Star was also writer, director, producer and stuntwoman

pioneer, running her own production company, writing, starring, producing and directing these films.

“She was an active woman, she rescued the man, she’s not the passive woman to be in the thrall of the male hero.

“She was a role model for the women we see now looking for parts beyond the demure girlfriend role.”

Nell saw no reason to dial it down for anyone, even when making a car advert.

Ellen said: “She produced a short film with this car going over horrendous rocky landscape with this action adventure woman, attractive, feisty, behind the wheel. You wouldn’t get that in a car advert now.”

When Nell left Hollywood, she transported several barges full of bears, big cats and rescue animals to her new base in Idaho.

A long-term campaigner against the appalling treatment of creatures in films, she trained her own animals and cared for others abandoned after filming.

Ellen said: “She took a menagerie that had been mistreated in movies. She looked after them properly, way before there was a humane animal policy in the film industry.”

One of the many amazing things about Nell Shipman is that she is not unique.

According to historian Shelley Stamp, women held more positions of creative control in early Hollywood than now.

Another expert estimates that, by 1917, seven per cent of Universal Studio’s movies were directed by women.

Lois Weber made social realist films highlighting teenage abortion, poverty and sex outside marriage.

The first ever narrative film was made by Alice Guy-Blache, a former secretary who worked with film engineer Louis Lumiere. While her male colleagues made mini-documentaries with their new cameras, she saw greater potential in the technology.

Ellen said: “She made more than 1000 films for the Gaumont Film Company, of which half a