Cari Beauchamp | |
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 Beauchamp in 2015 | |
| Born | Carol Ann Beauchamp (1949-09-12)September 12, 1949 Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Died | December 14, 2023(2023-12-14) (aged 74) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
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| Alma mater | San Jose State University (BA) |
| Subject | Hollywood history |
| Notable works | Without Lying Down The Day My God Died |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Carol Ann "Cari"Beauchamp (/biːʃæm/;[1] September 12, 1949 – December 14, 2023) was an American author, historian, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. She authored the biographyWithout Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Power of Women in Hollywood, which was subsequently made into a documentary film. She was the resident scholar of theMary Pickford Foundation.
Carol Ann Beauchamp was born on September 12, 1949, inBerkeley, California, and grew up inStockton, California.[1][2] After graduating with a BA in political science and American history fromSan Jose State University in 1972, she intended to go to law school, but instead spent the next 6 years as a private investigator for defense attorneys,[3] including Barney Drefus and Charles Garry, and the Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara County, serving as lead investigator on several major class action suits.[1]
Simultaneously, she became involved in the Women's Rights Movement and was elected the first President of National Women's Political Caucus of California in 1973.[4] She also managed a variety of election campaigns throughout the 1970s including forJanet Gray Hayes, who was elected mayor of San Jose in 1976, the first woman in the country to be mayor of a city of over 500,000. Beauchamp also spent several years working in Washington DC with Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug and many others on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment before returning to California in 1979 to serve as press secretary to Governor Jerry Brown.[5]
After a year of working in Europe and several years in New York, she took time off to give birth to two sons. While pregnant with her second son, she signed her first book contract, which resulted inHollywood on the Riviera: The Inside Story of theCannes Film Festival with Henri Behar, published by William Morrow & Co.[6]
In 1998, she wroteWithout Lying Down: Frances Marion and The Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, published byScribner and theUniversity of California Press. The book examines the lives ofFrances Marion (Oscar-winning screenwriter ofThe Big House andThe Champ) and many of her female colleagues who shaped filmmaking from the 1920s through the 1940s.[7]Without Lying Down was named one of the 100 Most Notable Books of the Year by bothThe New York Times and theLos Angeles Times and was awardedBook of the Year by the National Theater Arts Association.[8]
In 2003 cameAnita Loos Rediscovered, which was edited and annotated by Beauchamp and Mary Anita Loos (Anita Loos' niece). Published by University of California Press, the book compiles samples of Loos's previously unpublished work as well as the personal life and work of novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, author ofGentlemen Prefer Blondes, as well as several other books and dozens of plays and screenplays.[9] In 2006,University of California Press releasedAdventures of a Hollywood Secretary: Her Private Letters from Inside the Studios of the 1920s by Valeria Belletti, edited and annotated by Beauchamp, with a foreword bySamuel Goldwyn Jr., chronicling an insider's view of the film studios of the 1920s from a secretary's perspective.[10] In 2009, Beauchamp wroteJoseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years published byKnopf andVintage Books. The book examinesJoseph P. Kennedy's reign in Hollywood, where he held sway over the industry from 1926 to 1930 as the only person to head three studios simultaneously.[11][12]
Beauchamp wrote and co-produced the documentary filmWithout Lying Down: Frances Marion and The Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, which premiered in 2000 on Turner Classic Movies,[13] and for which she was nominated for a Writers' Guild Award.[14] She also wrote the documentary filmThe Day My God Died about young girls of Nepal sold into sexual slavery which played onPBS and was nominated for anEmmy in 2003.[15] She also appeared as an expert on film history in a half dozen other documentaries including Mark Cousins' production ofThe Story of Film: An Odyssey.[16]
Beauchamp wrote for various magazines and newspapers, includingVanity Fair,Variety,The Hollywood Reporter,The New York Times, and theLos Angeles Times.
Beauchamp was a frequent featured speaker on the subject of Women and Hollywood History, appearing throughout the United States and Europe, including theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,[17] theBritish Film Institute, theMuseum of Modern Art, theEdinburgh Film Festival, theCannes Film Festival,The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books,The Women's Museum of Art in Washington D.C. and theLos Angeles County Museum of Art.
Beauchamp was named theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Scholar twice[18][17] and was a resident scholar of theMary Pickford Foundation.
Beauchamp was married twice, and had two sons.[1] She died atCedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on December 14, 2023, at the age of 74.[1][2]
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