Florence Lois Weber (June 13, 1879 – November 13, 1939) was an American silent film director, screenwriter, producer and actress. She is identified in some historical references as among "the most important and prolific film directors in the era of silent films"."Lois Weber (1881–1939)", Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages (2007), Dictionary of Women Worldwide. Film historian Anthony Slide has also asserted, "Along with D.W.Griffith, Weber was the American cinema's first genuine auteur, a filmmaker involved in all aspects of production and one who utilized the motion picture to put across her own ideas and philosophies".Anthony Slide, The Silent Feminists, pp. 29, 151.
Weber produced a body of work which has been compared to Griffith's in both quantity and qualityJennifer Parchesky, "Lois Weber's 'The Blot': Rewriting Melodrama, Reproducing the Middle Class", Cinema Journal 39:1 (Autumn, 1999):23. and brought to the screen her concerns for humanity and social justice in an estimated 200 to 400 films,Her first husband, Phillips Smalley indicates they collaborated on 350 films. See Terry Ramsaye, ed., "Phillips Smalley", Motion Picture Almanac, Vol. 38 (Quigley Publications, 1929): 56. of which as few as twenty have been preserved.Linda Seger, When Women Call the Shots: The Developing Power and Influence of Women in Television and Film (iUniverse, 2003): 8. One source estimates that fewer than fifty of Weber's films survive. See Annette Kuhn and Susannah Radstone, The Women's Companion to International Film (University of California Press, 1994): 418. She has been credited by IMDb with directing 135 films, writing 114, and acting in 100.Lois Weber filmography Weber was "one of the first directors to come to the attention of the censors in Hollywood's early years".Aubrey Malone, Censoring Hollywood: Sex and Violence in Film and on the Cutting Room Floor (McFarland, 2011): 7.
Weber has been credited with pioneering the use of the split screen technique to show simultaneous action in her 1913 film Suspense.Julie Talen, "'24': Split Screen's Big Comeback", Salon.com (May 15, 2002). In collaboration with her first husband, Phillips Smalley, in 1913 Weber was "one of the first directors to experiment with sound", making the first sound films in the United States.Women Behind the Camera: Women as Directors Louella O. Brown, "Pathe, F.B.O., Radio Victor Merge Stirs Movieland", Rochester Evening Journal and the Post Express (December 27, 1928): 22. She was also the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film when she and Smalley directed The Merchant of Venice in 1914,Lisa Singh, , michelebeverly.com; accessed December 19, 2016. and in 1917 the first American woman director to own her own film studio.Cari Beauchamp, Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood (University of California Press, 1998): 35-36, 41, 112, 149, 193, 282-83, 346.
During the war years, Weber "achieved tremendous success by combining a canny commercial sense with a rare vision of cinema as a moral tool".Richard Koszarski, An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915–1928 (University of California Press, 1994): 223. At her zenith, "few men, before or since, have retained such absolute control over the films they have directedand certainly no women directors have achieved the all-embracing, powerful status once held by Lois Weber".Anthony Slide, in Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, "Early Women Filmmakers as Social Arbiters", Troping the Body: Gender, Etiquette, and Performance (SIU Press, 2000): 110. By 1920, Weber was considered the "premier woman director of the screen and author and producer of the biggest money making features in the history of the film business".
Among Weber's notable films are: the controversial Hypocrites, which featured the first non-pornography full-frontal female nude scene, in 1915; the 1916 film Where Are My Children?, which discussed abortion and birth control and was added to the National Film Registry in 1993; her adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes novel for the very first Tarzan of the Apes film, in 1918; The Blot (1921) is also generally considered one of her finest works.
Weber is credited with discovering, mentoring, or making stars of several women actors, including Mary MacLaren,Charlie Keil and Shelley Stamp, American Cinema's Transitional Era: Audiences, Institutions, Practices (University of California Press, 2004): 338. Mildred Harris, Claire Windsor,Terry Ramsaye, ed, Motion Picture Almanac, Vol. 38 (Quigley Publications, 1929): 34. Esther Ralston,Esther Ralston, "How I Broke into the Movies", St. Joseph Gazette (November 30, 1930):7A. Billie Dove,Vicki Callahan, Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History (Wayne State University Press, 2010): 131. Ella Hall, Cleo Ridgely,Harrison Carroll, "The Film Shop", Tyrone Daily Herald (Tyrone, PA: February 4, 1933): 4. and Anita Stewart,"Lois Weber, Director of Moving Pictures; Helped Anita Stewart and Other Stars to Win Success", The New York Times (November 14, 1939): 23:2. and with discovering and inspiring screenwriter Frances Marion. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Weber was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960.
