Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman

by Mallory O'Meara

From Los Angeles Times bestselling author Mallory O'Meara, the exhilarating story of America's first professional stuntwoman, Helen Gibson, who worked during a time when women ruled Hollywood

Helen Gibson was willing to do anything to give audiences a thrill. Advertised as “The Most Daring Actress in Pictures,” Helen emerged in the early days of the twentieth-century silent film scene as a rodeo rider, producer, performer and stunt double for iconic stars of the era. Her exploits were as dangerous as they were glamorous, featured in hundreds of films and serials—yet her legacy was quickly overshadowed by the increasingly hypermasculine and male-dominated evolution of action films in the decades that would follow her.

In this fast-paced and feminist biography, award-winning author Mallory O'Meara presents Helen’s life and career in exhilarating detail, including:

• Helen’s rise to fame in The Hazards of Helen, the longest-running serial in history

• How Helen became the first-ever stuntwoman in American film

• The pivotal and overlooked role of Helen’s contemporaries—including female directors, stars and stuntwomen who shaped the making of narrative film.

Through the page-turning story of Helen’s pioneering legacy, Mallory O'Meara gives readers a glimpse of the Golden Age of Hollywood that could have been: an industry where women call the shots.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Audiobook, Feminism, Film, Historical

356 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 18, 2025

Reviews

[Justin Tate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better than the blurb! I love O'Meara's mission to spotlight forgotten women of history. This is probably my favorite book of hers yet. Despite the lengthy title and generous blurb, Helen Gibson is sold short until you actually read the book and discover her significance to cinematic history. Notably, she wasn't just a stuntwoman, but an actual star of the silent film era.

Mixed in is a beautifully abridged lesson on Hollywood history, and the context of Gibson's fame. Non-fiction and biography have a bad reputation for being too scholarly and dense, but O'Meara does an excellent job of sticking to the juicy stuff. Little quips of modern commentary add relevance and keep it entertaining.

Though I would consider myself more familiar with silent film than most people, I'm far from an expert. This history fascinated me a lot and didn't feel too repetitive or superfluous. Watching a few episodes of The Hazards of Helen on YouTube helped give me a visual reference, though it's not required by any means. To be honest, these silent films can be dull viewing experiences even with all the exciting stunts. It's almost better to not watch them and let O'Meara breathe fresh intrigue into their significance. The behind-the-scenes gossip, audience reactions, and commentary on the stunts are more interesting than watching them back today anyway.

That's not to say we should let this sacred film fall to the wayside. I would love to see the Hazards of Helen remastered and given a commentary track. With the right historical context, it's wholly possible to appreciate the great accomplishments of silent film and even to be entertained by them. Certainly this book manages to accomplish that. Highly recommended!

[Becky Spratford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am listened to the audio via Hoopla

Three Words That Describe This Book: fascinating, enlightening, fun

I read the audio version. O'Meara reads it herself which I loved. I listen to Reading Glasses (her podcast) so I am used to and like her voice. But that it not all. I love all of her books because she presents well researched history in an authoritative but still conversational style. Having her read it, captures the narrative voice she is aiming for.

This book made me remember why I was an American Studies major and loved every minute of it. O'Meara tells the story of Helen Gibson as promised in the title, but she also tells the reader so much more. We learn about the early days of Hollywood, how women actually ruled the industry, and then how they got marginalized, we get a sense of what is going in throughout the entire country and how that effected the movie industry.

It was a history of 20th century America told through the eyes of a remarkable woman. And it was fun to read.

I love all of her books. I love how O'Meara actively looks at what appears to be a male dominated industry (cocktails, movie making, etc...) and makes the reader realize that there were women there doing the thing, all along, and often from the start, they just got pushed out or ignored so a mediocre white man could do the thing.

This would be an awesome book club book as well.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 5 out of 5]

The riveting life of Helen Gibson, the woman who became one of Hollywood's first stars and stayed in the business until the end of Hollywood's Golden Age and the era of the big studio films.

If you had told me that the beginning of film skewed toward women and was dominated by women both in front of and behind the camera, I would have said get the fuck out of here.

This book made me so angry. And it definitely made the author, Mallory O'Meara angry. Because the women-dominant history of Hollywood has been obscured, erased nearly as surely as the many films lost to time and history, eroded or eradicated before they could be preserved. So many women, kicking ass in the early 1900s, before they had even won the vote (for white women).

And! Even more! The early film industry actively catered to women, who were a primary target audience.

And the majority of action stars? WOMEN.

You can probably see me seething as I remember the 5-second clip of the female Avengers (minus Black Widow) assembled during Endgame. We could have had more of that!

