Lois Weber (June 13, 1879 — November 13, 1939) was an American silent film actress, screenwriter, producer, and director, who is considered "the most important female director the American film industry has known", and "one of the most important and important and prolific film directors in the era of silent films". Film historian Anthony Slide asserts that: "Along with D.W. Griffith, Lois 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."
Weber produced an ''oeuvre'' comparable to Griffith in both quantity and quality, and brought to the screen her concerns for humanity and social justice in an estimated 200 to 400 films, of which as few as twenty have been preserved, and has been credited with directing 135 films, writing 114 films, and acting in 100 films. Weber was "one of the first directors to come to the attention of the censors in Hollywood's early years".
Weber has been credited as pioneering the use of the split screen technique to show simultaneous action in her 1913 film ''Suspense''. 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, and was also the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film when she directed ''The Merchant of Venice'' in 1914, and in 1917 the first woman director to own her own film studio. During the war years, Weber "achieved tremendous success by combining a canny commercial sense with a rare vision of cinema as a moral tool". At her zenith, "few men, before or since, have retained such absolute control over the films they have directed - and certainly no women directors have achieved the all-embracing, powerful status once held by Lois Weber." 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 full-frontal female nude 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 first ever Tarzan of the Apes film in 1918; and what is often considered her masterpiece, ''The Blot'' in 1921. Weber is credited with discovering, mentoring, or making stars of several women actors, including Mary MacLaren, Mildred Harris, Claire Windsor, Esther Ralston, Billie Dove, Ella Hall, Cleo Ridgely, and Anita Stewart, and discovered and inspired screenwriter Frances Marion. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, on February 8, 1960, Weber was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6518 Hollywood Blvd.
Florence Lois Weber was born on June 13, 1879 in
Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (since 1907
Pittsburgh's
Northside neighborhood), the second of three children of Mary Matilda "Tillie" Snaman (born Mathilda Schneeman in March 1854 in Reserve Township,
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; died 1935 in
Miami, Florida) and George Weber (born June 1855; died about 1910), an upholster and decorator, who had spent several years in missionary street work, and the younger sister of Elizabeth "Bessie" Snaman Weber Jay (born April 9, 1877 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; died February 26, 1966 in Florida) and older sister of Ethel Weber Howland (born July 3, 1887 in Pennsylvania), who later appeared in two of Florence's films in 1916, and married
assistant director Louis A. "Lou" Howland. The Webers were a devout middle class Christian family of
Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.
Weber was considered a
child prodigy, and an excellent
pianist. As a girl, music was her mania, and her most treasured possession was a
baby grand piano. 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,
In June 1900 Weber was almost 21 and was living with her parents and two sisters at 1717 Fremont Street, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, where she was a music student. By April 1903 Weber was performing as a soprano singer and pianist and toured the United States as a concert pianist with renowned harpist Mrs Apt Thomas until her final performance in Charleston, South Carolina a year later. After an unfortunate incident when a piano key broke during a recital, Weber retired from the concert stage, having lost her nerve to play in public. Weber describes the incident that precipitated her retirement: "Just as I started to play a black key came off in my hand. I kept forgetting that the key was not there, and reaching for it. The incident broke my nerve. I could not finish and I never appeared on the concert stage again. It is my belief that when that key came off in my hand, a certain phase of my development came to an end."
Frustrated by the futility of one-on-one conversions, and following the advice of an uncle in Chicago,
For five years Weber was a
repertory and stock actress. After short stint as a
soubrette in the
farce comedy "Zig-Zag" for a Chicago-based touring company, Weber resigned as it "proved too superficial for her
altruistic aims". In 1904 Weber joined the road company of "Why Girls Leave Home", where she became "a
musical comedy ''
prima donna'' and
melodrama heroine". Weber received "promising reviews" for her performance, for example, ''
The Boston Globe'' wrote of her in September 1904 that she "sang two very pretty songs very effectively and won considerable applause".
The troupe's leading man and manager was Wendell Phillips Smalley (August 7, 1865 in Brooklyn, New York - May 2, 1939 in Los Angeles, California), a grandson of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the elder son of ''New York Tribune'' war and foreign correspondent George Washburn Smalley (born June 2, 1833 in Franklin, Massachusetts; died April 4, 1916 in London, England) and Phoebe Garnaut Phillips (born April 1841 in Massachusetts; died February 1923 in New York City), the adopted daughter of abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Smalley, who had attended Balliol College, Oxford and was a graduate of Harvard University and had been a lawyer in New York for seven years, and had been a stage actor who made his professional stage debut in August 1901 in Manhattan, and had appeared since in productions of Harrison Grey Fiske and Mrs Fiske, and Raymond Hitchcock. After a brief acquaintance, just before her 25th birthday, Weber and Smalley, aged 38, married on April 29, 1904 in Chicago, Illinois.
After initially touring separately from her husband, and then accompanying him on his tours, about 1906 Weber left her career in the theater and was became a homemaker in New York. During this period Weber wrote freelance moving picture scenarios.
In 1908 Weber was hired to work for
American Gaumont Chronophones, which produced ''
phonoscènes'', initially as a singer who recorded songs for use on the chronophone. Both
Herbert Blaché and his wife,
Alice Guy, later claimed to have given Weber her start in the movie industry.
At the end of the 1908 theatrical season, Smalley joined Weber at Gaumont. Soon Weber wrote scripts and in 1908 Weber began directing English language ''phonoscènes'' at the Gaumont Studio in Flushing, New York. About 1908 Weber starred in a role in a film she had written called ''Hypocrites'', which was directed by Blaché.
In 1910 Weber and Smalley decided to pursue a career in the infant motion picture industry. For the next five years, they worked and were credited as The Smalleys (but where typically Weber received sole writing credit) on dozens of shorts and features for small production companies like Gaumont, the New York Motion Picture Co., Reliance Studio, the Rex Motion Picture Company, and Bosworth, where Weber wrote scenarios and subtitles, acted, directed, designed sets and costumes, edited films, and even developed negatives. Weber took two years off her birth date when she signed her first movie contract.
