Abbie Jean MacPherson (1886-1946) acted in over 140 silent films and directed a couple, but is remembered for her work as a screenwriter, and in particular for writing 30 of Cecil B DeMille’s pictures.
MacPherson made her debut in 1908 in D W Griffith’s The Fatal Hour, and amassed all-but-one of her acting credits between then and 1917. In 1913, at the age of only 27, she wrote, directed and starred in The Tarantula, playing a Mexican young woman with a psychopathic bent.
After joining the Lasky Studio and acting in a couple of films for DeMille, he persuaded her to concentrate on writing. This led to, amongst other titles, Old Wives for New (1918), Male and Female (1919), The Ten Commandments (1923), The Plainsman (1936) and Union Pacific (1939).
One of the DeMille pictures worked on by MacPherson was Madam Satan. Not her finest hour, but possibly her craziest.
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