Dorothy Arzner (1897–1979)

Dorothy Arzner was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in Hollywood, where her father owned a famous restaurant that was frequented by actors. After high school, she enrolled at the University of Southern California with the dream of becoming a doctor. During World War I, she left school to serve in Europe with an ambulance corps. When the war ended, she decided against returning to her medical studies. The flu pandemic that swept the country left the movie business needing workers, and she got a job as a stenographer at Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which later became Paramount Pictures. Soon she became a script writer, and was promoted to film editor within six months. She edited more than 50 films, including the 1922 classic silent film Blood and Sand starring Rudolph Valentino. Impressed by her technique, director James Cruze employed her as a writer and editor for several of his films, including Old Ironsides (1926).
Paramount gave her a chance to direct in 1927 with the film Fashions for Women, which became a hit. She directed the studio's first sound film, The Wild Party (1929), for which she had the technicians rig a microphone onto a fishing rod, creating the first boom mike. After making 11 feature films, Arzner left Paramount to become a pioneering independent director for studios such as MGM, RKO, United Artists, and Columbia. The films she directed during this period are her best known, and launched the careers of many actresses, including Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, and Lucille Ball. In 1936, Arzner became the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America. She left Hollywood in 1943. Afterwards, she made training films for the Women’s Army Corps; produced a radio program called "You Were Meant to Be a Star"; worked in theater; and taught filmmaking at the Pasadena Playhouse and later at UCLA.