Weber and Smalley had a daughter, Phoebe, named after Smalley's mother, who was born on October 29, 1910, but died in infancy.
By 1911 Weber and Smalley were working for William Swanson's Rex Motion Picture Company, which was based at 573-579 11th Avenue, New York city. While at Rex, Weber achieved her reputation as "a serious social uplifter and as the leading partner in the Weber-Smalley unit." In 1911 Weber acted in and directed her first silent
short film ''A Heroine of '76'', sharing the directorial duties with Smalley and
Edwin S. Porter. At the time of Rex's merger with five other studios to form the
Universal Film Manufacturing Company on April 30, 1912, Weber and Smalley, were the "prima facie heads of Rex", and had relocated to Los Angeles.
Rex continued as a subsidiary of Universal, with Weber and Smalley running it, making one two-reel film each week, until they left Rex in September 1912. Carl Laemmle startled the film industry for his use of and advocacy for women directors and producers, including Weber, Ida May Park and Cleo Madison. In the autumn of 1913, shortly after the incorporation of Universal City, Weber was elected its first mayor in a close contest that required a recount, and Laura Oakley as police chief. At the time Universal's publicity department claimed Universal City was "the only municipality in the world that possesses an entire outfit of women officials".
In March 1913, Weber starred in the first English language version of Oscar Wilde's, ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'', that was produced for the New York Motional Picture Co., directed by Smalley, from an adaptation by Weber, and starred Wallace Reid as Dorian Gray.
In 1913 Weber and Smalley collaborated in directing a ten minute thriller ''Suspense'', based on the play "Au Telephone" by André de Lorde, which had been filmed in 1908 as ''Heard over the 'Phone'' by Edwin S. Porter adapted by Weber that uses multiple images and mirror shots to tell of a woman (Weber) threatened by a burglar (Douglas Gerrard). Weber has been credited as pioneering the use of the split screen technique to show simultaneous action in this film, According to Tom Gunning: "No film made before WWI shows a stronger command of film style than Suspense [which] outdoes even Griffith for emotionally involved filmmaking". ''Suspense'' was released on July 6, 1913.
In late 1913 Weber and Smalley made ''The Jews' Christmas'', a three-reel silent film that dramatizes the conflict between traditional Jewish values and American customs and values, illustrating the challenges of cultural assimilation, especially the generational conflict over interfaith marriage and the second generation's abandonment of the faith and customs of their ancestors. In "the earliest portrayal of a rabbi in an American film", ''The Jews' Christmas'' told the story of a orthodox rabbi (Smalley) who ostracized his daughter (Weber) for marrying a gentile, but is reconciled twelve years later on Christmas Eve when he meets an impoverished small child, who turns out to be his granddaughter. Endeavoring to combat racial discrimination and antisemitism, the film aims to show that love is stronger than any religious ties, and that "the tie of blood overbears the pride and prejudice of religion". In its assertion of "Melting-pot idealism" by its approval of intermarriage between people of different religions, the film was considered controversial at the time of its release. on December 18, 1913.
In 1914, a year in which she directed 27 movies, Weber became "one of the first directors to come to the attention of the censors". In 1914 Weber co-directed an adaptation of Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'' with Smalley, who also played Shylock. making her the first American woman to direct a feature-length film in the United States, and the first person who "directed the first feature-length Shakespearean comedy". In February 1914, Universal released the four-reel Rex silent film which was also adapted by Weber and Smalley, and was also produced, directed, and starred Weber as Portia, and Smalley as Shylock. The film also featured Douglas Gerrard, Rupert Julian, and Jeanie MacPherson, who would play a major role in cinema as Cecil B. DeMille’s favorite screenwriter. Despite the opposition of "a prominent rabbi in Chicago strongly objected on the grounds that the play 'more than any other book, more than any other influence in the history of the world, is responsible for the world-wide prejudice against the Jews'", the film was praised at the time as "a supreme adaptation of Shakespeare". Robert Hamilton Ball considered the film "careful, respectful, dignified, but lacking in passion and poetry", which he attrbutes to the difficulty it had passing the censor, and because the film was a special release rather than a release on the regular programme, exhibitors had to pay extra for it which may have contributed to its swift demise. ''The Merchant of Venice'' is now considered a lost film.
One film that illustrates the paradox nature of Weber's role and films was her 1914 film ''The Spider and Her Web'', where she advocates both modesty and maternalism. In this film, Weber plays "The Spider", a vamp living the "ultra-modern high life" who seduces and ruins intellectual men until frightened into adopting an orphan baby, which results in the salvation of the lead character through motherhood.
As Universal was reluctant to make feature length films, in the summer of 1914 Weber was persuaded to move to the Bosworth company by
Julia Crawford Ivers, the first woman general manager of a film studio, to take over the production duties from Hobart Bosworth on a $50,000 a year contract, making her "the best known, most respected and highest-paid" of the dozen or so women directors in Hollywood at that time. In 1914 Bertha Smith estimated Weber's audience at five to six million a week. In fact, by 1915 Weber was as famous as
D.W. Griffith and
Cecil B. de Mille. While at Bosworth, Weber and Smalley made six features and one short, ''The Traitor''.
