
- Souls in the Shadow ... (Director)
- Someone's Luck Society ... (Director)
- The Equine Spy ... (Producer)
- The Woman Behind the Man ... (Director)
- For Love of the Flag ... (Director)
- A Man's a Man ... (Director)
- The Fight in the Dark ... (Director)
1911
- Mixed Pets ... (Director)
- The Violin Maker of Nuremberg ... (Director)
- Across the Mexican Line ... (Director)
- Tramp Strategy ... (Director)
- From the Valley of Shadows ... (Director)
- Cupid and the Comet ... (Director)
- Greater Love Hath No Man ... (Director)
- His Mother's Hymn ... (Director)
- Starting Something ... (Director)
- Outwitted by Horse and Lariat ... (Director)
- When Marian was Married ... (Director)
1910
- Bonsoir ... (Co-Director)
1909
- What Is a Flag? ... (Director)
1907
- The Banknote ... (Director)
- The Race for the Sausage ... (Director)
- Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris as Herself, the director
- The Glue ... (Director)
1906
- Man Monkey ... (Director)
- An Obstacle Course ... (Director)
- The Consequences of Feminism ... (Director)
- The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ ... (Director)
- Madame's Cravings ... (Director)
- Course de taureaux ... (Director)
- The Dirigible 'Homeland' ... (Director)
- The Mouse in the Crinoline ... (Director)
- A Sticky Woman ... (Director)
- A Priest's Conscience ... (Director)
- The Stepmother ... (Director)
- The Hierarchies of Love ... (Director)
- L'Honneur du Corse ... (Director)
- Mireille
- Dranem Performs "Five O'Clock Tea" ... (Director)
- The Game-Keeper's Son ... (Director)
- Ocean Studies ... (Director)
- Les Druides ... (Director)
- The Drunken Mattress ... (Director)
1905
- Esmeralda ... (Director)
- Dranem Performs The True Jiu-Jitsu ... (Director)
- The Bricklayers ... (Director)
- Spain as Self - Presenter
- Polin Performs "The Anatomy of a Draftee" ... (Director)
- The Sock ... (Director)
- Tango ... (Director)
- Félix Mayol Performs "White Lilacs" ... (Director)
- Saharet Performs the Bolero ... (Director)
- The Statue ... (Director)
- In a Bamboo Hut ... (Director)
- The Fairy of Spring ... (Director)
- The Magician's Alms ... (Director)
- Félix Mayol Performs "The Trottins' Polka" ... (Director)
- Clown, Dog and Balloon ... (Director)
- Félix Mayol Performs "Indiscreet Questions" ... (Director)
- The Malagueña and the Bullfighter ... (Director)
- Faust ... (Director)
- Le Cake-walk de nouveau cirque ... (Director)
1904
- The First Cigarette ... (Director)
- The Crime on Temple Street ... (Director)
- Token of Love ... (Director)
1903
- Faust and Mephistopheles ... (Director)
- How Monsieur Takes His Bath ... (Director)
1902
- Eccentric Dance ... (Director)
- La Gigue ... (Director)
- Danse fantaisiste ... (Director)
- Serpentine Dance ... (Director)
- Miss Dundee and Her Performing Dogs ... (Director)
- Midwife to the Upper Class ... (Director)
- Les malabares: Les acrobats ... (Director)
- An Untimely Intrusion ... (Director)
1901
- Danse basque ... (Director)
1900
- The Cabbage-Patch Fairy ... (Director)
- Pierrette's Escapades ... (Director)
- Turn-of-the-Century Surgery ... (Director)
- Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder ... (Director)
- Dance of the Seasons: Winter, Snow Dance ... (Director)
- At the Floral Ball ... (Director)
- Avenue de l'Opéra ... (Director)
- Danse du papillon ... (Director)
- Coucher d'une Parisienne ... (Director)
- The Landlady ... (Director)
- At the Photographer's ... (Director)
- Gavotte directoire ... (Director)
1899
- Wonderful Absinthe ... (Director)
- At the Club ... (Director)
- Entrée Et Sortie De La Mine ... (Director)
1898
- The Burglars ... (Director)
- Disappearing Act ... (Director)
- Surprise Attack on a House at Daybreak ... (Director)
- The Turn-of-the-Century Blind Man ... (Director)
- At the Hypnotist's ... (Director)
1897
- Ballet Libella ... (Director)
- Bathing in a Stream ... (Director)
- Danse Fleur de Lotus ... (Director)
- Serpentine Dance by Mme. Bob Walter ... (Director)
- The Fisherman at the Stream ... (Director)
1895
- Animated Portrait Shot by L and A Lumière as Herself