Daughter of Daring

From LA Times bestselling author Mallory O'Meara, the untold story of America's first professional stuntwoman, Helen Gibson, who set groundbreaking precedents for women in Hollywood

Helen Gibson was a woman willing to try anything. 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 the first-ever published biography of Helen Gibson, award-winning author Mallory O'Meara presents her 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 stunt double in American film and the first stuntperson to jump from a moving train


• 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 shines a light on the unsung history of Hollywood stuntwomen and the crucial shifts they brought to women’s visibility and work in cinema.