"Energized by
evangelistic zeal and social conscience", from early in her career Weber saw movies as "a vehicle for evangelism", and "an opportunity to preach to the masses", and to encourage her audience to be involved in
progressive causes. In a 1914 interview Weber declared: "In moving pictures I have found my life's work. I find at once an outlet for my emotions and my ideals. I can preach to my heart's content, and with the opportunity to write the play, act the leading role, and direct the entire production, if my message fails to reach someone, I can blame only myself." As many of Weber's films focused on a moral topic, she "was often mistaken as a
Christian fundamentalist, but she was more of a
libertarian, opposing censorship and the death penalty and championing birth control. The need for a strong, loving and nurturing home was clearly promoted as well and if there was a single maxim that underlay each film it was that selfishness and egocentricity erode the individual and community". Although not a practicing
Christian Scientist, Weber attended the Christian Science church regularly, according to
Adela Rogers St. Johns, and in at least two of her films ''Jewel'' (1915) and its remake, ''
A Chapter in Her Life'' (1923), Christian Science plays a prominent role. Weber's impeccable reputation and "impressive middle-class credentials" allowed her considerable artistic freedom in her presentation of controversial issues.
During 1914 Weber made her first major feature, a controversial version of ''Hypocrites'', a four-reel allegorical drama shot at Universal City that she wrote, directed, produced—and starred in, that was "a bold indictment of political corruption, the church, and the business world" by addressing social themes and moral lessons considered daring for the time. ''Hypocrites'' included for the first time in a film full-frontal female nudity, inspired by Jules Joseph Lefebvre's 1870 allegorical painting ''La Vérité'', with truth portrayed in the ghostly figure of the Naked Truth, literally shown by an unidentified nude woman (Margaret Edwards) who revealed hypocritical desires for money, sex, and power. Although the nudity was tastefully done (it was passed by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures after a two month delay), it was still banned in Ohio; caused riots in New York; and James Michael Curley, the mayor of Boston, demanded that every frame displaying the naked figure of Truth be hand-painted to clothe the then unidentified actress. ''Hypocrites'' was released finally by Bosworth on January 15, 1915, and premiered at Manhattan's prestigious Longacre Theatre, and was "celebrated as a cultural, artistic, and moral landmark for the film industry", and "praised for its use of multiple exposures and complex film editing". While its negative cost was $18,000, it earned $119,000 in sales in the United States alone, and made Weber "a household name". In a 1917 interview, Weber denied the film was indecent and defended the film: "Hypocrites is not a slap at any church or creed - it is a slap at hypocrites, and its effectiveness is shown by the outcry amongst those it hits hardest, to have the film stopped".
In April 1915 Weber and Smalley left Bosworth when
the founder left the company due to his ill health. After being promised they could make feature length films by
Carl Laemmle, they returned to
Universal Pictures. Weber's first movie for Universal was ''Scandal'', in which both Weber and Smalley starred, that featured the consequences of gossip-mongering.
In 1916 Weber directed 10 feature-length films for release by Universal, nine of which she also wrote, and she also became Universal Studios' highest-paid director, earning $5,000 a week, and "enjoyed complete freedom in overseeing most stages of the film-making process - choice of stories and actors, writing of scripts (which she invariably did herself), as well as direction". Universal head Carl Laemmle, "who was known more for his frugality and cunning business sense than philanthropy", said of Weber: "I would trust Miss Weber with any sum of money that she needed to make any picture that she wanted to make. I would be sure that she would bring it back." In 1916 Weber explained her philosophy of directing films: "I’ll never be convinced that the general public does not want serious entertainment rather than frivolous", and "A real director should be absolute. He (or she in this case) alone knows the effects he wants to produce, and he alone should have authority in the arrangement, cutting, titling or anything else that may seem necessary to do to the finished product. What other artist has his work interfered with by someone else?... We ought to realize that the work of a picture director, worthy of a name, is creative".
In February 1916 Weber and Smalley were transferred to Universal's Bluebird Photoplays brand, where they made a dozen features, including ''The Dumb Girl of Portici'' (also known as ''Pavlowa''), adapted by Weber from
Daniel Auber's 1828 opera ''
La muette de Portici'', Russian ballerina
Anna Pavlova's only screen appearance, which was directed to Pavlova's satisfaction by Weber. The film also starred
Rupert Julian as
Masaniello. Released to popular acclaim, it premiered on April 3, 1916 at the
Globe Theatre in Manhattan.
Hoping to "become the editorial page of the studio", and to "provoke a middle-class sense of responsibility for those less fortunate than themselves, and to stimulate moral reforms", Weber specialized in making films that stressed both high quality and moral rectitude, including films of the "burning social and moral issues of the day", including films that included such controversial themes as abortion, eugenics, and birth control in ''Where Are My Children?'' (1916), influenced by the trial of Charles Stielow, an innocent man who was almost executed, opposition to capital punishment based on circumstantial evidence in '' The People vs. John Doe''; and alcoholism and opium addiction in ''Hop, the Devil's Brew'', which were all successful at the box office, but, while embraced by reformers in the film industry, "drew the ire of the conservatives". Despite the predominance of strong women in her films, in 1916 Weber refused to have any association with the women's suffrage movement, possibly because of fears of a backlash from industry leaders.
In ''Where Are My Children?'' (the working title of this film was ''The Illborn''), which was released on April 16, 1916, Weber advocates social purity, birth control, and eugenics to prevent the "deterioration of the race" and the "proliferation of the lower classes", and makes "an indirect case for birth control or perhaps even for legalized, and safe, abortions". The film starred Tyrone Power, Sr. and his then wife Helen Riaume, and future star Mary MacLaren made her debut. It also makes use of several trick photography scenes, with an emphasis on multiple exposures to convey information or emotions visually. As a recurring motif, every time a character becomes pregnant, a child's face is double exposed over their shoulder. In March 1916, the National Board of Review expressed disapproval of the film for showings to mixed audiences, but later they approved it for adult showings. It was banned in Pennsylvania on the grounds that it "tended to debase or corrupt morals", but Universal won a case in Brooklyn, New York in 1916 to show the film after the district attorney brought suit against the theater manager and the Universal exchange president. in an era where ticket prices were less than 50c each, and "rocketed Weber's name to larger audiences, bigger box-office returns, and an even higher annual income". The film spread Weber's fame internationally. For example, Kevin Brownlow indicates that this film attracted 30,000 in Preston, Lancashire; 40,000 in Bradford, Yorkshire; and 100,000 in two weeks in Sydney, Australia. In 2000, the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center copyrighted a preservation print reconstructed from several incomplete prints.
