Hollywood film historian Mallory O’Meara specializes in recovering the lost feminist history of filmmaking. O’Meara’s celebrated 2019 biography of Milicent Patrick, original designer of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, uncovered the true story of how Patrick’s achievements in cinema were co-opted by male coworkers. In Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman, O’Meara tells the thrilling story of Hollywood’s first and best stuntwoman.
In the early years of Hollywood, Helen Gibson starred in hundreds of silent serial pictures, eponymously known as The Hazards of Helen. Gibson jumped onto trains and out of planes, and took rodeo tricks to an entirely new level of daring and general badassery. Unlike today’s stuntworkers, Gibson wore no safety devices and had no mentors; all she possessed was a love for adventure and a drive to be something other than a domestic drone. What’s even more remarkable about Helen Gibson’s story is that she wasn’t unique. The 1910s in Hollywood were something of a golden age for women writers, directors, producers and actors.
O’Meara’s great achievement in Daughter of Daring lies in capturing this brief chapter in Hollywood history, before the studio system and censorship board asserted control over the film industry and marginalized the achievements of women like Gibson, Helen Gardner, Lois Weber and Marion E. Wong (director of the first all Chinese American made film in 1916). Establishing the parallels between the suffrage movement, the “New Woman” era and the Wild West cowboy shows that gave Gibson her start as a stuntwoman, O’Meara provides a well-researched guide to a heady cultural moment for women in film.
The experiences of these artists continue to reverberate today: Women and filmmakers of color still struggle for a seat at the Hollywood table, and the #MeToo movement of the 21st century uncovered scandals and abuse that echo what O’Meara’s subjects endured in the 1920s. O’Meara is not only invested in film history but also in its future. Entertaining and educational, Daughter of Daring will attract and inspire readers of all ages.
