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