『Dorothy Arzner』のカバーアート

Dorothy Arzner

Dorothy Arzner

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 Dorothy Arzner may not be a household name today, but in the 1920s through the 1940s she was a rare force in Hollywood: the only woman directing features inside the studio system, a technical innovator, a champion of actresses, and a queer woman who lived openly with her partner for over four decades. Her life, career, and community place her at the very heart of forgotten queer history — and in this episode, we remember her in full. Dorothy Emma Arzner was born in San Francisco in 1897 and grew up in Los Angeles, where her father owned a restaurant frequented by Hollywood stars. As a child, she saw people like Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks dining at her family’s tables. Pickford, known as “America’s Sweetheart,” was secretly one of the most powerful women in the industry, co-founding United Artists. Fairbanks was the original swashbuckler — a combination of Chris Hemsworth’s physique, Johnny Depp’s swagger, and Antonio Banderas’s smolder, performing all his own stunts. Together, they were Hollywood’s first royal couple, and their presence gave young Dorothy a glimpse of the industry’s glitz and contradictions. Originally, Dorothy didn’t plan on Hollywood. She studied medicine at USC and even served as an ambulance driver during World War I. But after the war, the glamour and opportunity of the movies drew her in. In 1919 she started at Paramount as a typist, quickly maneuvered into editing, and within a year was cutting major films. Her most notable early work was on Rudolph Valentino’s Blood and Sand (1922), where her editing emphasized Valentino’s magnetic presence and helped solidify his stardom. Valentino was Hollywood’s first “Latin Lover,” a sex symbol whose sudden death in 1926 caused riots in New York. Yet he was dogged by rumors of being “too feminine,” mocked in the press as a “pink powder puff.” While no evidence suggests Valentino was queer, the gossip reflected America’s discomfort with his sensual, exotic masculinity. Dorothy’s contribution to his career wasn’t about scandal — it was craft. She shaped one of his defining films and earned the respect that later allowed her to demand a chance to direct. Her directorial debut, The Wild Party (1929), starred Clara Bow — the original “It Girl.” Clara embodied flapper sexuality and was beloved by audiences, but she was relentlessly hounded by the press. The cruelest rumor, that she had slept with an entire football team, was entirely false but stuck in the public imagination. Clara’s fame was as volatile and punishing as Britney Spears in the 2000s or Megan Thee Stallion today: adored by audiences, destroyed by tabloids. On set, Clara was terrified of the new technology of sound. Microphones were bulky, static, and forced actors to stay rigid. Clara couldn’t do it. So Dorothy improvised. She strapped a microphone to a fishing pole and dangled it above Clara, inventing what we now know as the boom mic. That one piece of innovation saved Clara’s performance and permanently changed filmmaking. But Dorothy didn’t just innovate; she protected. Clara trusted her. Off set, when Clara drank too much or risked scandal at Hollywood parties, Dorothy would quietly steer her away from danger. Whether or not their bond was romantic, it was deeply caring — a moment of queer solidarity before we had that language. Dorothy continued directing through the 1930s, often working with strong actresses. In Christopher Strong (1933), she cast a young Katharine Hepburn as an aviator who defies convention. Hepburn was androgynous, trouser-wearing, and rumored to have had affairs with women. Dorothy put Hepburn on screen as a woman literally soaring above men — a metaphor for her own life. Critics at the time called the film “odd” and “talky,” but decades later it was reclaimed as a groundbreaking feminist work. Her most famous film, Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), starred Maureen O’Hara as a serious dancer and Lucille Ball as her burlesque rival. In a stunning scene, O’Hara faces down a jeering audience of men and scolds them for objectifying her. It’s one of the earliest feminist speeches in Hollywood cinema, written and framed by a queer woman who knew what it meant to be watched and judged. At the time, critics dismissed the film as lightweight. Variety even sneered at its “feminine point of view.” But decades later feminist scholars reclaimed it as a proto-feminist classic, and in 2007 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry for its cultural and historical significance. Behind the studio gates, Dorothy was also living a rich personal life. Her partner, choreographer Marion Morgan, led her own all-female dance troupe before meeting Dorothy. Together, they built a life that lasted over forty years — a true Hollywood marriage in everything but name. Their home became one of the great queer salons of the Golden Age, a gathering place where stars and artists ...
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