One of the pioneering women of talking cinema, and once touted as the only female director of the 1920s and ‘30s, Dorothy Arzner is one of many dynamic and astounding women whose history in Hollywood isn’t mainstream knowledge.
She was born in San Francisco in 1897 and raised in Los Angeles, where her parents opened a café frequented by silent film stars. When she was old enough, she headed straight to the one of the country’s top film schools, University of Southern California, though ironically, she did not study film there, but rather medicine. She worked as an ambulance driver during college, but a fateful visit to a film set sold her on the idea of pursuing a career in film.
She found a job as a typist at Paramount, but within three years’ time, she’d become a writer and editor for the studio. She edited over 50 films, after she found a way to stretch the budget on her first project, 1922’s Blood and Sand, by using both stook footage and original film.
Even with all this experience, savvy, and company loyalty, Paramount was still reluctant to place Arzner at the helm of her own film. When she threatened to take her talent to Columbia, the studio found itself convinced.
Her first directing gig was the silent feature, Fashions for Women, in 1927. Moviegoers flocked to see it. Two years later, she directed the studio’s very first talkie: The Wild Party, with then A-listers Clara Bow and Frederic March.
Known for her strong female characters, one film that embodies Arzner’s commitment to bringing well-rounded women to the screen is 1931’s Working Girls, a story about female New Yorkers looking for work during the Depression.
Arzner was the first woman ever to join the Directors Guild of America and for years, she was the only female member. She directed a number of classic stars including Katharine Hepburn, Billie Burke, and Lucille Ball. She also shared a close friendship with Joan Crawford and directed Pepsi commercials as a favor Crawford’s husband, Alfred Steele, then Pepsi Cola Company’s Chairman of the Board.
During the 1960s and ‘70s, Arzner taught screenwriting and directing at UCLA’s film school. One of her students was Francis Ford Coppola. She remained at UCLA until her death in 1979.
