Alice Guy Blache 1955

A tiny white-haired woman with a sweet face and gentle manner, incredibly enough, can claim the honor of being the first woman director of motion pictures. Over a glass of dubonnet the little lady in black silk with embroidered blue inserts in the sleeves and a touch of yellow chiffon at the throat recalled highlights of her career.
Alice Guy Blache who lives quietly today in her Georgetown apartment was a dominant figure in the early days of the motion picture industry.
As early as 1896, she was a director in Paris. For 17 years she was the only woman director in the world.
In 1900 she received the diploma of collaborator at the Paris Universal Exposition. In 1904 in St. Louis the gold medal, again the gold medal in Leige in 1905, the following year in Milan and in 1907 in Paris she was handed the academie palms as theatrical poducer.
Saved Autographs
Among her mementos are autographed photographs of Dolores Costello, Olga Petrova, Holbrook Blynn, Bessie Love, May Allison, Frank Keenan and many others whom she’s directed.
A “flashback” in Mme Blache’s life would show her as Alice Guy going to school in her native Paris.
When she was 22 her father died. To help support her mother, Alice studied stenography. Her first job was with a scientist named Leon Gaumont, who managed a photographic company. 
One day, M. Demeny, a college professor who had invented a camera which would photograph motion came to see M. Gaumont.
It would photograph one motion, then stop; then another and stop.
Two others who knew M. Gaumont were Louis and August Lumiere of Lyon who made the first motion picture film in the world. That was in 1896.”
Mme. Blache witnessed this first motion picture.
Later Gaumont perfected both film and projector.
Plays on Films
About that time, Mme. Blache was interested in amateur theatricals. “I suggested to him that I put some plays on films,” she recalled.
“I took pictures of my friends performing on a small platform in our garden.
These shorts were so successful that Gaumont decided to build a studio. In 1902 he attempted to make the first talking picture.
“Of course, they were not like today’s,” says Mme. Blache. “They were not so scientific or advanced. He synchronized the picture with gramophone records.”
Mme Blache made 100 talking pictures for Gaumont.
She married Mr. Herbert Blache, an Englishman who headed the German branch of the Gaumont Company.
Her Own Studio.
In 1906, Gaumont asked Mr. Blache to represet him in America and built a small studio in Flushing L.I. for talking and silent pictures.
After approoximately two years in Flushing, Mme. Blache built her own studio the Solax, at Fort Lee, N.J.
There she was president of her company and director of productions. After her husband’s contract with Gaumont expired, he joined his wife at the Solax Studios.
Between them they produced a picture every month, using players from their stock company. They were sole owners and directors from 1900-1918.
“In those days,” says Mme. Blache, “a director was everything. He wrote the scenarios, chose the actors, selected the costumes, supervised the building of the sets, mounted and titled the films as well as directed them.”
Pathe, Metro and other companies bought the films produced by the Blaches at Solax Studios.
Mme. Blache returned to France in 1924. In 1952 she came back to this country to make her home here in Washington with her daughter Simone who works for the State Department.Director Alice Guy Blache is thinking about turning writer long enough to capture her memoirs on paper.