Known For
Directing
Born
Jun 12, 1879
Died
Nov 13, 1939
Place of Birth
Allegheny City [now Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania, USA
Credits
71 titles
Lois Weber
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
Filmography
The Women Who Run Hollywood
Self (archive footage)
Early Directors on Directing
Self
Hollywood
Self (archive footage, uncredited)
White Heat
Writer
The Angel of Broadway
Director
Topsy and Eva
Adaptation
Sensation Seekers
Director
The Marriage Clause
Director
A Chapter in Her Life
Director
What Do Men Want?
Director
The Blot
Director
Too Wise Wives
Director
What's Worth While?
Writer
To Please One Woman
Director
Forbidden
Director
Home
Director
Mary Regan
Director
A Midnight Romance
Director
When a Girl Loves
Director
Borrowed Clothes
Director
For Husbands Only
Director
The Doctor and the Woman
Director
Tarzan of the Apes
Writer
The Price of a Good Time
Director
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Mrs. Broome
Even as You and I
Director
The Mysterious Mrs. M
Director
Alone in the World
The People vs. John Doe
Director
Wanted- A Home
Producer
Idle Wives
Anne
Saving the Family Name
Director
Shoes
Director
The Eye of God
Renie
Where Are My Children?
Director
John Needham's Double
Director
The Flirt
Writer
Hop - The Devil's Brew
Lydia Jansen
The Dumb Girl of Portici
Adaptation
Discontent
Director
Jewel
Writer
A Cigarette - That's All
Director
Scandal
Daisy Dean
Betty in Search of a Thrill
Director
Captain Courtesy
Director
Sunshine Molly
Sunshine Molly
Hypocrites
Director
It's No Laughing Matter
Director
False Colors
Mrs. Moore
The Opened Shutters
Scenario Writer