Author 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 in
Hollywood on the Riviera: The Inside Story of the Cannes Film Festival with Henri Behar, published by William Morrow & Co. In 1998, she wrote
Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and The Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, published by
Scribner and the
University of California Press. The book examines the lives of
Frances Marion (Oscar-winning screenwriter of
The Big House and
The Champ) and many of her female colleagues who shaped filmmaking from the 1920s through the 1940s.
Without Lying Down was named one of the 100 Most Notable Books of the Year by both
The New York Times and the
Los Angeles Times and was awarded
Book of the Year by the National Theater Arts Association. In 2003 came
Anita 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 Published by University of California Press, the book compiles samples of Loos's previously unpublished work as well as the personal life and work of novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, author of
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, as well as several other books and dozens of plays and screenplays. In 2006,
University of California Press released
Adventures 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 by
Samuel Goldwyn Jr., chronicling an insider's view of the film studios of the 1920s from a secretary's perspective. In 2009, Beauchamp wrote
Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years published by
Knopf and
Vintage Books. The book examines
Joseph 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.
Documentary Beauchamp wrote and co-produced the documentary film
Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and The Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, which premiered in 2000 on Turner Classic Movies, and for which she was nominated for a Writers' Guild Award. She also wrote the documentary film
The Day My God Died about young girls of Nepal sold into sexual slavery which played on
PBS and was nominated for an
Emmy in 2003. She also appeared as an expert on film history in a half dozen other documentaries including Mark Cousins' production of
The Story of Film: An Odyssey.
Journalist and film historian Beauchamp wrote for various magazines and newspapers, including
Vanity Fair,
Variety,
The Hollywood Reporter,
The New York Times, and the
Los Angeles Times. Beauchamp was a frequent featured speaker on the subject of Women and Hollywood History, appearing throughout the United States and Europe, including the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was a resident scholar of the
Mary Pickford Foundation. == Personal life and death ==