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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This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
Jumping into the 1960s thank you very much which is sad to go that far but what’s going on is we have to think about how women are being presented in the purchasing public, right? So when we come over here this woman is named Alice Sheldon. First of all, she doesn’t look like a science fiction writer because we think that they’re all dudes. She has the little pearl thing going on which is kind of cute. She couldn’t get her novels published under her own name. So she went by the name of James Tiptree jr. and James wrote a whole lot of books that were big bestsellers and then eventually, almost 20 years later, Alice was like “No, the next book is going out of my name right, but it had to say formerly known as James Tiptree Jr. to make sure that her fans would travel over. I Know is that silly? It’s silly but it is a habit we are still in.
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She starts all of this and her theme was “Be natural.” That’s what she was teaching actors because they came to film with that theatricality that you can’t do on film. Be natural. Be a little more normal. That’s what we want to see. so, it’s really Alice that we credit now with getting fictional filmmaking started. She came to America and started the Solax Company and they were doing films here and started to distribute them. They were starting to make some good money. The problem is her husband became the President of the company and her husband had a gambling problem and the profits of the company started to go away and then they got a reputation for not finishing things on time because they ran out of money and that pretty much destroyed her career, but she is — in film histories now — being credited more and more. There’s a new documentary coming out about her shortly.
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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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.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
This lady is Virginia Woolf. Most people think of Virginia Woolf as writing those sort of lovey-dovey, Jane Austen-y kind of things or some you know a little mystery kind of stuff but she in fact wrote a novel we consider a piece of science fiction. It’s Orlando, which is not the biography of Orlando Bloom but in fact the story of a man born during the first Queen Elizabeth’s reign who regenerates into a woman and lives for 300 years which sounds a lot to be like Doctor Who which is my other big favorite thing in the world. So there’s Virginia Woolf right but she’s already known and so she can dabble in this other genre and it’s okay because people have paid more money for her other stuff. That’s all drawing-room stuff. So we’re moving through the world but not as many women as I’d like to see.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
…and the sad thing is — so she invented a whole genre. A whole genre. She invents it. We’re not going to see another female writer of science fiction for a while. Right? We’re not going to see that. Now a lot of what she came through — this is her mother — Mary Wollenstonecraft — and her mother was a famous feminist in England at this time. Right? So a lot of her ideas are coming from her mother’s writing. She didn’t know her mother because her mother died when she was very, very young. So she never had an actual relationship, but she wanted so desperately to live up to this famous women and how often did that happen back in the day. Usually, it’s men who have to live up to their rich and famous fathers. Here’s a woman who had to live up to something that her mother had accomplished. Right? So she’s got a lot of those themes again running through that. Right? And likewise, this is a picture of her mother. Which is just kind of fun from back in the day.
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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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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
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
So like side tangent story I remember reading that when Barbara Streisand was directing her first movie she asked Steven Spielberg a couple of questions and immediately what the Press reported was Spielberg Co-assists Streisand directing. Of all the dudes who direct Spielberg called up George Lucas and said, “I’m doing this Indiana Jones thing what do you think?” Nobody said George Lucas co-directs Indiana Jones right? No the boys can ask questions. The girls. No no, that means they need help right? So we have a lot of that sort of old-fashioned controversy which hangs around for a while.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
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