03/04/2022
In light of International Women’s Day (March 8) and Women’s History Month, this we are putting spotlights on women who changed the film industry.
Kathryn Bigelow: a director, screenwriter, and producer and was the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director with her work on The Hurt Locker.
Sherry Lansing: a Former actress and CEO of Paramount pictures. Now President of production at 20th Century Fox, becoming the first woman to head a Hollywood movie studio.
Dorothy Arzner: the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America. She was the only female Director working in Hollywood from 1927 until 1943. Legendary.
Penny Marshall: most famously known for her iconic sitcom Laverne & Shirley. However also Directed The 1988 film Big, which made her the first women to direct a film that grows over 100 million at the US box office.
Lena White: an actor and screenwriter. She made history when she became the first African-American to win the primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a comedy series, The Master of None.
Frances Marion: screenwriter for the film The Big House, she became the first woman to win the academy award for best screenplay in 1930. She was known as one of the most prominent and highest-paid writers of the 20th century.
Euzhan Palcy: she directed A Dry White Season in 1989 and became the first African-American woman to direct a film produced by a major Hollywood studio.
Lois Weber: credited as an early inventor of the split-screen technique in film. She also became the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film, the 1914 classic The Merchant of Venice.
Lillian Gish: dubbed the “First Lady of American Cinema” by Vanity Fair in 1924. She also starred in the highest-grossing silent film of all-time, The Birth of a Nation. She also became a vocal advocate for film preservation.
Lucille Ball: Best known for her role in I Love Lucy, she was a revered entertainment Studio Executive and Producer. She co-founded Desilu Productions in 1962 and became the first woman to run a major television studio.
