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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Working Girls: The History of Women Directors in 1970s Hollywood Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8ck097nj Author Smukler, Maya Montanez Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Working Girls: The History of Women Directors in 1970s Hollywood A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television by Maya Montanez Smukler 2014 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Working Girls: The History of Women Directors in 1970s Hollywood by Maya Montanez Smukler Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Janet L. Bergstrom, Chair This dissertation examines the relationship between the feminist movement and Hollywood during the 1970s, specifically as it impacted the hiring practices and creative output of women directors working in the film industry. Due to the activism of the feminist movement, in particular the feminist reform efforts of the Women’s Committees of Hollywood’s professional guilds—the Directors Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild—the number of women directors in 1970s Hollywood began to increase compared to previous decades. From the mid-1930s till the mid-1960s, only two women filmmakers had careers as directors in Hollywood: Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino. This research reveals that between 1966 and 1980 there were at least fifteen women making movies in the commercial film industry: Karen Arthur, Anne Bancroft, Joan Darling, Lee Grant, Barbara Loden, Elaine May, Barbara Peeters, Joan Rivers, ii Stephanie Rothman, Beverly Sebastian, Joan Micklin Silver, Joan Tewkesbury, Jane Wagner, Nancy Walker, and Claudia Weill. However, in spite of this increase, the overall numbers were bleak. Women directed only 0.19 percent of the 7,332 feature films made between 1949 and 1979. By studying the biographies and filmographies of the fifteen women directors making feature films during this era, this dissertation explores how the progress that took place during the 1970s was paradoxical: feminist reform efforts made possible a noticeable rise in the number of women directors at the same time that Hollywood’s institutional sexism continued to create obstacles to closing the gender gap. iii The dissertation of Maya Montanez Smukler is approved. John T. Caldwell Allyson Nadia Field Juliet A. Williams Janet L. Bergstrom, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Working Girls: The History of Women Directors in 1970s Hollywood...................... 1 The Liberation of 1970s Hollywood ...........................................................................................8 Women DireCtors in Hollywood: Guy to Bigelow ................................................................ 12 Chapter Organization ................................................................................................................... 17 Methodology and SourCes ........................................................................................................... 21 Before Hollywood: New York City Filmmakers.................................................................... 34 Will You Last? .................................................................................................................................. 47 CHAPTER 1 Feminist Reform Comes to Hollywood..............................................................................55 Coming Out....................................................................................................................................... 56 Hollywood’s Civil Rights .............................................................................................................. 73 The EEOC Comes to Hollywood.................................................................................................. 75 Women’s Committees: Insider/Outsider Status.................................................................. 91 Guild Women ................................................................................................................................... 93 A DireCting Workshop for Women ........................................................................................... 98 CHAPTER 2 Starting Out Independent: Exploitation and Art House Cinema ...........................115 STEPHANIE ROTHMAN...............................................................................................................118 For Better or Worse: DireCtor­Wife & ProduCer­Husband ............................................132 BEVERLY AND FERD SEBASTIAN.............................................................................................134 BARBARA PEETERS .....................................................................................................................141 KAREN ARTHUR............................................................................................................................154 v CLAUDIA WEILL ............................................................................................................................162 JOAN MICKLIN SILVER ................................................................................................................175 CHAPTER 3 Crossing Over: Performers and Screenwriters Turn Film Director......................195 BARBARA LODEN .........................................................................................................................197 ELAINE MAY ...................................................................................................................................204 JOAN DARLING...............................................................................................................................214 JOAN RIVERS ..................................................................................................................................222 JANE WAGNER ...............................................................................................................................226 JOAN TEWKESBURY.....................................................................................................................233 ANNE BANCROFT..........................................................................................................................241 NANCY WALKER............................................................................................................................249 LEE GRANT......................................................................................................................................254 CHAPTER 4 Radical Feminists: the Directors Guild of America....................................................270 1973­1975: The DGA Gets a History Lesson........................................................................275 Professional LegitimaCy.............................................................................................................283 Hollywood Feminist: MiChael Franklin.................................................................................293 Redux: Women’s Committee 1979 .........................................................................................297 National Board Meeting: Mel Brooks ....................................................................................300 HonCho Meeting............................................................................................................................303 Filing with the EEOC ....................................................................................................................311 Filing the Lawsuit.........................................................................................................................314 Results of the Court’s DeCision ................................................................................................317 LegaCy of Case................................................................................................................................328 vi CHAPTER 5 Desperately Seeking Something: 1970s Perseverance and 1980s Progress .....344 TABLE 1..................................................................................................................................365 APPENDIX 1 ..........................................................................................................................366 APPENDIX 2 ..........................................................................................................................367 APPENDIX 3 ..........................................................................................................................369 WORKS CITED......................................................................................................................371 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I was first introduced to the study of American women feature film directors as an undergraduate at Boston University when I saw Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1971) and Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978) in Professor Ray Carney’s illuminating class on American Independent Film. Professor Gerald Peary, another of my BU instructors, introduced me to Dorothy Arzner, Ida Lupino, and Stephanie Rothman. His book, Women and the Cinema: A Critical Anthology (1977), co-edited with Karyn Kay, was a tremendous influence that

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