Nell Shipman

She was born as Helen Foster-Barham in Victoria, British Columbia. Her parents were Arnold and Rose Barham. She grew up in a middle-class family.[5] During her teenage years in 1904, she was based near and in Seattle, Washington, where the Foster Barham family had moved around the turn of the century.[6]A year later, she left home and joined the Paul Gilmore traveling theatrical company.

From an early age, she developed a respect towards animals. She was passionate about animal rights and advocated them in Hollywood. She developed her own zoo, containing more than 200 animals.[7]

In 1904, her family moved to Seattle, Washington. A year later, she left home and joined the Paul Gilmore travelling theatrical company.[5]

When Helen was 18 years old, she met and married Ernest Shipman, a 39-year-old theatrical impresario.[5] Their son, Barry Shipman, was born a couple of years later in 1912.[8]

While married to Ernie Shipman, Nell engaged in a six year long affair with actor Bert Van Tuyle. They eventually split during the filming of The Grub Stake, because of Van Tuyle's deteriorating mental state.[5]

Two years later, in New York City, Shipman met and married a painter named Charles Ayers with whom she had two children named Charles and Daphne. They separated in 1934.[8]

At the end of her life, Shipman moved to Cabazon, California, where she continued writing.[8] She died there in 1970 at age 77.

From 1912 through 1917, she sold scripts to various companies, including Selig, Australasian Films, the American Film Company, the Palo Alto Film Corporation, and, most notably, Universal.[6] She was usually involved in the film's productions as well and started acting for Universal, Seig, and Vitagraph studios. Between 1915 and 1918, she played several leading roles, including her debut in God's Country and the Woman (1915), based on a short story by American writer James Oliver Curwood. Shipman directed, produced, and acted in this film. She was one of the first directors to shoot her films almost entirely on location.

Her role in God's Country and the Woman led to an acting contract offer from Samuel Goldwyn in 1917. However, she turned down the offer and started her own independent production company with her husband Ernest. This company was responsible for Shipman's most successful film, Back to God's Country (1919), which she co-wrote and co-produced. Back to God's Country was based on the story Wapi The Walrus by James Oliver Curwood. It was one of a number of Curwood stories about adventures in the North Country with some romance thrown in. The film grossed $1.5 million on an estimated budget of $67,000.[9] Neither she nor Ernest Shipman had been able to repeat their success with Back to God's Country. Other directors made new versions of the film, by the same title, in 1927 and 1953.

Shipman's preference for independent cinema led her to starting two producing companies, Shipman-Curwood Producing Company and Nell Shipman Productions.

Nell and Ernest Shipman eventually moved to Hollywood where the American film industry was developing. During this time, Nell Shipman sold the rights to her novel, Under the Crescent Moon to Universal Studios (they wanted to make a six-film serial of the book).

Throughout her life, Shipman wrote many scripts and short stories. One of her stories was adapted for the American film Wings in the Dark (1934), starring Myrna Loy and Cary Grant (1934).[5] In 1925, Shipman wrote three essays called "The Movie That Couldn't Be Screened." Additionally, she wrote a children's book titled "Kurly Kew and the Tree-Princess: A Story of the Forest People Told For Other-People" (1930). Most of Nell Shipman's work had autobiographical elements to them.[1]

Shipman's last major project was her autobiography, The Silent Screen and My Talking Heart.[4] In the autobiography she describes her last two years at the Studio-Camp at Lion Lodge as a series of disasters.[10] It was published posthumously by Boise State University through their Hemingway Western Studies Series. The university also houses the Nell Shipman Collection at Albertsons Library. Many of her films were preserved and are available through the library.[11]

• For three years, from 1917 to 1920, Nell Shipman lived in what has been preserved as The Doctor's House Museum in Glendale, California. Her mother died here in 1918 during the flu epidemic. Shipman described the site of the house in her autobiography as on a "tree lined dirt road, away from the hub bub of Hollywood".
• “Nell Shipman Point” is a piece of land in Priest Lake, Idaho. It is named after her because The Grub Stake (1923) was filmed there.[17]
• The Canadian playwright Sharon Pollock was commissioned to write a one-act play about Shipman's life called Moving Pictures (1999).[18]
• All of Nell Shipman's surviving films are available on DVD from Boise State University, which holds a collection of materials about her.
• Nell Shipman is considered by Canada to be the "First Lady of Canadian Cinema."[17]
• Nell Shipman was one of the first directors to shoot entirely on location.
• Back to God's Country featured one of the first full frontal nude scenes.

• "Dreams Made in Canada – a history of feature film, 1913 to 1995" – an article by Sam Kula, Archivist, Archives and Government Records The Archivist No. 110 (1995), Magazine of the National Archives of Canada.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nell Shipman.

• Nell Shipman Website
• Canadian Film Encyclopedia [A publication of The Film Reference Library/a division of the Toronto International Film Festival Group]
• Nell Shipman at the Women Film Pioneers Project
• Nell Shipman at Canadian Women Film Directors Database
• Nell Shipman at IMDb
• Nell Shipman Biography
• Canadian Encyclopedia Article on Nell Shipman
• The Nell Shipman Exhibit at City of Glendale, CA
• Nell Shipman at AllMovie
• A Brief History of Nell Shipman by Joel Zemel ©1997
• Silent Era Nell Shipman
• Nell Shipman Collection at Boise State University
• Famous Canadian Women
• Barry Shipman (Nell's son)