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Credit at last for female screenwriter airbrushed from Hollywood history

Despite her activism during the golden age of cinema, Mary C McCall Jr was all but forgotten. Now a new book is about to set the record straight

Now, a new book aims to restore Mary C McCall Jr’s reputation as one of the film industry’s most important figures, a trailblazer who was airbrushed from history after getting on the wrong side of movie moguls. Smyth unearthed letters and an unpublished memoir that McCall wrote for her children about her career, as well as records of the work she did for female screenwriters who were having difficulty maintaining credit, or getting paid equally by producers. She also launched the successful Maisie series in 1939, writing or co-writing eight of the 10 films about a wise-cracking working-class showgirl, played by comedian Ann Sothern, a role that turned her into one of the biggest stars of the 1940s.

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