Alice Guy-Blaché

Alice Guy-Blaché
Alice Guy at the end of the nineteenth century.
Born	Alice Ida Antoinette Guy (1873-07-01)July 1, 1873 Saint-Mandé, France
Died	March 24, 1968(1968-03-24) (aged 94) Wayne, New Jersey, U.S.
Nationality	French
Occupation	Filmmaker, director, screenwriter, producer, actress
Years active	1894–1922
Spouse(s)	Herbert Blaché
Children	Simone, Reginald

Alice Guy-Blaché (July 1, 1873 – March 24, 1968) was the first female pioneer in early French cinema. She is revered as the first female director and writer of narrative fiction films, and is seen as a great visionary who experimented with Gaumont's Chronophone sound syncing system, color tinting, interracial casting, and special effects.

In 1863, Alice's father, Emile Guy – an owner of a bookstore chain and publishing company in Chile – married Marie Clotilde Franceline Aubert, shortly after they were introduced through mutual family friends. The couple returned to Santiago, Chile, soon after the wedding. In early 1873, Marie and Emile lived in Santiago, along with Alice's other Chile-born siblings and her father. However, they traveled the seven weeks by boat to Saint–Mande for the birth of their fifth child, Alice Ida Antoinette Guy, on July 1, 1873.

In her autobiography, Alice refers to this plan as her mother's last attempt to make sure "one of her children should be French". Her father returned to Chile soon after her birth and her mother was quick to follow. This left a young Alice entrusted to her elderly grandparents in Carouge, Switzerland until the age of three or four. She then left to join her parents in Chile, where she learned Spanish from the family's indigenous Chilean housekeeper, Conchita.

At the age of six Alice was sent back to France to attend school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Swiss border. Her siblings were also sent away as soon as they were old enough to travel. The overall sentiment among French residents at the time was that French Jesuit schooling was the only proper form of education. But her father's chain of bookstores went bankrupt while she was overseas, resulting in her and her second-youngest sister moving to a more affordable school. Soon after this, Alice's eldest brother died at the age of 17. Their father, struck by business woes and old age, died in 1893.

Following her father's death, Guy trained as a typist and stenographer – which was a new field at the time – to support herself and her newly widowed mother. She landed her first job at a varnish factory. A year later, in 1894, she began working with Léon Gaumont at 'Comptoir général de la photographie'. Léon Gaumont would later take over and head the company.

In 1894, Guy was hired by Léon Gaumont to work for a still-photography company as a secretary. The company soon went out of business but Gaumont bought the defunct operation's inventory and began his own company that soon became a major force in the fledgling motion-picture industry in France. She decided to join the new Gaumont Film Company, a decision that led to a pioneering career in filmmaking spanning more than twenty-five years and involving her directing, producing, writing and/or overseeing more than 700 films.