Why am I passionate about this?

I have loved classic Hollywood movies since childhood, especially the legendary actresses of the era. My grandmother nurtured this love, taking me to the video stores to rent movies and the library to read biographies and books about actresses and Old Hollywood. Now, I am a professor of film history at Chapman University, where I teach classes on American cinema and women in film. Still, my passion for female-centered classic Hollywood movies remains strong. I have compiled a list showing the multi-faceted ways that women have participated in Hollywood cinema during its first century.


I wrote

Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System

By Emily Carman,

Book cover of Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System

What is my book about?

During Hollywood's heyday in the 1930s-40s, stars were carefully cultivated and promoted, but at the price of their independence. This…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies

Emily Carman Why did I love this book?

When I first read this book over twenty years ago, I thought, finally, someone who sees what I see in classic Hollywood films—dynamic and exciting women. She traces American women onscreen: from the flappers of the 1920s (It girl Clara Bow) to the European goddesses Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich to the sultry Mae West in the 1930s, to the fast-talking Dames Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, and to Marilyn Monroe and her postwar millionaire-seeking pals.

Her multi-decade analysis contemplates what changed in the 1970s-80s; as American women earned greater equity in real life, their onscreen representation paled compared to their pre-WWII sisters. A quarter into the twenty-first century, female star-driven Hollywood films remain an anomaly. Read this book to find out why it was the inverse more than ninety years ago.

By Molly Haskell,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked From Reverence to Rape as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A revolutionary classic of feminist cinema criticism, Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape remains as insightful, searing, and relevant as it was the day it was first published. Ranging across time and genres from the golden age of Hollywood to films of the late twentieth century, Haskell analyzes images of women in movies, the relationship between these images and the status of women in society, the stars who fit these images or defied them, and the attitudes of their directors. This new edition features both a new foreword by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis and a new introduction…


Book cover of Women, Method Acting, and the Hollywood Film

Emily Carman Why did I love this book?

When you think of Method acting—which actors come to mind? Marlon Brando, James Dean, Robert De Niro…in other words, all men? This is where Keri Walsh’s landmark book comes in, challenging the cultural presumption that Method acting is a male craft.

This book is a revelation for both my teaching and research. Walsh argues that actresses like Kim Stanley, Shelley Winters, and Jane Fonda developed a feminist Method of acting that synthesized with second-wave feminism. Even more striking is their omission from American cinema histories because Walsh underscores how critics praised these women and their films, won Oscars, and/or they were popular with audiences in their contemporary moment.

This book sets the historical record straight by showing that Method acting was equally the domain of Hollywood women and men.

By Keri Walsh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Women, Method Acting, and the Hollywood Film as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Women, Method Acting, and the Hollywood Film is the first study dedicated to understanding the work of female Method actors on film.

While Method acting on film has typically been associated with the explosive machismo of actors like Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, this book explores an alternate tradition within the Method-the work that women from the Actors Studio did in Hollywood. Covering the period from the end of the Second World War until the 1970s, this study shows how the women associated with the Actors Studio increasingly used Method acting in ways that were compatible with their burgeoning…


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Book cover of An Italian Feast: The Celebrated Provincial Cuisines of Italy from Como to Palermo

An Italian Feast By Clifford A. Wright,

An Italian Feast celebrates the cuisines of the Italian provinces from Como to Palermo. A culinary guide and book of ready reference meant to be the most comprehensive book on Italian cuisine, and it includes over 800 recipes from the 109 provinces of Italy's 20 regions.

An Italian Feast is…

Book cover of Nobody's Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood

Emily Carman Why did I love this book?

When I read this book, I was relieved—at long last, a book that underscored the behind-the-scenes contributions of working women in the 1930s and 1940s. J.E. Smyth’s fascinating study brings to light new dimensions to screen legends Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, and fashion designer Edith Head, but also women less known to the greater public—the intrepid editors like Barbara McLean and Margaret Booth, three-time Screenwriter Guild president Mary J. McCall, and producers like Joan Harrison and Virginia Van Upp.

I like how this book provides a counter-history to the male-dominated narratives of Hollywood. Smyth shows that women found other ways outside of directing to leave their mark on Hollywood in the twentieth century.

