Lillian Ducey

Lillian Ducey (née Beiderlinden; November 26, 1878 – December 9, 1952) was an American screenwriter and director active during Hollywood's silent era. She's noted for being one of the first American women to direct a feature-length film (1923's Enemies of Children);^[1] she also worked on over a dozen scripts between 1918 and 1930.

Biography[]

Born to Edmund Beiderlinden and Hannah Mueller in New York, Lillian was the eldest of two daughters. She married William Ducey in the late 1890s; the pair had a daughter but eventually separated in the 1910s.^[2]

She began to craft a writing career for herself in her early 1930s, winning a short story contest before gaining bylines in publications like Harper's Bazaar, McCall's, and Redbook.

In 1918, she began writing films; that year, both and Captain of His Soul were released by Triangle Film Co. She would soon collaborate with David O. Selznick on films like , as well as Eric von Stroheim on Blind Husbands and Allan Dwan on The Scoffer.^[3]

In 1923, she received her first (and as far as anyone knows, only) chance to direct a feature, , which she also wrote.^[4] Only a handful of women were directing films at the time, and Ducey's work on the film was well-regarded by critics.^[5]

She retired from screenwriting in the 1930s, and died in 1952 in Los Angeles.

Selected filmography[]

As a writer/director:

• Enemies of Children (1923)

As a writer:

• The Climax (1930)
• (1929)
• The Devil's Apple Tree (1929)
• The Warning (1927)
• The Lullaby (1924)
• A Broken Doll (1921)
• In the Heart of a Fool (1920)
• The Scoffer (1920)
• Blind Husbands (1919)
• (1919)
• Upstairs and Down (1919)
• (1918)
• Captain of His Soul (1918)

References[]