Anywho, the life of Helen Gibson is amazing, as is the history of early stunts, which were all done without very many safety precautions or wires and only the most rudimentary of camera trickery. Helen, who left her home in the midwest to become a rodeo star and then stumbled into movies, jumps from horses onto trains, from trains to trains, and from planes to trains—she even jumps plane to plane, and yes, all while these things are moving.

I'm definitely going to see if I can check out the girl-led serials of the early days of film.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

TL;DR: Full of some interesting information but completely ruined for me because of the authorial voice
Source: Netgalley! Thank you so much to the publisher

Plot: This one primarily covers the rise of Hollywood and film with aspects of Helen Gibson.
Characters: Helen is mentioned a lot and is in there, but it touches on so many folks they’ve kind of run together.
Setting: If you like Hollywood or LA you’re going to like it. If not it’s going to be dull.
Readability: At times there are huge chunks of information and the author tries to cut it with humor but it ends up very jarring.

Thoughts:

Full honesty here, this wasn’t for me. I went in hoping for a bit more detailed information and a closer look at Helen Gibson and perhaps her contemporaries which is what it looks to be at first glance. In reality though this seems to be a history of Hollywood and film with the cover story of Helen Gibson. The author comments at several points that information about this or that with Helen is non-existent or hard to find which is understandable. Perhaps then we should have just pitched and sold the book as what it is, a history of Hollywood.

The writing style also didn’t work at all for me. We are given large chunks of information but scattered throughout there are little snarky comments, dropped in at appropriate times but also completely jerking the reader out of the flow of the information. In addition we have quite a few footnotes, over a 100, and approximately 95 of them felt very unnecessary. The ones that had information were very casually presented, the ones that did not are simply snarky comments or one liners (even one word) to illustrate how funny our author seems to be.

If the past two paragraphs haven’t given it away, I really didn’t enjoy this. I found segments interesting but as soon as I was in the roll of learning and enjoying it there would be a jerk in the narrative, a snarky comment, and I’d get thrown out. I don’t recommend this. The only thing I can find of use from this would be the sources, one of those might have more information or better written for the topic. Skip it or get it from the library, and as always, check other reviews for different thoughts.

[Michael Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

[This review was originally published at https://www.michaelpatrickhicks.com/b....]

Imagine a film industry dominated by women. Directors, producers, screenwriters, and headlining stars — all women. This wasn’t just some Hollywood Barbie-like flight of fancy, but the reality of motion picture making as it was back in the silent film era of the 1910s and ‘20s. Back them, women were not just common place, but larger than life and in charge of damn near all of it. They were the heroes of the silver screen, leaping off horses and onto hijacked trains to punch out or shoot down the dastardly men robbing people blind, or celebrating bodily autonomy in dramas about abortion, sex, and women’s rights. These women were in front of and behind the camera, crafting stories for the predominately women audiences all across America to live vicariously through, in a time when women didn’t even have the right to vote and were mostly stuck in a life of housewifery.

The biggest star of the time was Helen Gibson, a former rodeo star who worked her way up from background actor to certified star — and Hollywood’s first stuntwoman. Ginger Rogers may have had to do everything Fred Astaire did backwards and in heels in the 1930s, but before that, Gibson was on film doing everything her male counterparts were doing onscreen without padding, wires, or safety harnesses. When she leapt off the back of a car — or out of an airplane — and onto a speeding train, or did a jump trick on a motorcycle over a flatbed car, she actually one hundred percent went for it, and oftentimes in a long dress that could get snagged on something and potentially kill her. She didn’t have the luxury of green screen and CGI, or even crash landing pads. There was only one shot at a stunt, because to mistime a leap wouldn’t just mean a ruined shot, but the loss of limb or life. Gibson was a bona fide action hero, a female Tom Cruise many decades before there was a Tom Cruise, performing one hair-raising stunt after another and constantly looking to raise the stakes with each outing as cars and airplanes were introduced and made staples of American life.

Gibson, and other women like her, ruled the box office for nearly two decades, and helped build Hollywood into the titan of industry it would become in The Golden Age…which was also the period in which control over film was wrestled away from women and turned into a massive boy’s only club. Mallory O’Meara explores these decades that paint the backdrop of Gibson’s life and career throughout Daughter of Daring, a wonderfully feminist exploration of Hollywood in its infancy and development of the studio system in the years following the First World War. O’Meara delivers a thoroughly researched accounting of women’s agency and it’s “women-made women” powerhouses in front of the camera and behind the scenes, as well as a terribly sobering examination of how the legacy of women in Hollywood was stolen out from under them by various cabals of jealous men and right-wing, white, Christian censorship boards looking to profit off everything these women built and completely strip them of their power and influence until they were mostly forgotten entirely.

