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