Opinion: Women behind the scenes

Every year, during Women’s History Month, I research the history of women in fields that are not traditionally recognized for their female participants. Consequently, I’ve written about subjects like women gunslingers, women lighthouses keepers, and even women pirates. This year, let’s look at the movie industry.

Early Hollywood

The Hollywood film industry was a male-dominated enterprise from its onset. Men owned the first film studios. The earliest silent films were shown without billing any of the actors because the movie moguls didn’t want their actors to become so popular that they could demand higher salaries. Even big stars, who were contracted with (read: owned by) the studios, like Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, were not credited as lead actors on the screen for most of the “Silent Era” (1894 to about 1929). During the latter years of that period, music provided by a pianist or even an orchestra accompanied the silent images on the screen.

However, both men and women were eventually credited for their on-screen performances, but the public was largely unaware of the women who were vital to the movie industry and worked behind the scenes as writers, equipment operators, and even producers and directors.