Dorothy Arzner Film Pioneer

It is not at all unusual to day to see a movie directed by a woman but there was a time when there was only one woman directing feature films. That woman was Dorothy Arzner.
Born in San Francisco in 1897 Dorothy Arzner was raised in Los Angels where her father owned a restaurant frequented by the early Hollywood pioneer silent film makers. Ms Arzner started out planning on being a doctor but after a stint as an ambulance attendant in World War I she returned to Los Angeles and visited a movie studio and that visit changed her life.
Through a connection with film director William DeMille she was able to get a job at Paramount as a stenographer. She eventually became a script supervisor and then as an editor. Her first assignment as an editor was on the Valentino classic "Blood and Sand". Arzner then started working as and editor and writer developing an reputation for excellence. She became very much in demand and this gave her enough clout to demand a position as a director at Paramount or she would leave to work at Columbia Pictures. She was given the position and assigned to the film "Fashions for Women" which became a success. Paramount then gave her the assignment of directing Clara Bow in her first talkie "The Wild Party". Arzner in an effort to give Clara Bow freedom to move about on the set attached a microphone to fishing pool creating the first boom microphone.
Dorothy Arzner went onto become an in demand director and the only woman director during what is now called Hollywood's Golden Age. She worked on some of the most successful "pre-code" films that Paramount released. In 1932 she left Paramount and became an independent director working for several studios. She was also the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America. Her films were instrumental in starting the careers of actresses like Rosalind Russell, Katherine Hepburn and Lucille Ball.
In 1943 Dorothy Arzner stepped away from making feature films focusing on teaching at UCLA and making television commercials. She made commercials for Pepsi-Cola when her friend Joan Crawford was married to the head of Pepsi.
Dorothy Arzer was rumored to have had many affiars with the actresses in her films but lived openly with her partner of many years choreographer Marion Morgan. Dorothy Arzner died in 1979 at the age of 82.