The first nude woman on screen: Annette Kellerman

Annette Kellerman is credited with being the first woman to appear nude in a film – in the grand epic A Daughter of the Gods (Herbert Brenon, USA, 1916).

This is a publicity still for the film. The film itself is now considered lost.

When she spoke with Joel Greenberg in 1974 she insisted she wore a ‘very thin pair of tights’ for filming. A long wig was also strategically placed for modesty.

Notes by Beth Taylor