''Shoes'', a "sociological" film released in June 1916 that Weber directed for the Bluebird Photoplays, was based on the 1912 novel "A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil" by noted social reformer Jane Addams and depicts the struggles of working class women for consumer goods and upward mobility and their dubious sexual activities, including prostitution. Starring Mary Maclaren as Eva Meyer, a poverty-stricken shopgirl who supports her family of five, who needs to replace her only pair of shoes that are deteriorating, and is so desperate that she sells her virginity for a new pair of shoes, it proved to be the most booked Bluebird production of 1916. Restored digitally from three extant fragments by EYE Film Institute Netherlands, the restored version of ''Shoes'' made its debut in North America in July 2011.
After another significant censorship battle, and a vigorous publicity campaign by Universal, on May 13, 1917, Universal released ''The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'', "one of the most forceful films ever made in support of legalizing birth control", a follow-up to the previous year's top money-maker for Universal, ''Where Are My Children?'' Directed by Weber and Smalley based on an original script by them, it starred Smalley and Weber, in her last screen appearance, as a doctor’s wife arrested and imprisoned for illegally disseminating family planning information. Influenced by the recent trial and imprisonment of pioneer birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, the film drew explicitly on her headline-generating activism.
The film was released only weeks after Sanger's own film ''Birth Control'' was banned under a 1915 ruling of the United States Supreme Court that films "did not constitute free speech", and the ruling of the New York Court of Appeals that a film on family planning may be censored "in the interest of morality, decency, and public safety and welfare". Sensitive to the opinions of local communities, and hoping to avoid powerful censorship boards in the northeast and Midwest, ''The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'' was distributed primarily in the southern and western regions of the United States, with the result that it did not attain the record-breaking attendance set by ''Where Are My Children?'' the previous year. When ''The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'' opened at Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles in June 1917, Weber appeared on stage, bitterly denouncing attempts to alter or suppress her film. While ''The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'' is now lost, the surviving script and accompanying marketing materials make it clear that Weber mounted an unstinting argument in favor of "voluntary motherhood".
In June 1917 Weber became the first woman director to establish and run her own
movie studio when she formed her own
production company, Lois Weber Productions, with the financial assistance of Universal. She leased a self-contained estate, and had offices, dressing rooms, scenic and property rooms, and a 12,000 square-foot
shooting stage constructed. and Smalley was made
studio manager, and the Smalleys had their home on the studio lot at 1550 N. Sierra Bonita Avenue.
According to film historian Shelley Stamp, while Weber and Smalley were often co-credited as directors, it was "the wife who clearly had the artistic vision to drive the business partnership forward". By this time Weber's "idealized collaborative marriage" with Smalley began to show signs of deterioration, which was accelerated by the increased focus by critics and journalists on Weber as the dominant filmmaker at the expense of Smalley after 1916, and Weber increasingly take credit for her contributions after 1917. However, as early as 1913, some saw Weber as the "fertile brain" in the partnership, with Smalley seen as an indolent womanizer "who chased every woman on the lot", which resulted in aguments and shouting matches.
Weber consciously resisted the industry's movement toward assembly line-style studio filmmaking. "By concentrating on only one production at a time, and mobilizing her entire work force around that effort, Weber aimed for quality filmmaking rather than efficient bookkeeping." Weber's independence allowed her to shoot her films in sequence, as she preferred (rather than out of order to suit production schedules). William D. Routt indicates that "Lois Weber Productions were a good investment, cost-effective. The company made movies cheaply: in later years at least shooting on location even for interiors, using a small cast, working fast. Its somewhat sensational topics and titles guaranteed at least a modest box office return, and at times may have done much better than that."
Karen Ward Mahar attributes the success of Weber's films of the 1910s to their representation of "the generational conflict of the era", which was between the traditional view of women and that of the freedoms of the emerging "New Woman and the emergent consumer culture". Mahar argues that "Weber's life was an expression of this generational divide: she was a stage performer and a Church Army Worker, a filmaker and a middle-class matron, a childless advocate of birth control who 'radiates domesticity'". While Weber was clearly a New Woman by virtue of her career, she was also publicly identified as the wife and collaborator of her first husband, Phillips Smalley. Shelley Stamp argues that Weber's "image was instrumental in defining both her particular place in film-making practices, and women's roles within early Hollywood generally", and that her "wifely, bourgeois persona, relatively conservative and staid, mirrored the film industry's idealized conception of its new customers: white, married, middle-class women perceived to be arbiters of taste in their communities". While Weber's beliefs reflected modern values, as did her involvement in a career as a filmmaker that was atypical for women of her era, she had "internalized much of what the Victorians deemed proper behavior for women", there are "strong elements of the Victorian code of womanhood in her films". The Smalleys exemplified and promoted the Victorian ideal of marriage as companionship and a partnership.
In 1917 Weber was the only woman granted membership in the Motion Picture Directors Association, and from 1917 Weber was active in supporting the newly established Hollywood Studio Club, a residence for struggling would-be starlets. After the United States entered World War I, Weber served on the board of the Motion Picture War Service Association headed by DW Griffith, and which also included Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, Cecil B. DeMille, and William Desmond Taylor. The Association raised funds for the construction of a thousand-bed hospital.
In 1918 the Fox Film Corporation hired Weber to direct ''Queen of the Seas'',in which Annette Kellerman swam and dived naked. However, she was replaced eventually by John G. Adolfi. In September 1918 Weber broke her left arm in two places when she fell in Barker Brothers, a downtown Los Angeles store, forcing her to be hospitalized in the California Hospital. Weber's arm was still causing her trouble seven months later.
