Alice Guy-Blaché's photo

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)

1956

Cinépanorama as Self

1918

The Great Adventure ... (Director)

1917

The Adventurer ... (Director)
The Empress ... (Director)
Behind the Mask ... (Director)
When You and I Were Young ... (Director)
House of Cards ... (Director)

1916

The Ocean Waif ... (Director)
The Scarlet Woman ... (Director)
What Will People Say? ... (Director)

1915

The Vampire ... (Director)
My Madonna ... (Director)
Heart of a Painted Woman ... (Director)
The Song of the Wage Slave ... (Director)
Barbara Frietchie ... (Producer)

1914

The Lure ... (Director)
The Tigress ... (Director)
The Woman of Mystery ... (Director)
The Dream Woman ... (Director)
The Monster and the Girl ... (Director)

1913

Kelly from the Emerald Isle ... (Writer)
The Pit and the Pendulum ... (Director)
Burstup Homes' Murder Case ... (Director)
The Thief ... (Director)
Beasts of the Jungle ... (Writer)
The Coming of Sunbeam ... (Director)
A House Divided ... (Director)
Matrimony's Speed Limit ... (Director)
Officer Henderson ... (Director)
A Severe Test ... (Director)
Burstup Homes ... (Director)
Dick Whittington and His Cat ... (Writer)
The Rogues of Paris ... (Director)
The Roads That Lead Home ... (Director)
Napoleon ... (Director)
Cousins of Sherlocko ... (Director)

1912

His Double ... (Director)
Dublin Dan ... (Producer)
Playing Trumps ... (Director)
The Strike ... (Director)
God Disposes ... (Director)
Phantom Paradise ... (Director)
The Woman Behind the Man ... (Director)
Mignon ... (Director)
Two Little Rangers ... (Director)
The Love of the Flag ... (Director)
Souls in the Shadow ... (Director)
A Terrible Lesson ... (Director)
The Reformation of Mary ... (Director)
A Solax Celebration as The Cause
The Hater of Women ... (Director)
The High Cost of Living ... (Director)
Child of the Tenements ... (Director)
The Detective's Dog ... (Director)
The New Love And The Old ... (Director)
Making an American Citizen ... (Producer)
Mrs. Cranston's Jewels ... (Director)
The Girl in the Arm-Chair ... (Director)
The Fight in the Dark ... (Director)
A Comedy of Errors ... (Director)
Algie, the Miner ... (Producer)
A Man's a Man ... (Director)
A Fool and His Money ... (Director)
Treasures on the Wing ... (Director)
The Equine Spy ... (Producer)
Hubby Does the Washing ... (Director)
Hearts Unknown ... (Director)
For Love of the Flag ... (Director)
The Wooing of Alice ... (Director)
Someone's Luck Society ... (Director)
Canned Harmony ... (Director)
Falling Leaves ... (Director)
In the Year 2000 ... (Director)
Fra Diavolo ... (Director)
The Sewer ... (Producer)
Broken Oaths ... (Director)
Parson Sue ... (Director)
Frozen on Love's Trail ... (Director)
Blighted Lives ... (Director)
The Face at the Window ... (Director)

1911

Mixed Pets ... (Director)
Starting Something ... (Director)
Tramp Strategy ... (Director)
Greater Love Hath No Man ... (Director)
Across the Mexican Line ... (Director)
Outwitted by Horse and Lariat ... (Director)
When Marian was Married ... (Director)
Cupid and the Comet ... (Director)
His Mother's Hymn ... (Director)
The Violin Maker of Nuremberg ... (Director)

1910

Bonsoir ... (Co-Director)

1907

The Glue ... (Director)
The Cleaning Man ... (Director)
The Banknote ... (Director)
On the Barricade ... (Director)
Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris as Herself, the director
The Irresistible Piano ... (Director)
The Fur Hat ... (Director)
The Race for the Sausage ... (Director)
The Rolling Bed ... (Director)