O’Meara’s exploration of the growth and development of Hollywood as it became what we know it today is an intriguing, not to mention sobering, look at how things used to be, how far certain groups — namely women and minorities — have fallen, and how far we as a society have yet to go (and will likely have even that much further to go after a second ruinous term of the Trump administration and whatever his plans are for his recently announced three-man band of washed-up, racist, sexist misogynistic actors cum Hollywood Ambassadors confessing to Sean Hannity their longing to be spanked by daddy). Only a few days ago, the nominees for the 97th Academy Awards were announced with plenty of fanfare around Coralie Fargeat’s Best Director nod for the 2024 horror film, The Substance. That a horror film was able to garner five nominations from the notoriously stodgy and historically horror-averse Academy was something of a feat in and of itself, let alone a horror film helmed by a woman and centered around women. Demi Moore also earned a nomination for Best Actress, hot off the heels of her recent Golden Globes win. But Fargeat’s nomination is itself a pretty big deal, making her only the tenth woman in Oscar history to be recognized. To date, only three have actually won. Ten nominations and three wins. In 97 years. Ninety-seven years. Ninety-fucking-seven years!

The typical argument is that there’s so few women directors in Hollywood, and while true now, it’s also important to recognize that it wasn’t always like that! O’Meara does a fabulous job driving this point home throughout the course of Daughter of Daring, exploring and explaining how this atrocious inequity arose and became reinforced in the years following the suffrage movement. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to have gone from hundreds of silent films crafted by women to modern-day studios committing to, maybe, maybe, one women-lensed picture a year — maybe, you know, if they’re good, as a treat; to have gone from a period of such prestigious influence for women in the 1910s and ‘20s to the era of #MeToo a century later. One can’t help but look at the work of Helen Gibson, as recounted by O’Meara, and the women that helped make her career and shape Hollywood in its opening act, and think, sadly and wistfully, they really don’t make films like that anymore.

[Katie B · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Thank you Hanover Square Press and HTP Books for sending me a free copy! All thoughts expressed are my honest opinion.

DAUGHTER OF DARING is a nonfiction book about Helen Gibson, America’s first stuntwoman. She got her start in the silent film era appearing in movies and serials. In the early days of Hollywood, women comprised a good portion of directors, writers, and stars in the industry. Unfortunately,bankers and studio heads decided to pivot after the war and pushed for more male driven action films and the opportunities for women like Helen dried up.

This book is part biography about Helen but also presents the history of the early days of film making and basically how Hollywood came to be. Helen was fearless as she was game for daring stunts in a time when it was kinda learn as you go and safety protocols weren’t really a thing.

The author includes her thoughts throughout the book which prevents it from being a dry and dull read. At times though the interjections weren’t really necessary as they impeded the reading flow. It’s not that I disagreed with anything she said, more I don’t need something pointed out every single time. Not a major issue though as it still was an interesting read and a book I’d recommend to any fan of Hollywood film making.

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is how a non-fiction book should be written - conversational and fun. While I care nothing about Los Angeles, O’Meara made its, and Hollywood’s, history interesting. I’m so glad the author has introduced the world to Helen Gibson. Her story is real and resonates in today’s world. Well done.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved her style of writing and storytelling but it felt like one long tangent. There clearly wasn’t enough information on Helen Gibson for a whole book so it’s mainly the story of early Hollywood. Specifically women’s roles in early Hollywood, which I did enjoy but it wasn’t what I was expecting going into it.
Would I have read it had I known that was the main point? Yes. Do I think she should keep writing another book about women in Hollywood then and now? (Based on the epilogue she’s got it in her.) Absolutely.

[Nicole Finch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot damn, this was a good book! Helen Gibson herself is utterly fascinating, and the book was filled with other interesting Hollywood and film history as well. It's so inspiring to read about how many women were involved in the US film industry at its inception, and kind of depressing to think about how few there are today. If you're interested in movies, movie history, women's history, and/or badass stunts, I highly recommend this book.

A note on format: The audiobook was good (narrated by the author, a professional podcaster), but the print book and ebook have a lot of great pictures. There are no endnotes, but there's a bibliography and a good index.

[MJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating biography of the first stuntwoman in Hollywood, Helen Gibson. It's also a bit of a biography of Hollywood itself, and women in Hollywood in general. The author gives a lot of interesting information and includes many pictures from the dawn of the industry that I enjoyed seeing. A very engaging read!

[Andrew Emerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a truly fascinating book not only about Helen Gibson, but the history of stunts and early Hollywood itself. Truly a brilliant read and absolutely love the author’s voice in this. A very talented storyteller and historian.

