- Born
- 3 January 1897San Francisco, USA
- Died
- 1 October 1979La Quinta, California, USA · aged 82
Dorothy Arzner
One of the few women directing in Hollywood’s studio era, she made films that gave women room to question the roles available to them.
Dorothy Arzner was born in San Francisco in 1897. She grew up in Los Angeles and entered the film industry as a typist, working her way through script work and editing before directing her first feature, “Fashions for Women”, in 1927.
She built an exceptional career across the transition from silent film to sound, becoming one of very few women able to sustain a directing career within the studio system of the period. She also became the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America.
“Christopher Strong” (1933) and “Dance, Girl, Dance” (1940) explored women’s ambitions and the pressures surrounding romance, work and public performance. She directed early roles for actors including Katharine Hepburn and Lucille Ball.
Arzner’s tailored suits and long partnership with choreographer Marion Morgan made her distinctive within that world. After leaving feature filmmaking in 1943, she worked on other projects and taught at UCLA, where Francis Ford Coppola was among her students. Feminist critics later brought renewed attention to her films. Arzner died in 1979.