Mary C. McCall Jr. - by J E Smyth (Hardcover)

About the Book

A screenwriter, novelist, labor leader, Hollywood insider, and feminist, Mary C. McCall Jr. was one of the film industry's most powerful figures in the 1940s and early 1950s. J. E. Smyth tells McCall's remarkable story for the first time.

Book Synopsis

Finalist, 2024 Richard Wall Memorial Award, Theatre Library Association

A screenwriter, novelist, labor leader, Hollywood insider, and feminist, Mary C. McCall Jr. was one of the film industry's most powerful figures in the 1940s and early 1950s. She was elected the first woman president of the Screen Writers Guild after leading the fight to unionize the industry's writers and secured the first contract guaranteeing a minimum wage, credit protection, and pay raises. Her advocacy was not welcomed by all: To screenwriters McCall was an "avenging goddess," but to studio heads she was, in the words of one Hollywood executive, "the meanest bitch in town." And after a clash with the mogul Howard Hughes in the blacklist-era 1950s, she disappeared from the pages of Hollywood history.

J. E. Smyth tells McCall's remarkable story for the first time, putting the spotlight on her trailblazing career and crucial influence. She explores McCall's life and work, from her friendships with stars such as Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, and James Cagney to her authorship of the hit Maisie series about a working-class showgirl's adventures. Analyzing McCall's deft political maneuvering, Smyth offers new insight on screenwriters' struggle for equality and recognition. She also examines why McCall's legacy is unrecognized, showing how the Hollywood blacklist and entrenched sexism obscured her accomplishments. Colorful and compelling, this biography provides a powerful account of how one extraordinary woman shaped golden age Hollywood.

Review Quotes

McCall proves every bit as captivating and indomitable on the page as she was in life.-- "Wall Street Journal"

The book is a love letter from one writer to another, and a rallying cry to Hollywood to return to the principles of its true first lady.-- "Times Literary Supplement"

Smyth's point that McCall's reputational oblivion is thoroughly undeserved is unassailable, and she is to be highly commended for writing an excellent biography.-- "Film & History"

Smyth does a service to the field of Hollywood history - as well as labor history and U.S. women's history - with this biography...restoring McCall to her rightful place.-- "Cineaste"

[A] thoroughly researched and well-written book.--Tom Stempel "Script"

Smyth's fiery, page-turning biography tells the story of a true original.-- "Sight and Sound"

A deeply researched account of not only the remarkable life of an early Hollywood screenwriter and organizer, but of Hollywood itself before and after unionization, a story of particular interest today amid the film industry's current upheavals over technological change and declining working conditions.-- "Jacobin"

Smyth's essential biography restores McCall to her rightful place as a trailblazer in the annals of Hollywood history.-- "Booklist"

Accessible and well-researched . . . Smyth deftly spotlights a sardonically witty woman and film pioneer whose contributions are little known. Film students and biography readers will be delighted.-- "Library Journal, starred review"

Though McCall is likely unfamiliar to most readers, her wit and swagger will grab their attention . . . Smyth makes a strong case that McCall's contributions to the film industry have been unjustly overlooked. It's a commanding reconsideration of a largely forgotten Hollywood power player.-- "Publishers Weekly"

Nearly legendary in her own time and largely forgotten in ours, Hollywood screenwriter/power player Mary C. McCall Jr. is long overdue for the significant biography J. E. Smyth has impressively provided. Impeccably researched and vividly written, this is a necessary and essential book.--Kenneth Turan, author of Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation

In this brilliantly written book, Smyth restores Mary C. McCall Jr. to a male-dominated history of film from which she is glaringly absent. With encyclopedic knowledge and lively and engaging prose, Smyth crafts a thoroughgoing portrait of McCall's life and oeuvre, documenting the challenges that women screenwriters and union leaders faced before the backlash of the 1950s ended so many of their careers.--Carol Stabile, author of The Broadcast 41: Women and the Anti-Communist Blacklist

In this engaging and meticulously researched biography, J. E. Smyth recognizes Mary McCall as a key figure during Hollywood's classical era, rising through the ranks to become one of the most successful--and highest paid--writers in the business. She was also a pioneering labor leader and a headstrong, fiercely independent woman in a male-dominated industry. Mary C. McCall Jr. provides an compelling inside look at the filmmaking machinery during Hollywood's heyday, and at the political forces that exerted continual pressure to regulate (both literally and figuratively) Hollywood's depiction of American life.--Thomas Schatz, author of The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era

About the Author

J. E. Smyth is professor of history at the University of Warwick. She is the author or editor of several books, including Nobody's Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood (2018) and a new edition of Jane Allen's novel I Lost My Girlish Laughter (2019). In 2021, she was named an Academy Film Scholar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.