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The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywoodβs First Stuntwoman
Hanover Square Press
February 2025
On Sale: February 18, 2025
384 pages
ISBN: 1335007938
EAN: 9781335007933
Kindle: B0CFYF4B8Q
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
From Los Angeles Times bestselling author Mallory O'Meara, the exhilarating story of America's first professional stuntwoman, Helen Gibson, who worked during a time when women ruled Hollywood
Helen Gibson was willing to do anything to give audiences a thrill. Advertised as “The Most Daring Actress in Pictures,” Helen emerged in the early days of the twentieth-century silent film scene as a rodeo rider, producer, performer and stunt double for iconic stars of the era. Her exploits were as dangerous as they were glamorous, featured in hundreds of films and serials—yet her legacy was quickly overshadowed by the increasingly hypermasculine and male-dominated evolution of action films in the decades that would follow her.
In this fast-paced and feminist biography, award-winning author Mallory O'Meara presents Helen’s life and career in exhilarating detail, including:
• Helen’s rise to fame in The Hazards of Helen, the longest-running serial in history
• How Helen became the first-ever stuntwoman in American film
• The pivotal and overlooked role of Helen’s contemporaries—including female directors, stars and stuntwomen who shaped the making of narrative film.
Through the page-turning story of Helen’s pioneering legacy, Mallory O'Meara gives readers a glimpse of the Golden Age of Hollywood that could have been: an industry where women call the shots.
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