New book finally gives Hollywood screenwriter the recognition she deserves

Mary C. McCall Jr. was a major figure in Hollywood – as a screenwriter and activist – but she was erased from the history books. A new book aims to bring her back into the spotlight.

In the 1950s, McCall Jr. was not only a successful screenwriter, but also a passionate advocate for workers’ rights in Hollywood. This earned her the title of “the meanest bitch in town” among studio bosses. In 1942, she even became the first president of the Screen Writers Guild. But her legacy has been erased from history and today few know her name. Professor JE Smyth sets the record straight in her new book Mary C. McCall Jr.: The rise and fall of Hollywood’s most influential screenwriter. But how did McCall’s name get lost over 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 power she held in the 1930s and 1940s, and they hunted her down.” During the Red Scare, many writers, actors and directors were banned from Hollywood. According to Smyth, “Hollywood’s blacklisting drove many women out of the industry, and she was one of them. Then historians and film critics erased them because they were only ever interested in great male directors. … When McCall died in 1986 at the age of 81, the archives didn’t even want her papers, and she was simply forgotten. Material about women was simply not considered valuable.”

Smyth combed through the archives of Warner Bros., the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Writers Guild Foundation, as well as private collections, to find out more about this forgotten legend. She unearthed letters and even unpublished memoirs by McCall. “The material was there,” Smyth said, “but … none of the people who wrote about the Hollywood studio system actually wanted to deal with it.”

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Smyth laments that McCall has been lost in the traditional Hollywood narrative. He says: “We are so attached to the narrative of the golden age of Hollywood, which was about beautiful women doing what they were told and male moguls calling the shots. (…) It was also assumed that most screenplays were written by men. But that is utter nonsense. Half of all film employees in Hollywood were women, and they could do pretty much anything in the industry, including being a producer. 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 variety of genres. One of the highest-grossing films of the last decade was directed by a woman, but remarkably only by one. In recent years there have been shockingly few films with predominantly female casts. While in some ways we have left behind the days when McCall was left in the dust of history, in others her story is perhaps more important today than ever.

Mary C. McCall Jr.: The rise and fall of Hollywood’s most influential screenwriter will be released in September 2024.

Source: The Guardian