Daughter of daring The trick-riding, train-leaping, road-racing life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood's first stuntwoman

Just as she did in her stellar biography, The Lady from the Black Lagoon (2019), O'Meara evokes a bygone Hollywood era in this look at the life of stuntwoman Helen Gibson against the backdrop of Tinseltown's earliest days. A young daredevil from Ohio, Gibson got her start in the rodeo before finding her way to Hollywood in 1911, where women were very much a vital part of the foundation of the new film industry, in front of and behind the camera. Gibson found work as a stuntwoman before taking over for actress Helen Holmes as the lead of the popular serial The Hazards of Helen. Gibson performed breathtaking stunts that even today are considered risky, such as running on top of a speeding train and riding a motorcycle onto a moving train. But an ill-fated venture into producing her own movie left Gibson bankrupt and broke, leading her to leave Hollywood for the circus before returning to her work as a stuntwoman just as women's power and prominence in Hollywood eroded in the face of censorship. Both a biography of Gibson and a sharp-eyed look at the evolution of Hollywood and women's involvement in it, O'Meara's third popular history is witty, wise, and winning.

Reading Glasses podcaster O'Meara (The Lady from the Black Lagoon) recounts the trailblazing career of stuntwoman Helen Gibson (1892--1977), born Rose August Wenger, in this high-flying biography. O'Meara suggests Wenger's decision to join a traveling Wild West show as a cowgirl when she was 17 reflected the early 20th-century "New Woman" movement's push for women's equal participation in public society. In 1911, a film producer noticed Wenger's troupe during a performance in Venice, Calif., and hired them to appear as extras in westerns. Wenger married fellow rodeo rider Hoot Gibson in 1913 and, after he fell ill, replaced him as actor Helen Holmes's stunt double in the western serial The Hazards of Helen. After Holmes exited the role in 1915, Wenger changed her name to Helen, took over starring duties, and continued to perform such stunts as leaping from an airplane onto a moving train and escaping from a speeding car before it careens off a cliff. Gibson's death-defying feats astound, and O'Meara provides perceptive context on the era's gender politics. For instance, she notes that the careers of Holmes and Gibson both suffered by the 1920s, when moral crusaders began censoring women roughhousing on film. It's an enthralling tribute to an early Hollywood pioneer. Photos. Agent: Amy Bishop, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Feb.)