Glyn’s experiences as an English barrister and landowner’s (Mrs. Clayton Louis Glyn) wife, I believe, form the basis of much of her work. The nuances of high society and high language associated with a life of pleasure and wealth are a recurrent theme through her available works.
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Wow – these pictures show my first lecture with our first Stephens MFA cohort – who all became contributors to our first book!
Wonderful memories and a wonderful foundation on which to build the program as tonight we welcome the 5th cohort – the MFA candidates of the Class of 2021! — Rosanne
During these formative years, women dominated the film industry. By studying Unsell’s career one can gain perspective of how women navigated a rapidly changing field due to evolving formats and distribution comparable to today’s demand for content due to multiple platform engagement by audiences.Only by direct confrontation and examination of the business of film armed with the knowledge of history can women take charge again.
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At first I was puzzled by the certificate-sized envelope that appeared in the mail the other day. It came from the alma mater of my first college degree – Bowling Green State University. I couldn’t imagine what they had to send me after all these years. Then my son opened it and said, “It’s an award for something.”
Turns out it is the certificate commemorating the previously announced fact that When Women Wrote Hollywood was this year’s runner up for the Susan Koppelman Award, “given to the best anthology, multi-authored, or edited book in feminist studies in popular and American culture” by The Popular Culture Association. And then I remembered that my alma mater is the home of The Popular Culture Association. 🙂 What a nice surprise on all counts.
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Marion Fairfax, while almost entirely unknown today, is an everywoman example of the plight of female screenwriters of the silent era. From the origins of her career through her mysterious disappearance from the Hollywood scene after the advent of talkies, there is little information available on her work as an actress, playwright and screenwriter and the information that is available is not consistently correct.
Silent Screenwriter, Producer and Director: Marion Fairfax by Sarah Phillips
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These are some ladies you probably don’t know. Does anybody recognize any of them? She’s the most likely one for anyone to know because she’s also an actress. If you saw Harold and Maude, Rosemary’s Baby? That’s Ruth Gordon. Ruth Gordon was a four-time oscar-nominated screenwriter as well as winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Rosemary’s Baby. So we’re gonna talk about these ladies and who they are.
Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.
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Frederica Sagor Maas was a screenwriter whose career spanned decades and was full of imagination, hard work and disillusionment. Taking a decade to write her memoir, which she finally published at the ripe age of 99, Maas expressed her feelings for the Hollywood industry and how her husband Ernest and she saw their ideas stolen and turned to trash before eventually being accused of communism and being blacklisted.
The Best Revenge Is Outliving Them All: The life and heartbreak of Frederica Sagor Maas by Mikayla Daniels
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…and we recognize Shonda Rhimes. We can’t not recognize Shonda Rhimes. She owns television thank to this show getting her started but, of course, Scandal, How To Get Way With Murder, all of these things have made Shonda Rhimes Shondaland, She’s got her whole production company as her “land” and the way she runs things. We recognize her? (Audience: Tina Fey) Tina Fey. Exactly. We sometimes forget she’s a writer. There’s a reason that this show existed. 30 Rock is basically a fictionalized version of working on Saturday Night Live. For which she got several Emmys and then, of course, she did Mean Girls, the movie and the Broadway show which was nominated for several Tonys last year or 2 years ago. So, you know, Tina’s doing pretty well.
Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.
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Bess Meredyth continued to cultivate an enormously successful screenwriting career. Meredyth was one of the thirty-six artists—including fellow screenwriter Jeanie Macpherson—who founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1928 (Sturtevant). Her name can be found in more than a dozen Academy bulletins as a member of the Awards of Merit committee, which was one of the first committees established.
You’d Better Learn to Hold Your Liquor: Bess Meredyth and A Career in Early Hollywood by Sydney Haven
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Alice Guy-Blaché (July 1, 1873 – March 24, 1968) was a pioneer filmmaker, active from the late 19th century, and one of the first to make a narrative fiction film.[2] From 1896 to 1906 she was probably the only female filmmaker in the world. [3] She experimented with Gaumont’s Chronophone sound syncing system, color tinting, interracial casting, and special effects. She was a founder and artistic director of the Solax Studios in Flushing, New York, in 1908. In 1912 Solax invested $100,000 for a new studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the center of American filmmaking prior to the establishment of Hollywood. That same year she made the film A Fool and his Money, with a cast comprised only African-American actors. The film is now at the National Center for Film and Video Preservation at the American Film Institute.[4] — Wikipedia
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