Originally published on 2/18/25

Helen Gibson was a train-jumping, horseback riding, motorcycle-driving actress who Hollywood considers the first-ever professional stunt woman. Born on August 27, 1892, in Cleveland, Ohio, Gibson got her start as a rodeo queen, who soon became an extra in several different silent Western films. Shortly after that, studios were quick to notice her talent and Gibson began her stunt career in the hit movie serial Hazards of Helen—which had 199 installments between 1914 and 1917. After that, Gibson continued acting, rodeo and stunt work before dying in 1977 at age 85. 

To learn more about Gibson and the impact she left on Hollywood, Woman’s World recently caught up with Mallory O’Meara, the author of the biography Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman! Keep scrolling to learn what O’Meara has to say about Gibson’s life, career and the film industry as a whole. 

Woman’s World: Congratulations on your new book. What was the research process like for this book and what did you know about Helen going into it? 

Mallory O’Meara:  I found out about Helen Gibson while researching my middle-grade book Girls Make Movies and fell in love with her. 

I read so many books for this, but more than anything, I read a lot of articles. The cool thing about writing about Helen is that she was so popular and so famous back then, so there were so many articles about her and so many interviews with her. Even so, it was a lot of work, but it was very fun. 

WW: Speaking of Helen, what exactly called you to her, and what was the most shocking thing you learned about her? 

MM: When we think of stunts, and we think of women in stunts, the first thing that pops to mind is the ladies’ 1980s action movies. And finding out that Helen worked in the 1910s just sucked me right in. 

I was so shocked. I’ve been working in film for a very long time, and I was kind of mad at myself for not knowing who she was. L.A. was a city of girls in the 1910s, which made the research process so exciting. 

WW: Obviously, Helen’s whole thing is that she was the first-ever stuntwoman, but it also sounds like she was one of the first-ever film series stars TV stars, thanks to Hazards of Helen. How do you think being a serial star made Helen feel, and do you think she preferred acting over stunt work?

MM: I think she liked both, and that’s why serials were so amazing to her. Hazards of Helen allowed her to combine everything she loved because that particular type of acting was very stunt-heavy. She got to perform for the biggest audience, which was the American film audience, and she got to do it herself. She got to design her own stunts. It was truly like the nexus of all the things she loved and all the things she was good at. 

WW: The book also focuses on what Hollywood was like during that time. How do you think it’s changed since then, and do you think we can ever return to a time when women ran the film industry? 

MM: The biggest change was when Wall Street came to Hollywood, and movies went from being a bunch of weirdo artists making weird art stuff to being run like a corporation. And that’s when filmmakers of color, queer filmmakers and women were pushed out.

We can get back there, and there are several different ways to do that. What I believe needs to happen is that the film industry needs to change completely. I don’t know what that looks like, but some pretty titanic changes must be made.

WW: Helen died in 1977 at age 85. What do you think she would think of the film industry now, and do you think she would be as famous as she was back then? 

MM: I think she’d be pretty frustrated with it. She was very frustrated with Hollywood by the time she left. She retired in her late 60s, which is wild, but she was very disgusted with the studio system. And even though we’re not quite in the studio system anymore, I think she would have a hard time with how controlled things are and how difficult it is for women.

I think she would still be famous now, just because of how daring she was. She had a flair for what audiences loved, but I don’t know how she would handle having a stunt supervisor tell her she wasn’t allowed to do things. So I think she’d be famous now, but she would be grumpy about the way that Hollywood is currently run. 

WW: In the book, you talk about how being a woman in the field instantly becomes the only thing people care about, the focus being more on the fact that she’s a woman and not her talent. Did Helen face that kind of scrutiny? 

MM: I don’t think she thought about it that much because Hollywood was so fresh back then. There was no social media or IMDb, so people weren’t really paying attention to that stuff. 

I think she was just happy to get to work. 

WW: Did the transition from silent films to “talkies” hurt the industry and is this sort of “perfect actor” look still in effect? 

MM: Switching from silent films to talkies fundamentally changed how things were filmed. I think, ultimately, it helped. Even though it ruined many careers, the cool thing about sound was that it brought a totally different element to Hollywood. It opened up an entirely different perspective.

Regarding looks, Hollywood has always been very fickle and shallow. People have to be perfectly tanned. They have to get things changed about their body, but that began not when talkies happened but when the studio system happened. 

WW: As we consider Hollywood’s future, how can people like Helen help the industry become a more accepting and welcoming place? 

MM: The way that we make things more inclusive is by helping each other. It’s been very, very clear that corporations will never save us. One thing that was very apparent to me while researching this book is that men have always had the ability to help women, and they very rarely do, despite the cries of being a good guy.

Link to original: https://www.womansworld.com/entertainment/celebrities/helen-gibson-biography-the-untold-story-of-hollywoods-first-stuntwoman