[Meredith Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a simple woman - I see a book about a woman from the early days of Hollywood, I read it. O'Meara writes in such a conversational tone and readers always get the full picture of the topic at hand.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

History should always be this fun! O’Meara takes the story of Helen Gibson as a base for exploring both women in the movie industry and the transformation of LA itself. Masterfully done with lots of fun sass and snark

[Brennan Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can always trust that whatever Mallory O’Meara takes an interest in will be transformed into a non-fiction page-turner. I especially liked the broader look at the women who shaped cinema in its earliest years, it really brought a lot of the drier parts of film history to life.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought I would like this book but I really loved it. I’ve always been fascinated by Hollywood especially women in Hollywood so it was really interesting listening to Helen’s daring story and how female forward Hollywood used to be!

[Callie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVE WHEN THIS WOMAN WRITES HISTORY. ugh so interesting to see a picture of Hollywood that has been lost to time and industry!

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated how the author integrated past and present so thoughtfully. How I wish I was more into film history! What I loved was Helen’s story and her true grit to herself and her craft.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars

Something about reading this as a one-two with Sick and Dirty was just such an unintentionally solid pairing. I'm not a film historian, but I am a history nerd so even though this isn't my general arena, the structure and storytelling here were so fascinating. I would say this isn't even necessarily a biography of Helen Gibson - though it does cover a lof of her life and use her kind of overall journey and ouvre as a gateway - but it is even more a love letter to her contributions to the film industry at a pivotal moment, and an acknowledgement of many of the influential and badass women in early Hollywood who are forgotten or intentionally obfuscated by time and misogyny.

Helen is truly such a remarkable woman, not only because of her trailblazing and brave work, but also because she is such an inspiration in reinventin herself and being open to opportunities, even if they aren't necessarily on your life bingo board. She pushed the limits, she challenged herself, she was messy and complicated.

Mallory O'Meara's humor really worked for me, but other reviews show tha mileage may vary for other readers.

Also, so random, but one of the articles O'Meara references quotes a modern stuntwoman and coincidentally she's the girlfriend of an old family friend who is a stuntguy in the business as well. Small world.

[Katie Be · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a huge fan of Mallory O'Meara's debut novel surrounding her search to discover who Millicent Patrick was as a woman and as an artist so hearing that she was coming back with a novel all about cinema's first female stuntwoman, I was sat. That said, this book didn't disappoint. O'Meara's voice is clear cut in telling Helen Gibson's story which makes for a captivating read. I had no clue how much women ruled the industry and was saddened to realize I, a woman who went to film school, was never taught about how prevalent female filmmakers were in the initial creation of what the film industry became. Even though that saddens me, I was glad to hear it from O'Meara's perspective and glad to know Helen's incredible story. She deserves all the recognition for such a varied and amazing career. 5⭐️

Thank you to Hanover Square Press + NetGalley for the opportunity to review this advance copy.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not gonna lie, this one was a bit of a slog 😅 I was over it with O’Meara’s style of prose pretty quickly — a lot of times, it felt like she was talking down to her audience or oversimplifying incredibly complex subject matter for the sake of making what read as a basic and uninspired point— which is a bummer, because Helen Gibson as a subject is really fascinating. It doesn’t help that about 65% of this book is just general feminist film history and not actually about Gibson’s life and work; I get that there’s probably not a lot of material available on film in the 1910s and 1920s, but I’d’ve rather just gotten a shorter book at this point. But, if you’re a little less entrenched in the film industry than I am and want something unique focused on early film history, this makes for a decent primer.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Hanover Square Press for the advance copy.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing - Hanover Square Press for an advance copy of this new book that looks at a trailblazer in American cinema, a woman who has somehow become lost to time, and the Hollywood where she was not alone in an industry that seems more inclusive 100 years ago than today.

As I grow older I realize how poor the education I received was. My school offered classes in Ap like Calculus and Physics, and yet didn't teach us how to balance a checkbook, nor how to make a household budget. I had classes that taught us history, but it was always a white washed history. Manifest destiny, white man's burden, a patriot's view of war. Women and minorities, were glossed over. Women it seemed were quite happy to be at home making meals and martinis until that Jane Fonda and Gloria Stenem drove them out of the kitchen. We never learned about women in science, or medicine. Or entertainment. Even the classes I took on film history glossed over the role of women. I don't remember much discussion about Helen Gibson, thought I think I should have. A woman who was a box office sensation, leaping off horses, trains and planes, and creating stunt work for women, should not be forgotten. Thanks to this book she will not be. Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman by Mallory O'Meara is not just a biography of this woman of derring-do but a look at Hollywood from a different point of view, one that had more women working in it from assistants to directors, than the Hollywood of today.