Despite continuing to work at Universal, and renting out her studio to other independent producers, including
Marshall Neilan, Weber found it difficult to pay the bills and to find the capital to finance her own productions. By December 1918 Weber had left Universal, and signed a contract with
Louis B. Mayer to direct
Anita Stewart for $3,500 a week. In a letter to Weber, Mayer proclaimed: "My unchanging policy will be great star, great director, great play, great cast. You are authorized to get these without stint or limit. Spare nothing, neither expense, time, or effort. Results only are what I'm after." Weber made two films with Stewart as the lead: ''A Midnight Romance'' and ''Mary Regan'', both released in 1919 to mixed reviews.
Needing finances, in July 1919 Weber signed a contract with
Famous Players-Lasky to direct five films to be distributed through
Paramount-Artcraft for $50,000 each, plus one-third of the profits, and a guaranteed first-run bookings in Paramount theaters. By January 1920 Smalley and Weber purchased a two-level home at 1917 N. Ivar Avenue, Hollywood, later the home of
Preston Sturges in the 1940s. In October 1920, Weber purchased the studio facilities at 4634 Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles near Sunset Boulevard she had been leasing for the previous three years.
By February 1921 Weber was at the zenith of her career, and regarded "as fearless in the production of her pictures as she once was in her struggle for a living, and her indubitable position is that of one of the best directors of the screen", and one newspaper writing: "Lois Weber is not only the foremost woman director-she's the whole works", and attributed her success to having "a feminine touch lacking in most man-made films". In an effort to protect the American film industry, by 1921 Weber advocated the prohibition of the importation of all European films into the United States. In May 1921 Weber anticipated the possibility of both color and "three-dimensional films".
Following "the cinematic rumination on modern marriage begun by Cecil B. DeMille", and like other post-war filmmakers, Weber turned her attention toward marriage and domestic life to honor her deal with Famous Players-Lasky with such melodramas as ''To Please One Woman'', ''What's Worth While?'' ''Too Wise Wives'', and ''What Do Men Want?'' However, as the United States entered the Jazz Age in the 1920s, Weber, came to be seen as passé, in part because of her "propensity for didacticism", but also because her "values became increasingly archaic; her moralising, propagandistic tone was unsuited to the era of the 'flapper' girl and a hedonism that seemed all the more urgent". Additionally, by this time her "morally upright films bored modern audiences", her crusading was unwanted, and her views were considered "quaint". Her fall from favor was also due to her inability or unwillingness to adapt to changing audience tastes, and "her refusal to feature big-name stars or to glamorize consumerist excess in her films."
After an advance screening in February 1921, Paramount executives decided not to distribute the fourth film in their arrangement with Weber, ''What Do Men Want?'' a domestic melodrama about a philandering husband and a faithful wife (Claire Windsor), and to cancel their arrangement with Weber to distribute her films.
After making 13 films, by April 1921, Lois Weber Productions collapsed, and Weber was forced to release all her contracted staff, with the exception of two novice actors. While she would direct a few other movies, effectively her career as a Hollywood director was over.
After reading the articles "Impoverished College Teaching" and "Boycotting the Ministry" in the April 30, 1921 issue of ''
Literary Digest'' about the underpayment of educators and clergy, Weber with scenarist
Marion Orth crafted a melodramatic narrative to bring the issue to life in ''
The Blot''. Starring
Claire Windsor and
Louis Calhern, ''The Blot'', was her masterpiece her most successful film from this period, and probably Weber's best-known film today. The film "rejects the values of capitalist America that measures the value of people in wealth and property" by depicting the compromises and choices impoverished women are forced to make to achieve social mobility and financial security. It also "condemns capitalistic materialism and linked consumerism with sexual exploitation", and addresses class, money, and ethnicity, "Weber's basically Christian
ethos shines clearly through this plot: the text disapproves of both the new consumerist immigrant class, and the old aristocratic one". Despite xenophobic assumptions, Weber advocates learning,
asceticism, and service to the needy. According to film historian
Kevin Brownlow, in ''The Blot'' "Weber's technique is reminiscent of
William deMille's with its quietness, in its use of detail, and its emphasis on naturalism. Weber used the same method of direction, too, filming in continuity." To tell with maximum realism this story of a college professor’s family – hardworking but with only a meagre income – Weber filmed in real houses, using a special
lighting rig, and gave supporting roles to non-actors. To emphasize this film is a woman-centered narrative, in a "radical departure from Hollywood practice", Weber used point-of-view cutting from the perspective of the professor's wife. Weber also useded extreme
close-ups and an ambiguous ending, that Richard Combs describes ''The Blot'' as "so un-Griffithian as to seem almost modernistically open-ended", while others see it as almost
surreal, declaring it "the ''
Los Olvidados'' of the literally down at heel middle class".
Due to the collapse of her distribution deal with Paramount, Weber was forced to distribute ''The Blot'' through the F.B. Warren Corporation, a newly formed small independent company that would also distribute a film each by Canadian women producers Nell Shipman and May Tully (born 1884 in Nanaimo, British Columbia; died March 9, 1924 in New York City) later in 1921. ''The Blot'' was released on September 4, 1921, however, the film was not well-received critically and did little box office, and vanished after its run. However, after ''The Blot'', Weber's films did not make money at the box office. For decades ''The Blot'' was considered a lost film, until it was rediscovered by the American Film Institute in 1975, and was reconstituted and restored by Robert Gitt of the UCLA Film & Television Archive in 1986 from an incomplete negative and an incomplete print. ''The Blot'' was then produced for video by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill of Photoplay Productions, and released on home video and DVD.
As part of the deal to distribute ''The Blot'', F.B. Warren also released ''What Do Men Want?'' After the film's premiere at Manhattan's Lyric Theatre on November 13, 1921, ''The New York Times'', while praising Weber for her casting and the technical aspects of the film, and also the performance of Claire Windsor, dismissed the film as a "simplified sermon" that provided "pat answers" which ignored "the real facts of life", which it considers "incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial".
