Interview

Below is an excerpt from a 1974 interview with Arzner by Karyn Kay and Gerald Peary

In this interview, Arzner discusses everything from her early life to the interworkings of the movie industry 

Who championed your cause at Paramount? Adolph Zukor? Were you given trouble because you were a woman?
Ben Schulberg, Jim Cruze, Walter Wanger. Adolph Zukor was in New York where the pictures were distributed and had little to do with the making of movies. No one gave me trouble because I was a woman. Men were more helpful than women.

How did you decide on a film career?

I went to the University of Southern California and focused on the idea of becoming a doctor. But with a few summer months in the office of a fine surgeon and meeting with the sick, I decided that was not what I wanted. I wanted to be like Jesus––”Heal the sick and raise the dead,” instantly, without surgery, pills, et cetera. All thoughts of university and degrees in medicine were abandoned.

See the full interview here