Rose August Wenger, later to become Helen Gibson, was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1892. Rose was a tomboy, one who loved to roll in the dirt, jump off of things, and take risks, something that would serve her well in life. At a young age, working a factory job, Rose saw a rodeo, and something inside of her said this is for me. The show was a traveling show, and didn't have any openings, but Rose soon found a show in Oklahoma that would train her. Soon Rose was trick roping, riding, bucking and having fun in a traveling rodeo show that covered the country. A stop in California changed her career path. Many film companies had come to California for the light, the weather and to flee lawsuits from the Edison company. A film studio hired the rodeo to be riders in a series of western movies and soon Rose was in the movie industry. Hollywood was a different place back than, and many women were in positions of power, writing, directing even producing. The opportunity to replace an ill actress in a popular serial, The Hazards of Helen, lead to a name change, Helen Gibson, and with one leap a new career. One that made her a box office sensation, and a trailblazer in many different ways.

Not just a fascinating story about a woman who should be better known, but a look at Hollywood that is far different than people know or would expect. O'Meara has a gift for finding stories of women who should be better known, bringing them to life and giving them the red carpet treatment they deserve. O'Meara also looks at the history of the times, the racism, the misogyny, and how Hollywood for all its faults still seemed to have more opportunities 100 years ago than today. More female directors, more control, same dealing with brutish men. There is a bit of snark, which is fine. O'Meara is a very good writer and brings moments to life, from stunts, to little interactions, and makes one care about the people involved, even though much time has passed.

A book that fans of Hollywood history will enjoy, and anyone who loves biographies of women will love. O'Meara is doing great things by finding this stories, and showing that women have always been there creating beautiful things from behind the camera. I can't wait to see what O'Meara has planned next.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daughter of Daring is actually more than just a biography of Helen Gibson, but is an exploration of Hollywood and Los Angeles during the time period when Helen rose to prominence as a film star and a stuntwoman. I appreciated learning about the development of the various Hollywood studios as well as learning more about the other women involved in the early days of the business. It definitely enhanced the experienced and made the story that much richer as it gave you a good grasp of the situation at the time and what it would have been like for Helen to persevere during this time period.

First of all, this is an exploration of women in film and in particular, as stuntwomen, before the golden era of Hollywood in the 1930s. It highlights the diversity of women working in the industry and how many were responsible for producing and developing film ideas and story lines, involving themselves as directors, producers, writers, screenwriters, film stars, stuntwomen, etc... It also highlights how the industry slowly became more male-dominated and pushed many of these women out of the industry throughout the years, highlighting the lack of involvement of women even in today's era. I thought we had become more progressive during the years, but this quickly taught me otherwise and I have realized we have such a long way to go. And the fact that it was often other women groups who were integral in the causation of a more male-dominated industry just drives me insane. I know that it happened, but reading about it just sets my teeth on edge, to know that women would create groups to censor other women, and to stop progression over the years because they held with old-fashioned ideas and thought progression was bad for people. The censorship rules were absolutely crazy, but I'm not surprised. What surprised me more is how long it took for them to be created. And how much the public is manipulated by these films. And I found absolutely fascinating the types of films that were made in the early days as I had no idea; everything dealing from infidelity to abortion to women's suffrage to abuse to LBGTQ as well as the serials which were so popular and exciting.

Helen Gibson became a star in the midst of all of this and her story is fascinating as it follows both her rise and her downfall as the more male-dominated society came into power later in her career. As a star horse rider, she was athletic and was able to do stunts that few women could do at the time and became popular because of this. She put herself in danger quite a few times as some of the stunts she did were done without safety harnesses or crash mats. Her career had its ups and downs and I was fascinated by what happened to her (some of it her fault, some of it due to the increasing male-dominated industry), but the author exposed the behind-the-scenes of this time period in such a way that was utterly fascinating.

Daughter of Daring was a compelling narrative that I had difficulty putting down. I definitely appreciated Helen's narrative being women amidst the information given about the time period, but to be honest, I really enjoyed learning about the time period and the film industry itself as I found it fascinating. The author is a filmmaker and understands the frustrations of being a woman in the industry so I found her candour to be refreshing. I definitely appreciated her writing about this time period though, and the forgotten women of the industry who were integral to its current success.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book much more than O’Meara’s last book, “The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick” a few years ago. This book has some of the same problems as “Lady,” but it was slightly better and I enjoyed it much more.

Let me explain. One of my biggest problems with “Lady” was how much the author described her experiences in the movie industry, so she spent a lot of time telling us how the people in the book would feel and why they would say and act the way they did. “Daughters” suffers from the same, but it didn’t seem so exaggerated this time around. The biggest problem I see is O’Meara continues to pick subjects that, while extremely interesting, I don’t know if there’s enough information on them to justify a full book. While “Lady” went into so much detail about how the author researched the book, “Daughters” really laid out the beginnings of Hollywood. Is that a bad thing? No, not at all! I enjoyed reading more about how Hollywood became a West Coast commodity, how the city of Los Angeles came to be, etc, etc, etc. I feel like O’Meara did a great job explaining the hows and whys of the creation of the industry, the studio system, and how things worked, in a way that was really fascinating and pretty easy to understand. It didn’t read like a textbook, in the best way! But to say this entire book is about Helen Gibson is a big ole stretch.