Soon after the New York city premiere of ''The Blot'', and in an attempt to salvage their troubled marriage, Weber and Smalley sailed for Europe, with Weber's sister Ethel and her husband, Louis A. Howland (born February 3, 1886 in Chicago, Illinois; died August 9, 1931 in Hollywood), on the ''RMS Aquitania'' on September 13, 1921, intending to tour Europe and Egypt, they ultimately traveled for six months through Europe, Egypt, China, and India. In late December 1921 they were in Rome, with plans to travel to the Orient.
Weber and Smalley returned to the United States on April 7, 1922. On June 24, 1922, Weber obtained a divorce secretly from Smalley, who was described as both alcoholic and abusive, but kept him as a friend and companion. Their divorce was made public on January 12, 1923 by the ''Los Angeles Examiner''.
Upon her return to Hollywood, Weber found an "'industry in transition', evident in the fact that
Erich von Stroheim was out of favor, D. W. Griffith was gradually more marginalized, and
Rex Ingram, like von Stroheim, could not adapt to production changes demanded by the consolidated studios." As Shelley Stamp explains: "In an age of studio conglomeration and
vertical integration, few independents could survive, a reality that hit women particularly hard: both Alice Guy Blaché and
Nell Shipman closed their production companies during this period as well.
Will Hays, newly installed at the
MPPDA, was also beginning to assert greater control over studio releases."
In November 1922 Weber signed to return to Universal, where she directed ''A Chapter in Her Life'', based on the 1903 novel "Jewel: A Chapter in her Life" by Clara Louise Burnham, and a remake of a 1915 film called ''Jewel'' she had directed previously with Smalley. ''A Chapter in Her Life'' was part of "a slate of literary adaptations Universal released that year, headlined by Lon Chaney's appearance in ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' and marketed under the tag line "Great Pictures made from Great Books with Great Exploitation Tieups." The film starring Claude Gillingwater was released on September 17, 1923. However, according to Stamp: "Without a chain of theaters under its control, like emerging studio giants MGM and Paramount, Universal now occupied a significantly different market position than it had during the height of Weber’s career there in the mid- 1910s. With the bulk of urban, first-run theaters closed to Universal, the studio now relied on independent theaters mainly located in small towns and rural areas. Nor was the studio home to the female directing talent it had once been—Weber was now on her own." Consequently, Universal's trade ads made a clear pitch to small-town exhibitors, offering them "quality" pictures at reasonable prices, providing access to first-run pictures many studios reserved for their large urban venues. ''A Chapter in Her Life'' is available on home video and DVD from Nostalgia.
While Weber was praised for her direction in ''A Chapter in Her Life'', "critics felt the film’s subject matter—a young girl whose love and faith transform the troubled adults in her life — was ultimately out of step with the times. ''Film Daily'' dubbed the material “old fashioned,” with other critics objecting to the film’s “
Pollyanna” themes." Weber subsequently left Universal, vowing not to produce any films for a while, intending to write plays and a novel instead. She traveled to Europe again and spent time at the Colorado summer home of her friend, novelist
Margaretta Tuttle, who had written the novel "Feet of Clay" that was later made into
a 1924 film by Cecil B. deMille, saying she would remain on vacation until the censors “came to their senses".
At the time Weber complained of both the control executed by consolidated studios, as well as the ever more strenuous censorship exerted both within the industry by the Hays Code: "I have received many offers, but in each case I’m hampered with too many conditions. ... The producers select the stories, select the cast, tell you how much you can pay for a picture and how long you can have to make it in. All this could be borne. But when they tell you that they also will cut your picture, that is too much."
The trade journal ''Film Mercury'' declared that "it would be interesting to know why [Weber] has made no films in the past year or so," noting that "it is almost a crime for such wonderful director material to be lying idle while third-raters flood the screen with junk." After suffering a nervous collapse in 1923, Weber made no movies until 1925. During this period, when Weber ostensibly "retired from public life", it was rumored that Weber had attempted suicide and had entered a mental facility to treat her mental depression.
By the end of January 1925 Weber announced her engagement to Captain Harry Gantz (born in Deadwood, South Dakota on September 4, 1887; died August 11, 1949 in Cairns, Queensland, Australia), a retired army officer who had served as a second lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary from 1907 to 1911, then as a second lieutenant in company C of the 23rd Infantry from 1912 to 1915. In October 1914 Weber transferred from the 23rd Infantry to the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, and became a pioneer aviator during the Pancho Villa Expedition, making him an early bird of aviation. On September 1, 1915, Gantz married Beatrice Wooster Miller. At the time of his engagement to Weber, Gantz was a wealthy orange rancher and the owner of the 140 acre El Dorado Ranch, in Fullerton, California. Gantz is credited with bringing Weber "out of a retirement which was more nearly a despondent withdrawal from public life". However, Anthony Slide indicates that Gantz was "something of an opportunist, who persuaded Weber to marry him — and co- incidentally let him manage her considerable fortune."
In January 1925, Weber returned once again to Universal, hired by Carl Laemmle to take charge of all story development for a $5 million production initiative based around the adaptation of popular novels. Universal released one major big budget film each year, including ''
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (1923) and ''
The Phantom of the Opera'' (1925), both starring
Lon Chaney, Sr.. After two unsuccessful previews, in 1925 Weber and
Maurice Pivar were assigned to edit ''The Phantom of the Opera'' before its ultimate release in September 1925. Another of the novels Universal decided to film was
Harriet Beecher Stowe's "
Uncle Tom's Cabin", for which Weber completed an adaptation for a film to be directed in 1926 by
Harry A. Pollard, who had starred as Uncle Tom in a
1913 version, and was by 1923 Universals's leading director with nine consecutive hits.
