Name
Lois Weber
Known For
Directing
Birthday
1879-06-12
Deathday
1939-11-13 (60 years old)
Place of Birth
Allegheny City [now Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania, USA
Biography
Lois Weber (1879 - 1939) was a true American auteur on par with D. W. Griffith. A director, actress, screenwriter, and producer of mostly silent films, she was the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film (1914's The Merchant of Venice), the first American woman director to own her own film studio, and one of the first film directors to experiment with sound. Weber pioneered the split-screen technique in the 1913 short film Suspense, and Hypocrites featured the first non-pornographic full-frontal female nude scene in 1915. Many of her films tackled social issues like abortion, poverty, discrimination, and religion, drawing the attention of censors.
Only a fraction of her films, estimated to number between 200 and 400, were preserved. In 2022, the American Film Institute announced a new initiative titled "Behind the Veil," after one of Weber's lost films. The initiative "will document 6,000 short films from the silent and early sound eras to uncover the innovative contributions of female and BIPOC storytellers."
Known For
5.2
A female ape takes to mothering the orphaned boy (Tarzan) and raises him over the course o...
7
Fenella, a poor Italian girl, falls in love with a Spanish nobleman, but their affair trig...
5.9
Walton, the District Attorney, yearns to have children. Soon after defending an author on ...
5.6
The story of St. Gabriel, who was killed by an ignorant mob for making a nude statue repre...
5.5
Three men in succession propose marriage to Grace Darling; she accepts all! Since they are...
5.3
Ed Brown plays a old war veteran tired of living in a veterans' home and decides to move i...
- 1913 How Men Propose as The Maid
- 1913 The Picture of Dorian Gray
- 1914 The Spider and Her Web as Madame DuBarr
- 1911 A Heroine of '76 as The Tavern Keeper's Daughter
- 1913 Suspense as The Wife
- 1914 The Pursuit of Hate as Diana Grave
- 1916 Idle Wives as Anne
- 1911 Sherlock Holmes, Jr. as Mrs. Brown
- 1911 Fate as Flora Brown
- 1912 A Japanese Idyll
- 1912 Fine Feathers as Mira, the Artist's Model
- 1911 Lost Illusions as Grace - The Wife
- 1913 The Rosary as The Soldier's Sweetheart
- 1911 The Price as Ann
- 1917 Alone in the World
- 1915 Scandal as Daisy Dean
- 1911 On the Brink as Tess
- 1915 Sunshine Molly as Sunshine Molly
- 1911 From Death to Life as Aratus' Wife
- 1914 Lost by a Hair as Summer Girl
- 1916 The Eye of God as Renie
- 1916 Hop - The Devil's Brew as Lydia Jansen
- 1917 The Hand That Rocks the Cradle as Mrs. Broome
- 1914 The Merchant of Venice as Portia
- 1911 The Twins as The Twin Sisters
- 1913 The Jew's Christmas as Leah - Isaac's Daughter
- 2016 The Women Who Run Hollywood as Self (archive footage)
- 1912 Eyes That See Not as The Millionaire's Wife
- 1914 False Colors as Mrs. Moore
- 2009 Early Directors on Directing as Self
- 1980 Hollywood ( 1 episode ) as Self (archive footage, uncredited)