This book was really about women in Hollywood. Directors, writers, producers, and obviously, stunt people and how when the studio system came to be, these women were slowly but surely squeezed out in the name of money. I didn’t know that much about the stunt industry, both then and now, but I knew about the serials 1910s Hollywood was churning out. I walked away with more knowledge than I had before, which is always a good thing. Helen was a strong woman, no doubt about that, but I wanted to know more about *her.* And I think that was the problem—Helen was pretty private about her personal life, so the information in this book, I’m sure, was not easy to find.

I guess the footnotes are the author’s trademark, and while kind of fun, by the time I got to the end of the book, I was frustrated when a footnote was a snarky comment from the author and not a historical fact. Kind of irked me and took me out of the book. I don’t know if the footnotes were really necessary and I hoped they wouldn’t be in this book, but no luck there. If anything, I wish the footnotes correlated to a source in the back, so I could see where the author pulled information. I do plan to look up some of the other books that were used to craft this story, because I recognized a few of the other authors mentioned in the text.

Overall, I enjoyed this glimpse into the life of Helen Gibson, a rodeo rider turned stunt rider and serial queen, who had it all for a short time, and then lost it all. She lived a full, exciting life, at a time when Hollywood wasn’t the conglomerate it became and is now. For anyone interested in Old Hollywood, like early 1910s into the Golden Age of Hollywood (1930s and slightly beyond) and wants to get their feet wet, I think this would be a great book to start with. As I said, it explains Hollywood in an easy way, which is difficult to do, and that’s one of the book’s standouts. If you’re looking for a comprehensive book about Helen Gibson, I don’t think you’ll find it here.

[Firetruckmama · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, for which I thank them.

I’m really conflicted of how to review “Daughter of Daring” by Mallory O’Meara. I love old movies - the older the better (yes, including silents). I love the history of that time - how nearly everything was new, exciting, changing, and developing. How the hub of movies moved from the East out to the West (better weather and more diverse landscapes nearby). How silents weren’t always silent and the development of “movie theaters” from their start (rather sketchy) to their golden day heydays. When you could, for a dime, be entertained by a three year old with curls (Shirley Temple) and forget your troubles. I actually had heard of Helen Gibson before reading this book - but I mainly knew her as a trick rider and wife of Hoot Gibson. So, I was eager to learn more about her stunt adventures. Stunts back in the early days of film were rather daring - and quite often the star of the film stood in for his/her own stunts (Gloria Swanson and Buster Keaton immediately come to mind). So, phone in hand, I started reading … and realized a few things. First - there’s a lot of history that went into researching this book. That’s pretty obvious. Ms. O’Meara peppers her story with names that should not be forgotten as early movie pioneers. Ms. O’Meara also does a great job explaining the history of Hollywood itself - growing from a small enclave to becoming part of the larger LA area. She does a good job balancing the dull boring facts with colorful stories. Second - As Ms. O’Meara, herself, is involved in the movie industry, she can make a personal connection with stories in this book - and she often does. The history of movies - not on the screen but actually how movies evolved - can be fascinating from a historical viewpoint. That a movie about a kiss (available to view online) was amazingly popular today is mind boggling (they kiss, that’s it). “The Great Train Robbery,” which gets a mention, is still pretty dang entertaining (also available online). But - and this is huge - I couldn’t make it through all of this book without a lot of skimming. Why? Because Ms. O’Meara’s lens is that of a modern day woman with a message. There’s a lot of #MeToo and white male bashing. Unfortunately when you take a modern lens and apply it to a previous time, the interpretation is not always accurate. While I found the story of Helen Gibson an interesting one, I really had issues with Ms. O’Meara’s lens and commentary through that lens. I’m obviously not the audience for this book - as it has a number of five star reviews - but I applaud Ms. O’Meara for bring the story of Helen Gibson to modern audiences. Just, for me, it wasn't as enjoyable as I hoped.

[Tim Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all, this isn’t a biography - it is a 300+ page oped with occasional interruptions by a woman on a horse. The entire book feels thin and slanted; a polemic; lots of moralizing and superimposing current mores on a bygone era a hundred years in the past; endless snark and self-righteous pontificating all through a manichaeistic lens that is popular today: black/white, settler/native/, colonizer/colonized, exploiters/victims. Moreover, there is not a redeemable male character or depiction in the entire book save for Carl Laemmle, the king of nepotism in Hollywood, whose Universal Studios employed 60-some relatives of Laemmle's, all of them male. It was Laemmle who ushered in the idea of a film studio as a production factory with specialized jobs, tight schedules, cost accountants, and Wall Street financiers - the very thing that O'Meara complains about. She lauds Laemmle for hiring lots of women while ignoring the fact that he did it because he hired them on the cheap. And he's a hero?