By J. E. Smyth,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Nobody's Girl Friday as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Looking back on her career in 1977, Bette Davis remembered with pride, "Women owned Hollywood for twenty years." She had a point. Between 1930 and 1950, over 40% of film industry employees were women, 25% of all screenwriters were female, two women supervised all studio feature output and could order retakes on any director's work, one woman ran MGM behind the scenes, over a dozen women worked as producers, a woman headed the Screen Writers Guild three times, and press claimed Hollywood was a generation or two ahead of the rest of the country in terms of gender equality and…


Book cover of Without Lying down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood

Emily Carman Why did I love this book?

In my teen years, I was a voracious reader of star biographies. I still love them, and the late Cari Beauchamp’s book is a page-turning, spellbinding biography that details the life of pioneering screenwriter Frances Marion, the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood for nearly three decades. 

Beauchamp also introduces readers to the early Hollywood sisterhood network that furnished Marion and other powerful women in American film at the time (Mary Pickford, Adela Rogers St. John, Hedda Hopper). I recommend this book as a historical backdrop for understanding the current gender parity issues plaguing Hollywood.

By Cari Beauchamp,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Without Lying down as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Cari Beauchamp masterfully combines biography with social and cultural history to examine the lives of Frances Marion and her many female colleagues who shaped filmmaking from 1912 through the 1940s. Frances Marion was Hollywood's highest paid screenwriter--male or female--or almost three decades, wrote almost 200 produced films and won Academy Awards for writing "The Big House" and "The Champ."


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Book cover of The Last Bird of Paradise

The Last Bird of Paradise By Clifford Garstang,

Two women, a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives after leaving their homelands. Arriving in tropical Singapore, they find romance, but also find they haven’t left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.

Haunted by the specter of terrorism after 9/11, Aislinn Givens leaves her New York career…

Book cover of Bette Davis Black and White

Emily Carman Why did I love this book?

I love this book’s blend of author self-reflection and fandom of the late great Bette Davis’s star persona and career alongside her civil rights advocacy and onscreen acting with African American actors in the 1930s and 1940s. Julia Stern contextualizes Hollywood’s troubling representation of African Americans onscreen that often accompanied Davis’ own proto-feminist iconic performances in films like Jezebel, The Little Foxes, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.

At the same time, she devotes analysis to the forgotten but riveting anti-racist film, This Our Life, directed by John Huston. With powerful performances from Black actors Hattie McDaniel and Ernest Anderson that stand apart in the Davis oeuvre, Stern effectively brings a twenty-first-century understanding of this Classic Hollywood legend. Be sure to read her footnotes—they are equally fascinating!

By Julia A. Stern,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bette Davis Black and White as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bette Davis was not only one of Hollywood's brightest stars, but also one of its most outspoken advocates on matters of race. In Bette Davis Black and White, Julia A. Stern explores this largely untold facet of Davis's brilliant career.

Bette Davis Black and White analyzes four of Davis's best-known pictures-Jezebel (1938), The Little Foxes (1941), In This Our Life (1942), and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)-against the history of American race relations. Stern also weaves in memories of her own experiences as a young viewer, coming into racial consciousness watching Davis's films on television in an all-white…


Explore my book 😀

Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System

By Emily Carman,

Book cover of Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System

What is my book about?

During Hollywood's heyday in the 1930s-40s, stars were carefully cultivated and promoted, but at the price of their independence. This familiar narrative of Hollywood receives a long-overdue shakeup in Independent Stardom. Far from passive victims, some of classic Hollywood’s best-known actresses worked freelance within the Hollywood studio system. Women like Irene Dunne, Janet Gaynor, Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, and Barbara Stanwyck challenged Hollywood’s patriarchal structure by leveraging their stardom to actively shape their careers.

My book uncovers this hidden history of women’s labor and celebrity in twentieth-century Hollywood through original archival research. In doing so, the book rethinks the standard histories of Hollywood to recognize female stars as creative artists, sophisticated businesswomen, and active players in the then (as now) male-dominated film industry.

Book cover of From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies
Book cover of Women, Method Acting, and the Hollywood Film
Book cover of Nobody's Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood

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