She is also considered a pioneering female director with a number of shorts and two feature films, A Soul Enslaved (1916) and Her Bitter Cup (1916), to her credit.

In March 1912 she debuted as the leading female player in Ernest Shipman's stock company in Phoenix, Arizona; her first production was When We Were Twenty-One.

[6] Her characters often defied stereotypical roles of women in film and encompassed heroines, free-thinkers, villains, temptresses, and adventurers.

Journalist William M. Henry, writing for Photoplay, highlighted her skill by contrasting her emotional performances with her calculating and business-like persona in real-life: "... to see Madison in pictures tells you absolutely nothing about her character.

"[citation needed] By 1915, Madison had become well known as one of the foremost women working in Hollywood, and she began to seek new challenges within the industry such as screenwriting, producing, and directing.

Madison was among the unprecedented wave of female directors employed by Universal that included Grace Cunard, Jeanie MacPherson and Lois Weber.

Eleanor's Catch was notable from a directorial perspective as one of the first films to use the twist ending; her character is revealed to have a surprising identity.

[8] A Soul Enslaved (1916) features a desperate heroine becoming a rich man's mistress to escape poverty, and afterward suffering the consequences of her actions in a later, conventional relationship.

[10] Madison's directorial credits end after 1916 for unknown reasons, although film historians have speculated that her status and workload led to a nervous breakdown that forced her into early retirement.

[11] During these years she continued to act in films such as Black Orchids (1917), The Romance of Tarzan (1918), The Girl from Nowhere (1919) and The Great Radium Mystery (1919).

Although she remained active with bit parts in several Universal shorts, she no longer possessed the star power necessary to inhabit lead roles.