The Stuntwomen of the Silent Era
Stuntwoman Helen Gibson
In
its infancy, Hollywood employed roughly 50% women and 50% men. Everyone worked
extremely hard and created 10,919 silent films between 1912 and 1929, of which
approximately 14% still exist. Women acted, wrote, directed, produced and, in
many cases, performed their own stunts. The work was dangerous and safety was
not taken into consideration; it was a pioneering time and the risks had not
yet occurred to people. Some of the stunts were performed over multiple takes
and sometimes they resulted in death.
The
first stuntwomen came from theatre, dance and vaudeville backgrounds. Some had
to jump into freezing cold water, some hung from buildings and others crashed
cars, repeatedly. It was reported that during 1918 and 1919, between 37
Hollywood companies, 1,052 women and men were hurt performing stunts on set, 18
were seriously injured and three had died. Stuntwomen used to joke that pants
were a luxury when they typically had to work in dresses.
Holmes Publicity Photo
Helen
Holmes dreamed of being a race car driver when she was young. And she also had
a natural talent for it. The problem was racing was a male-only sport. She
looked elsewhere and turned to Hollywood. She impressed a number of industry heads
on one of her first films, The Railroad
Raiders (1917). Holmes drove a car at full speed off a nine-meter-high (30
feet) bridge onto a moving barge. It took four tries but she succeeded in the
end. Journalists were on set during the shoot and were blown away by her
fearlessness.
Holmes and Leo D. Maloney in A Lass of the Lumberlands (1916)
Holmes
was also known at the time as the titular character in The Hazards of Helen (1914-1917) serial. She made nearly 50
episodes of it before moving onto other projects.
At
age 18, Rose August Wenger was entranced by her first Wild West Show. With no prior
experience, she set out and learnt to ride a horse. In a short period of time,
she mastered picking a handkerchief up off the ground with one hand while
riding a horse at a full galop, an achievement only a small number could do.
She worked for a rodeo company for a period before setting her sights on
Hollywood. Skilled female riders were utilised as extras in Westerns, sometimes
doubling for men. She got a part in Ranch
Girls on the Rampage (1912) making $15 a week (no figures in this article
have been adjusted for inflation).
Her
next break came playing Helen Holmes’s stunt double in The Hazards of Helen. After Holmes left, she became the new lead.
The studio changed her screenname to Helen Gibson.
Gibson in 1920
In
one of her most daring stunts, she had to jump off a platform and onto a moving
train. Gibson performed the stunt several times with a stationary train. The
stunt was accurately measured by professionals but with a moving train the
chances of failure increased and so did the danger. She jumped onto the moving
train perfectly, but fell backwards and lost her balance. She landed on the
carriage roof and nearly toppled off. She was okay and the footage was used in
the short.
Gibson
starred in 70 episodes of The Hazards of Helen
before it ended in 1917. She is regarded as the first official Hollywood
stuntwoman.
Gibson leaps onto a train in The Governor's Special (1916)
Holmes
and Gibson retired from stunts and moved into producing and directing for the
rest of their careers.
Stunt
work didn’t always go according to plan.
In
1916, actress Mary MacLaren had to drive a car 40 kilometres per hour (25 miles
per hour) in reverse down a hill and lost control. She sued the studio wanting to
be released from her contract.
Ann Little in Nan of the North (1922)
Ann
Little had to sneak out a house window and onto a horse to escape her character’s
kidnappers in a scene in The Valley Feud
(1915). Director Frank Cooley had real bullets fired at her and the horse. He
wanted the effect of splitting wood to show up on camera. Little was unharmed
but the horse was injured and had to be put down.
Gish in Way Down East (1920)
Way Down East (1920) is regarded as an
early Hollywood masterpiece. The film’s climax takes place on a snow-covered
river and filming required star Lillian Gish to dangle her limbs and hair in
freezing cold water for hours. She was happy with the movie’s end result,
though she lost partial feeling in her hand and would have health issues with
it for the rest of her life.
Pearl
White had performed all her own stunts but refused to for one in a scene in Plunder (1922). She felt the situation
was too dangerous to perform. A stuntman, John Stevenson, volunteered to double
for her but, while filming, fell at a crucial point and went under the wheels
of a car. He was killed instantly.
By
1927, the film business was the fifth biggest industry in America. Talkies (films
with sound) had been introduced that same year and it was the beginning of the
end for silent movies. Women also had less opportunities open to them as men
predominately ran production companies. Stuntwomen are still around today but it seems, for now, that their heyday was the Silent Era. It was reported that in the 1980s there were a
total of five working stuntwomen in Los Angeles all up.
Gibson in The Wrong Train Order (1915)
By: Matthew J. Healy
References:
10
Great Stunt Women from the 1910s (http://imaginemdd.blogspot.com/2014/09/10-great-stunt-women-from-1910s.html)
Helen
Gibson – Silent Hall of Fame (https://silent-hall-of-fame.org/index.php/our-stars/stars-f-k/helen-gibson)
Helen
Holmes – Silent Hall of Fame (https://silent-hall-of-fame.org/index.php/our-stars/stars-f-k/helen-holmes)
What
Women In Film Can Learn From The "Manless Eden" That Was Hollywood's
Silent Era (https://www.refinery29.com/2018/04/197006/women-silent-era-hollywood-prominent-directors-writers)
Why
Stuntwomen Face Unequal Pay for Equal Stunts (Guest Column) (https://variety.com/2015/film/news/stuntwomen-unequal-pay-hiring-gap-1201605297/)
Thanks for your wonderful article. I'm the great-granddaughter of Helen Holmes and J. P. McGowan and believe they were true pioneers in the industry. They were feminists, too -- the Helen character in Hazards is the one who does the rescuing; she's far from a damsel in distress. She also figures out what's going on before any of the men do.
ReplyDeleteI've posted a short biography of her at my website, www.necessarystorms.com.