American filmmaker Dorothy Arzner was BOTD in 1897. Born in San Francisco, she grew up in Los Angeles, where her father ran a restaurant frequented by silent film stars including Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. After studying medicine, she began working for film studios, editing over 50 silent films. In 1922 she performed an emergency edit on the Rudolph Valentino film Blood and Sand, shooting some replacement scenes herself. Though uncredited, her work caught the attention of director James Cruze, and she became his assistant director. She directed her first film, Fashions for Women, in 1927, the success of which led to a three-picture deal, including Paramount’s first talking picture, 1929’s The Wild Party starring Hollywood’s It-Girl Clara Bow. Working as a freelance director during the 1930s, she had successes with the films Christopher Strong starring Katharine Hepburn, Craig’s Wife with Rosalind Russell and Dance, Girl, Dance with Lucille Ball. She retired from Hollywood in 1943, directing Women’s Army Corps training films during World War Two, and Pepsi Cola commercials starring her friend Joan Crawford. She also taught filmmaking at UCLA, mentoring the young Francis Ford Coppola. She had a 40-year relationship with choreographer Marion Morgan, and is thought to have had affairs with Alla Nazimova, Billie Burke, Hepburn and Crawford. Like Hepburn, she bucked gender conventions by adopting an androgynous hairstyle and wearing masculine attire, often referring to herself as “Garth”. Arzner’s work received a critical reassessment by feminist scholars in the 1970s, who praised her strong female characterisations and reversal of the male gaze. She died in 1979 aged 82.