Mary C. McCall Jr. was a major player in Hollywood–as both a screenwriter and activist–but she was scrubbed from the history books. Now, a new book is going to put her back in the limelight.
Back in the 1950s, McCall Jr. was not only a prolific screenwriter, but a fierce advocate for the rights of workers in Hollywood, so much so that she earned the title of “the meanest bitch in town” among the studio heads. She even became the first female president of the Screen Writers Guild in 1942. But her legacy has been wiped from history, and now few even know her name. Professor J. E. Smyth is setting the record straight in her new book Mary C. McCall Jr.: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Most Powerful Screenwriter. But how was McCall’s name lost to time? According to Smyth, it was buried.
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Smyth told The Guardian, “[McCall] was targeted by right-wing men who didn’t like the amount of power she had had during the 1930s and 1940s and they were going after her.” During the Red Scare, many writers, actors, and directors were barred from Hollywood. According to Smyth, “The Hollywood blacklist cleaned a lot of women out of the industry, and she was one. Then historians and film critics erased her, because all they’ve ever cared about is great male directors … At McCall’s death in 1986, aged 81, archives did not even want her papers, and she has simply been forgotten. Material relating to women was just deemed not worthwhile.”
“At McCall’s death in 1986, aged 81, archives did not even want her papers, and she has simply been forgotten. Material relating to women was just deemed not worthwhile.”
Smyth dove into the archives of Warner Bros., the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Writers Guild Foundation, and private collections to uncover more about this forgotten legend. She unearthed letters and even an unpublished memoir from McCall. “The material was there,” Smyth said, “but … none of the people who were writing about the Hollywood studio system wanted to actually deal with it.”
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Our Conception of Hollywood Doesn’t Leave Space For Strong Women
Smyth laments how the traditional narrative of Hollywood has buried McCall, saying, “We’re so wedded to the narrative of the golden age of Hollywood being about gorgeous women who do what they’re told, and the male moguls who were running the show, […] There was also an assumption that most of the scripts were written by men. But it’s total rubbish. Half of all cinematic employees within Hollywood were female and they could do just about anything in the business, including being producers. A quarter of all screenwriters were women – more than now.”
Times have changed for women in Hollywood. More and more women are taking the director’s chair in a wide variety of genres. One of the highest-grossing films in the past decade was directed by a woman, but, notably, only one. In the past few years, a shockingly low number of films had a predominantly female cast. While in some ways we have evolved past the days of McCall being left in the dust of history, in others, her story may be needed now more than ever.
Mary C. McCall Jr.: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Most Powerful Screenwriter will be released in September 2024.
Source: The Guardian
