Hero of the Week 110

 Welcome back viewers

This week's hero is...

Anne Bauchens

Anne Bauchens was born on February 2, 1882, in St. Louis, Missouri. Much of her early life is not documented, but when she was a young adult, Anne decided to travel to New York City. She had hoped to become an actress on the Broadway stage. In 1912, she was hired as a secretary to a play-wright named, William DeMille. While working for him, Anne was introduced to his younger brother, Cecil DeMille. From there her life would change forever.

Cecil DeMille was a nascent film director who had just begun what would be a very successful career of making movies. Anne learned that he was making a movie called, Carmen, based the famous novella. Upon looking at the roles of film, Anne immediately became fixated on the DeMille's process of editing the scenes. She brazenly made a bet that she could cut his pictures much better than he could. Cecil responded, "No one will ever cut my pictures but me". 

Yet two months later, he had Anne work as an assistant editor on his 1915 silent movie, Carmen. DeMille was so impressed that he immediately asked her to edit his next project, We can't have everything. From that point onward, Anne Bauchens was the only person who was allowed to edit movies by Cecil DeMille. She worked on so many movies she was given the nickname, "Trojan Annie" by her colleagues. 

The highlight of her career was the 1940 movie, North West Mounted Police. On Febrary 27, 1941, at the 13th Academy Awards, Anne won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. She was the very first woman to win in that category. Anne continued to edit movies by Cecil DeMille until she retired in 1956. Her final movie was, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. By then, she had worked on more than sixty movies. She passed away on May 7, 1967. 

Today, very few people acknowledge or even know about all the work that goes into making movies. One of the most important jobs is the role of editing the movie. These people are often the ones who decide which scenes will be featured and which ones are deleted. More often than not, they do not receive nearly as much recognition as actors and directors. However, the editing by Anne Bauchens on numerous revolutionary films was very instrumental in there successes. To those who work at Hollywood, she is remembered as one of the very best film editors in the history of film. She truly is someone to be held in high regard.

https://womenfilmeditors.princeton.edu/bauchens-anne/

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0061640/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/anne-bauchens-2/