Lois Weber
Birthday: 1879-06-12 | Place of Birth: Allegheny City [now Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania, USALois 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
Acting
Role
as Self (archive footage)
as Self
as Mrs. Broome
as Anne
as Lydia Jansen
as Daisy Dean
as Sunshine Molly
as Diana Grave
as Madame DuBarr
as Mrs. Moore
as Summer Girl
as The Maid
as The Soldier's Sweetheart
as The Wife
as Mira, the Artist's Model
as Ann
as Aratus' Wife
as Flora Brown
as Grace - The Wife
as Mrs. Brown
as Tess
as The Tavern Keeper's Daughter
as The Twin Sisters