In 1926 Weber signed a new distribution deal with Universal, making her "one of the highest paid women in the business". One of her first "comeback" movies was ''The Marriage Clause'', which Weber adapted from the short story "Technic" by Dana Burnet in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' of 16 May 1925, which starred Francis X. Bushman and brought contract player Billie Dove to international prominence. It was released on September 12, 1926.
By June 1926, Weber was signed to direct ''Sensation Seekers'', a romantic drama based on Ernest Pascal's novel "Egypt", that also starred Billie Dove. However, just before her wedding, Weber replaced Pollard as director of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', as he had been hospitalized in Manhattan with blood poisoning and a shattered jaw caused by the "maltreatment' of a tooth infection by a New York dentist. Weber ceased work on ''Sensation Seekers'' and was willing to interrupt her honeymoon to travel to Louisiana to direct the location scenes for ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''.
On June 15, the ''Los Angeles Times'' reported Gantz had obtained a license to marry Weber. On June 30, 1926, a justice of the peace married Weber and Gantz in a ceremony at Enchanted Hill, the home of screenwriter Frances Marion in Santa Ana, California. At their wedding, Weber reduced her age by nine years to 38 to match her new husband. In 1927 Smalley married music teacher Phyllis Lorraine Ephlin
(born June 18, 1898 in Michigan, USA; died January 3, 1965 in California).
After five months when his life was in serious jeopardy, and six jaw operations, Weber returned to direct ''Sensation Seekers'', which was released on March 20, 1927.
In November 1926 Weber joined
United Artists to direct a comedy film called ''Topsy and Eva'' based on a popular play of that name written by
Catherine Chisholm Cushing and featuring the
Duncan Sisters in
blackface. Weber, who had adapted from
the novel of
Harriet Beecher Stowe when she was attached to the Universal version of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', attempted to make another serious adaptation, but the studio decided that it should be a comedy rather than a drama. After some scenes were shot by Weber, she thought some of the scenes to be shot were insulting to
African Americans, including such "racist humor as a stork dropping a black baby into a trash can". ''Topsy and Eva'' was re-assigned to
Del Lord to direct, with some additional scenes by D.W. Griffith.
By 1927 Weber advised young women to avoid filmmaking careers. In 1927 De Mille Pictures signed Weber to direct her final silent movie, ''The Angel of Broadway'', which featured Leatrice Joy, and released on October 3, 1927. However, the advent of sound technology and the demise of silent movies, coupled with some negative reviews and poor box office receipts ended her comeback in 1927. For example, ''Variety'' believed ''The Angel of Broadway'' its sentimentality would appeal to the masses, but not to sophisticated urban audiences: "For New York this title is a dud, but in the hinterland it may well be esteemed box office. Pathe has, in fact, a very good commercial property for the territory west of Hoboken."
By February 1927 Weber owned and operated Lois Weber's Garden Village at 4633 Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles. In the late 1920s, Weber and Gantz sub-divided the El Rancho Ranch, creating the upscale "Brookdale Heights", now at West Brookfield Place, Fullerton, with the 300-400 residential lots advertised for $1,500 to $3,000 each, and houses priced at $8,000 to $9,000 each. On another part of their acreage, the Gantzes built a Spanish-style residence with a tower retreat for Weber at 225 W.Union Street.
When Weber was asked in April 1928 when she might direct again, she replied: "When I find a producer who thinks I have intelligence enough to be let alone and go ahead with my own unit." It would be five years before Weber would direct again.
While Weber and Gantz appeared to be enjoying domestic harmony in March 1930, soon after Weber was separated from Gantz and was living with her mother and nephew in Los Angeles. In 1931 Gantz sold the El Dorado ranch to C. Stanley Chapman, the son of Charles C. Chapman.
By 1932 Weber was still separated from Gantz and was managing an apartment building in Fullerton, California.
In February 1932 Universal released a condensed version of ''Shoes'' called ''The Unshod Maiden'' complete with satirical narration.
Through the intervention of Frances Marion, by early June 1932 Weber was hired by
United Artists as a
script doctor, to work on the script of ''
Cynara'' with Frances Marion. In February 1933 Universal signed Weber to scout for new talent and to direct screen tests. Within weeks Weber had interviewed 250 girls and young women from dramatic schools.
In 1933 Universal offered Weber another directing contract, and she was assigned to direct Edna Ferber's ''Glamour'', but was removed from the project abruptly and it was transferred to a reluctant William Wyler.
Weber and Gantz spent five weeks on location in Kauai, Hawaii from August 24, 1933, as she had been hired by the Seven Seas Corporation to direct Virginia Cherrill, then the fiancé of Cary Grant, and Mona Maris in ''Cane Fire'', a tale of racial prejudice and miscegenation on an Hawaiian sugar plantation. Made on a low budget, on the plantations of the Kekaha Sugar Company and the Waimea Sugar Company and at Alexander McBryde's Lawai Kai estate, it was the first film shot on the island of Kauai, and was released as ''White Heat'' by the Pinnacle Production Company on June 15, 1934, and achieved limited "commercial and critical success", with Weber quoted as saying at the time that the film "was not a hit but will not lose any money". ''White Heat'' proved to be her final film, and her only talkie. It was first shown on television on Friday, June 21, 1940 on NBC's television station W2XBS, but is now considered a lost film.
About 1935 Weber and Gantz were divorced. Gantz relocated to India from 1935 to 1940 on a special assignment for the
Maharaja of
Baroda,
Sayajirao Gaekwad III. By March 1940 Gantz married Katherime Goldthwaite (born April 1883; died September 14, 1949), and lived in
Bombay, India. A close friend of Gen.