Besides Laemmle, O'Meara heaps praise on Louella Parsons, turning William Randolph Hearst's gossip columnist and moralizing character assassin into some kind of Gloria Steinem feminist crusader. She leaves out the hit jobs that Parsons did for Hearst- chiefly destroying the film Citizen Kane (a thinly veiled critique of Hearst, which many film critics regard as the best film ever made), Orson Welles, and even leading an effort to get the original print destroyed. Then there's her attack on Ingrid Bergman for an extramarital affair and pregnancy, effectively getting Bergman blackballed from the film industry for a number of years. A real feminist.

O'Meara laments the lack of power and agency women had in Hollywood, while leaving out the fact that women like Parsons, Hedda Hopper (one of chief protagonists in the disgraceful red scare of the 1950s who destroyed many careers), Pauline Kael, and Judith Crist who wielded enormous power and control in the film industry for 60+ years, terrorizing studio heads, producers, directors, actors, and actresses, and sometimes, as in the case of Merle Oberon, for nothing more than, as Hedda Hopper put it, "sheer bitchery." But that would all be an inconvenient truth in O'Meara's world view.

Because Helen Gibson didn't leave behind a "paper trail", there are no voluminous diaries or deep personal correspondences to serve as source material for a real biography. That’s no problem for O’Meara, because she fills the gap with her own personal agenda, mindreading what Helen Gibson would have said or thought, endless speculation about others did or thought, with a healthy dose of jumping to conclusions and riding on assumptions and wishes, all tempered with her own view of what “ought” to be and an outrageous amount of hyperbole. And snark. Lots and lots of snark, including the footnotes, which are a joke btw as they offer no reference to source material, as footnotes are intended.

I read this for a book club and it was laborious to slug through without pausing every five minutes for an eye roll. If you really want to know about Helen Gibson, skip this book and watch a youtube video, you'll learn more and be spared this 300 page airing-of-the-grievances Festivus-ish soliloquy.

[Ross Blocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mallory O'Meara has done it again with another engaging, deeply researched, and hilariously footnoted chapter of women's history. In Daughter of Daring, it's the story of Hollywood's first stuntwoman, Helen Gibson; but also a story of the film industry then and now, and the surprising fact that gender parity in filmmaking has yet to claw its way back to levels seen in the earliest decades of film (before the Hays Code and the studio system).

Though born Rose Wenger, Helen formed her professional identity by marrying fellow trick-rider and actor Hoot Gibson in 1913 (their fated marriage seemed a product of convenience rather than romance), and then by filling in for the star Helen Holmes partway through the 119-episode run of the serial "Hazards of Helen". It was this act, of having a capable horse rider and show performer stand in for another woman during stunt sequences (rather than some man wearing a wig), that made Helen the first stuntwoman. When Holmes left the series, she gladly handed the reins over to Gibson, her near doppelganger, who led the series, performed her own stunts (thank you very much), and became a household name. I had initially suspected that we'd be talking about a handful of dangerous acts, but no! Every episode found a way for the brave telegraph operator to foil a robbery, avert a deadly engineering mishap, or escape a kidnapping plot. Whatever the cause, Helen was jumping on and off of water towers, motorcycles, horses, cars, planes, and moving trains. Here's a fun representative clip from 1916.

"Hazards of Helen" was followed by another series called "Daughter of Daring", once again with Helen Gibson as the star. She went on to marquee in films as well, though her complete list of credits is impossible to fully reconstruct, with preservation from that era being so spotty. There are ups and downs along the way: the injuries you'd expect in an era with no safety rigs or CG enhancements, the financial volatility of movie studios, and the shifting expectations of audiences as theater technology (sound!) and film packaging evolved. O'Meara charts Gibson's remarkable tenacity in Hollywood (she has cameos in 1939's Stagecoach, 1951's Hollywood Story (in which she is introduced by name to an audience that fondly remembers her), and 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), but also her eventual transition back to show riding and life in Oregon away from the spotlight. Side note: Holy crap! I just noticed that she also appeared briefly in two Ma and Pa Kettle films... I saw her long before I knew who she was!

I got the primo experience by listening to the audiobook while reading the physical copy. O'Meara's narration is top-notch (to be expected from an author and podcaster), and includes the essential footnotes that many audiobooks leave out. While reading along, I also got to enjoy seeing how everything was spelled, as well as the generous photos, film stills, and production posters. I'd recommend either experience (or both, if you're fancy like me). And, as hinted at in my intro, it's not only the story of Helen: you'll learn a lot of fascinating - and sometimes horrifying - backstory about Hollywood's history of representation and mercenary business practices, as well as other key figures in film history. Highly recommended.

