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