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
- House of Cards ... (Director)
- The Adventurer ... (Director)
- Behind the Mask ... (Director)
- The Empress ... (Director)
- When You and I Were Young ... (Director)
1916
- What Will People Say? ... (Director)
- The Ocean Waif ... (Director)
- The Scarlet Woman ... (Director)
1915
- The Vampire ... (Producer)
- Barbara Frietchie ... (Producer)
- Heart of a Painted Woman ... (Director)
- The Song of the Wage Slave ... (Director)
- My Madonna ... (Director)
1914
- The Lure ... (Writer)
- The Dream Woman ... (Screenplay)
- The Monster and the Girl ... (Director)
- The Woman of Mystery ... (Director)
- The Tigress ... (Director)
1913
- The Thief ... (Director)
- Officer Henderson ... (Director)
- Burstup Homes ... (Director)
- Matrimony's Speed Limit ... (Director)
- A House Divided ... (Director)
- The Rogues of Paris ... (Director)
- Dick Whittington and His Cat ... (Director)
- Burstup Homes' Murder Case ... (Director)
- Kelly from the Emerald Isle ... (Writer)
- The Pit and the Pendulum ... (Director)
- Beasts of the Jungle ... (Writer)
- A Severe Test ... (Director)
- The Coming of Sunbeam ... (Director)
- Cousins of Sherlocko ... (Director)
- Napoleon ... (Director)
- The Roads That Lead Home ... (Producer)
1912
- His Double ... (Director)
- A Fool and His Money ... (Producer)
- The Girl in the Arm-Chair ... (Director)
- Algie, the Miner ... (Producer)
- Falling Leaves ... (Director)
- Someone's Luck Society ... (Director)
- Canned Harmony ... (Director)
- In the Year 2000 ... (Director)
- The Equine Spy ... (Producer)
- Dublin Dan ... (Producer)
- Making an American Citizen ... (Producer)
- Hubby Does the Washing ... (Director)
- A Solax Celebration as The Cause
- A Comedy of Errors ... (Director)
- The Wooing of Alice ... (Director)
- Fra Diavolo ... (Writer)
- The Sewer ... (Producer)
- The Reformation of Mary ... (Director)
- A Terrible Lesson ... (Director)
- The Love of the Flag ... (Director)
- Mignon ... (Director)
- The New Love And The Old ... (Director)
- A Man's a Man ... (Director)
- The Strike ... (Director)
- Child of the Tenements ... (Director)
- The Detective's Dog ... (Director)
- Treasures on the Wing ... (Director)
- Souls in the Shadow ... (Director)
- Phantom Paradise ... (Director)
- Mrs. Cranston's Jewels ... (Director)
- For Love of the Flag ... (Director)
- Parson Sue ... (Director)
- The Face at the Window ... (Director)
- Playing Trumps ... (Director)
- The Woman Behind the Man ... (Director)
- Blighted Lives ... (Director)
- Broken Oaths ... (Director)
- Two Little Rangers ... (Director)
- The Hater of Women ... (Director)
- Hearts Unknown ... (Director)
- The Fight in the Dark ... (Director)
- Frozen on Love's Trail ... (Director)
- God Disposes ... (Director)
- The High Cost of Living ... (Director)
1911
- Tramp Strategy ... (Director)
- Starting Something ... (Director)
- Outwitted by Horse and Lariat ... (Director)
- The Violin Maker of Nuremberg ... (Director)
- From the Valley of Shadows ... (Director)
- Greater Love Hath No Man ... (Director)
- Cupid and the Comet ... (Director)
- Across the Mexican Line ... (Director)
- Mixed Pets ... (Director)
- When Marian was Married ... (Director)
- His Mother's Hymn ... (Director)
1909
- What Is a Flag? ... (Director)
1907
- The Cleaning Man ... (Director)
- Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris as Herself, the director
- On the Barricade ... (Director)
- The Irresistible Piano ... (Director)
- The Rolling Bed ... (Director)
- The Glue ... (Director)
- The Race for the Sausage ... (Director)
- The Banknote ... (Director)
1906
- The Dirigible 'Homeland' ... (Director)
- Ocean Studies ... (Director)
- The Stepmother ... (Director)
- The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ ... (Director)
- Madame's Cravings ... (Director)
- A Sticky Woman ... (Director)
- A Priest's Conscience ... (Director)
- The Consequences of Feminism ... (Director)
- The Drunken Mattress ... (Director)
- Course de taureaux ... (Director)
- An Obstacle Course ... (Director)
- L'Honneur du Corse ... (Director)
- Les Druides ... (Director)
- The Hierarchies of Love ... (Director)
- Mireille
- The Mouse in the Crinoline ... (Director)
- Man Monkey ... (Director)
- A Story Well Spun ... (Director)
- The Game-Keeper's Son ... (Director)
- Dranem Performs "Five O'Clock Tea" ... (Director)
1905
- Esmeralda ... (Director)
- The Malagueña and the Bullfighter ... (Director)
- Félix Mayol Performs "White Lilacs" ... (Director)
- Spain as Self - Presenter
- The Sock ... (Director)
- The Bricklayers ... (Director)
- Polin Performs "The Anatomy of a Draftee" ... (Director)
- The Magician's Alms ... (Director)
- Faust ... (Director)
- Dranem Performs The True Jiu-Jitsu ... (Director)
- Tango ... (Director)
- Félix Mayol Performs "Indiscreet Questions" ... (Director)
- Clown, Dog and Balloon ... (Director)
- Félix Mayol Performs "The Trottins' Polka" ... (Director)
- Saharet Performs the Bolero ... (Director)
- The Statue ... (Director)
- In a Bamboo Hut ... (Director)
- The Fairy of Spring ... (Director)
- Le Cake-walk de nouveau cirque ... (Director)
1904
- Token of Love ... (Director)
- The First Cigarette ... (Director)
- The Crime on Temple Street ... (Director)
1903
- Faust and Mephistopheles ... (Director)
- How Monsieur Takes His Bath ... (Director)
1902
- Serpentine Dance ... (Director)
- Midwife to the Upper Class ... (Director)
- La Gigue ... (Director)
- Miss Dundee and Her Performing Dogs ... (Director)
- Danse fantaisiste ... (Director)
- An Untimely Intrusion ... (Director)
- Les malabares: Les acrobats ... (Director)
- Eccentric Dance ... (Director)
1901
- Danse basque ... (Director)
1900
- Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder ... (Director)
- Pierrette's Escapades ... (Director)
- The Cabbage-Patch Fairy ... (Director)
- Dance of the Seasons: Winter, Snow Dance ... (Director)
- The Landlady ... (Director)
- Avenue de l'Opéra ... (Director)
- At the Floral Ball ... (Director)
- Turn-of-the-Century Surgery ... (Director)
- Danse du papillon ... (Director)
- At the Photographer's ... (Director)
- Gavotte directoire ... (Director)
- Coucher d'une Parisienne ... (Scenario Writer)
1899
- At the Club ... (Director)
- Entrée Et Sortie De La Mine ... (Director)
- Wonderful Absinthe ... (Director)
1898
- At the Hypnotist's ... (Director)
- Disappearing Act ... (Director)
- Surprise Attack on a House at Daybreak ... (Director)
- The Turn-of-the-Century Blind Man ... (Director)
- The Burglars ... (Director)
1897
- Serpentine Dance by Mme. Bob Walter ... (Director)
- Ballet Libella ... (Director)
- Bathing in a Stream ... (Director)
- The Fisherman at the Stream ... (Director)
- Danse Fleur de Lotus ... (Director)
1895
- Animated Portrait Shot by L and A Lumière as Herself