[Jeimy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to thank the publisher for granting me an ALC in exchange for an honest review. I requested this book not only because I am a longtime listener of Mallory O’Meara’s Reading Glasses podcast, where she has spoken passionately about this project, but also because I knew she narrated the audiobook herself—something I was sure would enhance the experience.

I went in expecting a straightforward biography of Helen Gibson, but I should have known better. Much like in The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, O’Meara delivers more than just the life story of her subject. She offers a rich, historical exploration of Los Angeles and Hollywood itself, starting with how L.A. was founded and structured before diving into the rise of the film industry.

O’Meara also highlights how women were not only integral to early Hollywood but valued in ways that would later be erased as the industry became increasingly male-dominated. Gibson’s story is woven into this broader narrative—fascinating and heartbreaking in its own right, but also a lens through which O’Meara examines the systemic shifts that pushed women out of key roles in filmmaking.

The subject matter is compelling, but it’s O’Meara’s enthusiasm that truly brings it to life. As a filmmaker, she understands firsthand the challenges women continue to face in the industry, and her passion is contagious. That said, I wonder if I would have been as engaged reading a print edition versus listening to her narration. Regardless, I appreciate O’Meara’s commitment to spotlighting forgotten women of history, and I’m glad Gibson’s story is being told.

[Morgan Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just started and already liiiiterally on the edge of couch. Helen Gibson’s story as America’s first professional stuntwoman and silent-era action star is already wild.
As someone who works in entertainment, the early pages are hitting me hard. O’Meara writes with a super familiar, personal urgency - which makes the book not just about Helen—but about every woman whose legacy was buried while the story of Hollywood got told on top of them.I’ve spent the past year sincerely baffled inside a company that proudly flaunts its public commitment to equality and progressive values—but come to find out -once you’re inside, reveals itself as an actual 2025?!?! alive and well old boys’ club. Behind their branding (and LOL very public legal settlements about this very thing) is just the same closed-door dynamic, where women’s work continues to be discredited—even after decades of real ROI. The type of ROI that defined the musical landscape of my generations youth. I was floored to learn these dynamics are still at play and i'm still struggling with the sobering modern illusion that awareness somehow equals progress which O’Meara captures so well. Awareness doesn’t hire people. It doesn’t green-light ideas. It doesn’t shift power. Like O’Meara says she hoped to do when starting her research—I, too, want to figure out how to replicate what the film (in my case music/film) industry was doing right in the 1930s, when women weren’t just participating—they were booming. Running studios, directing films, editing reels, inventing the visual language we still use today. How did we have and lose that momentum? (which i didn't know we ever had) Can we get it back por favor

[Cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everything about this book seems to signal that this is an autobiography, but in actuality it focuses way more broadly on the development of the early film industry, the role of early adopter women filmmakers, the rise of Hollywood and producer driven projects, and the resulting gender and racial inequality in the industry that still exists to this day. I have no problem exploring these topics and knowing how the history of early film was tracked and preserved (read not well) I'm sure some of them are meant to provide some more meat to a research project that was probably fairly lean in sourceable documents. That said, I'm actually really annoyed with what I perceive to be false advertisement. Could it have perhaps in the subtitle if nowhere else made reference to the full scope of the content covered? I especially feel like this was necessary because I felt like some parts of the book felt too general and like the researcher was trying to cover too much for what it says on the tin. Speaking of the author, I really hated her writing style. I get being personable, but there were way too many modern day sidebars that drew too much attention to the writer. All in all, I can't complain too badly because I did learn something, but I'm annoyed with the model and make of the vehicle that delivered me that message.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this incredible biography of Helen Gibson, a silent film action star and student double, readers discover the crazy stakes and insane students of the film industry in the early twentieth century. From riding horses, motorcycles, and train cars to even crazier students, Helen was the first stuntwoman in American film, and she worked alongside many other incredible women in the silent film era. O’Meara does an incredible job bringing this too crazy and cool to be real story to life and draws on historical documents, films, and more to give readers an insight into the Golden Age of Hollywood and the lives of some of the women who helped create the American entertainment industry. The pacing and readability of this book make this great for all sorts of readers, and the book is incredibly accessible and familiar to modern readers, especially because Helen feels like a twenty-first century woman. O’Meara has done a fantastic job interpreting and analyzing the documents in ways which readers will better understand how women like Helen could work in early twentieth century Hollywood. A brilliant example of biography and women’s history, this is a fun and entertaining yet incredibly informative new read that movie lovers and historians alike will love.

Thanks to NetGalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and Hanover Square Press for the advance copy.