1906

Mireille
The Mouse in the Crinoline ... (Director)
Les Druides ... (Director)
The Stepmother ... (Director)
The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ ... (Director)
Ocean Studies ... (Director)
The Dirigible 'Homeland' ... (Director)
Man Monkey ... (Director)
The Game-Keeper's Son ... (Director)
L'Honneur du Corse ... (Director)
Dranem Performs "Five O'Clock Tea" ... (Director)
The Consequences of Feminism ... (Director)
The Parish Priest's Christmas ... (Director)
A Sticky Woman ... (Director)
Madame's Cravings ... (Director)
A Story Well Spun ... (Director)
The Hierarchies of Love ... (Director)
Course de taureaux ... (Director)
A Priest's Conscience ... (Director)
The Drunken Mattress ... (Director)
An Obstacle Course ... (Director)

1905

Félix Mayol Performs "Indiscreet Questions" ... (Director)
Félix Mayol Performs "White Lilacs" ... (Director)
Tango ... (Director)
Spain as Self - Presenter
Esmeralda ... (Director)
The Malagueña and the Bullfighter ... (Director)
The Sock ... (Director)
The Magician's Alms ... (Director)
The Bricklayers ... (Director)
Cook & Rilly's Trained Rooster ... (Director)
Clown, Dog and Balloon ... (Director)
Félix Mayol Performs "The Trottins' Polka" ... (Director)
In a Bamboo Hut ... (Director)
Faust ... (Director)
Cake Walk, Performed by Nouveau Cirque ... (Director)
Polin Performs "The Anatomy of a Draftee" ... (Director)
Saharet Performs the Bolero ... (Director)
Dranem Performs The True Jiu-Jitsu ... (Director)
Le Cake-walk de nouveau cirque ... (Director)
The Fairy of Spring ... (Director)
The Statue ... (Director)

1904

Electrocution ... (Director)
The Crime on Temple Street ... (Director)
Token of Love ... (Director)
The First Cigarette ... (Director)

1903

Faust and Mephistopheles ... (Director)
How Monsieur Takes His Bath ... (Director)

1902

Eccentric Dance ... (Director)
An Untimely Intrusion ... (Director)
Danse fantaisiste ... (Director)
La Gigue ... (Director)
Les malabares: Les acrobats ... (Director)
Miss Dundee and Her Performing Dogs ... (Director)
Midwife to the Upper Class ... (Director)
Serpentine Dance ... (Director)

1901

Danse basque ... (Director)

1900

Danse Serpentine (In a Lion's Cage) ... (Director)
Gavotte directoire ... (Director)
The Landlady ... (Director)
Pierrette's Escapades ... (Director)
Avenue de l'Opéra ... (Director)
At the Floral Ball ... (Director)
Dance of the Seasons: Winter, Snow Dance ... (Director)
Coucher d'une Parisienne ... (Scenario Writer)
The Cabbage-Patch Fairy ... (Director)
Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder ... (Director)
Turn-of-the-Century Surgery ... (Director)
Little Tich and His Funny Feet ... (Director)
At the Photographer's ... (Director)
Danse du papillon ... (Director)

1899

At the Club ... (Director)
Entrée Et Sortie De La Mine ... (Director)
Wonderful Absinthe ... (Director)
La Sortie du Bain ... (Director)

1898

Disappearing Act ... (Director)
L'utilité des rayons x ... (Director)
Surprise Attack on a House at Daybreak ... (Director)
La cène ... (Director)
At the Hypnotist's ... (Director)
The Turn-of-the-Century Blind Man ... (Director)

1897

Ballet Libella ... (Director)
The Burglars ... (Director)
Danse Fleur de Lotus ... (Director)
The Fisherman at the Stream ... (Director)
Serpentine Dance by Mme. Bob Walter ... (Director)
Bathing in a Stream ... (Director)
L'arroseur arrosé ... (Director)

1896

1895

Animated Portrait Shot by L and A Lumière as Herself