Early life Florence Lois Weber was born on June 13, 1879,United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls. Source Citation: Year: 1900; Census Place: Allegheny Ward 2, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T623_1355; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 17. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880. (NARA microfilm publication T9, 1,454 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. Source Citation: Year: 1880; Census Place: Allegheny, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1086; Family History Film: 1255086; Page: 339B; Enumeration District: 13; Image: 0686 Many sources indicate erroneously that Weber was born either in 1881, e.g. Eugene Michael Vazzana's Silent Film Necrology: Births and Deaths of Over 9000 Performers, Directors, Producers, and Other Filmmakers of the Silent Era, Through 1993 (McFarland, 1995): 350. Other sources indicate 1882, e.g. "Lois Weber", Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia, ed. Philip C. Dimare (ABC-CLIO, 2011): 850. One source even indicates she was born in 1886, e.g. American Women: The Official Who's Who Among the Women of the Nation, Vol. 3., ed. Durward Howes (Richard Blank Pub. Co., 1939): 319. in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania,since 1907 Pittsburgh's Northside neighborhood the second of three children of Mary Matilda Snamanborn Mathilda Schneeman in March 1854 in Reserve Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; died 1935 in Miami, Florida Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Source Citation: Year: 1860; Census Place: Reserve, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: M653_1066; Page: 1014; Image: 175; Family History Library Film: 805066. Ancestry.com. Florida Death Index, 1877–1998 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: State of Florida. Florida Death Index, 1877–1998. Florida: Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, 1998. and George Weber,born June 1855; died about 1910 an upholster and decorator who had spent several years in missionary street work. She was the younger sister of Elizabeth Snaman Weber Jayborn April 9, 1877, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; died February 26, 1966, in FloridaElizabeth Snaman Weber"Y-Singers Give Second Concert", Miami News-Metropolis (February 22, 1924): 11.Ancestry.com. Florida Death Index, 1877–1998 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. and older sister of Ethel Weber Howland,born July 3, 1887, in PennsylvaniaTenth census of the state of Florida, 1935; (Microfilm series S 5, 30 reels); Record Group 001021; State Library and Archives of Florida, Tallahassee, Florida. who later appeared in two of Weber's films in 1916Ethel Weber, aka Ethel Howland profile, imdb.com; accessed December 19, 2016. and married assistant director Louis A. Howland.
The Webers were a devout middle class Christian family of Pennsylvania German ancestry.Karen Ward Mahar, Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood (JHU Press, 2008): 89.Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez, California and Californians, Vol. 4, ed. Rockwell Dennis Hunt (The Lewis publishing company, 1930): 176."Born Florence Lois Weber on June 13, 1879, in Allegheny City (annexed in 1907 officially as the North Side, Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania, Lois Weber was the second daughter of George and Mary Matilda (née Snaman) Weber. George's parents, Salesius Weber and Elizabeth Koch Weber arrived by 1854 from Germany."
Weber was considered a child prodigyGwendolyn Audrey Foster, Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995):365. and an excellent pianist.Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary from Colonial Times to the Present, ed. Robert McHenry (Courier Dover Publications, 1980): 432. As a girl, music was her passion, and her most treasured possession was a baby grand piano.Carolyn Lowrey, The First One Hundred Noted Men and Women of the Screen (Moffat, Yard and company, 1920): 190. Weber left home and lived in poverty while working as a street corner evangelist and social activist for two years with the evangelical Church Army Workers, an organization similar to the Salvation Army, preaching and singing hymns on street corners and singing and playing the organ in rescue missions in red-light districts in Pittsburgh and New York, until the Church Army Workers disbanded in 1900.Daniel Eagan, America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010): 50.
In June 1900, Weber was almost 21 and living with her parents and two sisters at 1717 Fremont Street, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, where she was a music student.Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls. Source Citation: Year: 1900; Census Place: Allegheny Ward 2, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T623_1355; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 17. By April 1903, Weber was performing as a soprano singer and pianist."Society", The Fort Wayne Daily News (Fort Wayne, IN: April 25, 1903):6. She toured the United States as a concert pianistwith a harpist named Mrs Apt Thomas until her final performance in Charleston, South Carolina, a year later.New Observations, Vols. 18–21 (New Observations Publications Inc.): 2.Sir Henry Joseph Wood, My Life of Music (Ayer Publishing, 1946): 74, 113. After a piano key broke during a recital,"Gives Up Piano To Become Movie Star", Berkeley Daily Gazette (December 9, 1927): 2.