"Hap" Arnold, during
World War II, Gantz was called to duty by Arnold and served on the
United States Army Air Forces staff in
Washington, D.C., where he was promoted to
lieutenant colonel. In August 1948 Gantz sold his 20-room
English Tudor mansion in the exclusive
Caucasian only
Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles for $65,000 to
Nat King Cole, leading to protests from his neighbors, and threats from the
Ku Klux Klan. Gantz died of pneumonia on August 11, 1949 in
Cairns, Queensland, Australia), and is interred at
Arlington National Cemetery.
On May 2, 1939, Weber's first husband Phillips Smalley died. and is interred next to his second wife Phyllis Lorraine Ephlin in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.
In November 1939 Weber was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital in a critical condition suffering from a stomach ailment that had afflicted her for years. Almost two weeks later, Webber died penniless on Monday, November 13, 1939, of a bleeding ulcer, with her younger sister Ethel Howland and friends Frances Marion and Veda Terry at her bedside. Her death was largely overlooked, with her ''Variety'' obituary only two brief paragraphs long, and a brief mention in the ''Los Angeles Examiner''. Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper contributed a more substantial tribute in ''The Los Angeles Times''.
On Friday, November 17, 1939, more than 300 attended Weber's funeral, which was paid for by Frances Marion. After the funeral, Weber was cremated at the Los Angeles Crematory and the location of her remains are unknown.
Weber wrote a memoir, ''The End of the Circle'', which was to have been published shortly before her death, but ultimately was not published despite the efforts of her sister, Ethel Howland, and was later stolen in the 1970s.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, on February 8, 1960, Weber was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6518 Hollywood Blvd.
''A Heroine of '76'' (1911)
''The Heiress'' (1911) [Act]
''The Realization'' (1911)
''On the Brink'' (1911) [Act]
''Fate'' (1911)
''A Breach of Faith'' (1911)
''The Martyr'' (1911)
''Angels Unaware'' (1912)
''Fine Feathers'' (1912)
''The Bargain'' (1912)
''The Final Pardon'' (1912)
''Eyes That See Not'' (1912)
''The Price of Peace'' (1912)
''The Power of Thought'' (1912)
''The Greater Love'' (1912)
''The Troubadour's Triumph'' (1912) [Dir]
''The Greater Christian'' (1912)
''An Old Fashioned Girl'' (1912)
''A Japanese Idyll'' (1912) [Act] [Dir]
''Faraway Fields'' (1912)
''Fine Feathers'' (1912) [Act] [Dir]
''Leaves in the Storm'' (1912)
''The Jew's Christmas'' (1913) [Act] [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley] [Scr]
''Suspense'' (1913)
''The Eyes of God'' (1913)
''His Brand'' (1913)
''The Female of the Species'' (1913) [Act] [Dir]
''How Men Propose'' (1913) [Dir] [Prod]
''The Merchant of Venice'' (1914) [Act. as Portia] [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley] [Scr]
''A Fool and His Money'' (1914) [Act] [Dir]
''Behind the Veil'' (1914) [Act] [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley] [Scr]
''False Colors'' (1914) [Act] [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley] [Scr]
''Traitor'' (1914)
''Like Most Wives'' (1914)
''The Leper's Coat'' (1914)
''The Career of Waterloo Peterson'' (1914)
''Sunshine Molly'' (1915) [Act] [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley] [Scr]
''Scandal'' (1915) [Act] [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley] [Scr]
''It's No Laughing Matter'' (1915) [Dir] [Scr]
''Hypocrites'' (1915) [Dir] [Scr]
''A Cigarette, That's All'' (1915) [Scr]
''Jewel'' (1915)
''Where Are My Children?'' (1916) [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley] [Scr]
''Wanted: A Home'' (1916) [Dir]
''Shoes'' (1916) [Dir] [Scr]
''Saving the Family Name'' (1916) [Act] [Dir]
''The People Vs. John Doe'' (1916) [Act] [Dir]
''John Needham's Double'' (1916) [Dir]
''Idle Wives'' (1916) [Dir] [Scr]
''Hop - The Devil's Brew'' (1916) [Act] [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley] [Scr]
''The Flirt'' (1916) [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley]
''The Eye of God'' (1916) [Act] [Dir]
''The Dumb Girl of Portici'' (1916) [Co-Dir. with Phillips Smalley]
''Discontent'' (1916) [Dir] [Prod] (extant; Library of Congress)
''The French Downstairs'' (1916)
''Alone in the World'' (1916)
''The Rock of Riches'' (1916)
''The Price of a Good Time'' (1917) [Dir]
''The Mysterious Mrs. Musslewhite'' (aka ''The Mysterious Mrs. M.'', 1917) [Act] [Dir]
''Hand That Rocks the Cradle'' (1917) [Act] [Dir] [Prod]
''For Husbands Only'' (1917) [Dir] [Prod]
''Even As You and I'' (1917) [Dir]
''The Man Who Dared God'' (1917)
''There's No Place Like Home'' (1917)
''Tarzan of the Apes'' (1918) [Scr]
''Scandal Mongers'' (1918) [Act] [Dir]
''The Forbidden Box'' (1918) [Dir]
''The Doctor and the Woman'' (1918) [Dir]
''Borrowed Clothes'' (1918) [Dir]
''When a Girl Loves'' (1919) [Dir]
''A Midnight Romance'' (1919) [Dir] [Scr]
''Mary Regan'' (1919) [Dir]
''Home'' (1919) [Dir]
''To Please One Woman'' (1920) [Dir] [Scr] [Co-Story]
''Forbidden'' (1920) [Dir]
''What's Worth While?'' (1921) [Dir] [Prod]
''What Do Men Want?'' (1921) [Dir] [Scr] [Prod]
''Too Wise Wives'' (1921) [Dir] [Writer] [Story] [Prod]
''The Blot'' (1921) [Dir] [Scr] [Prod]
''A Chapter in Her Life'' (1923) [Dir] [Scr]
''The Marriage Clause'' (1926) [Dir] [Scr]
''Sensation Seekers'' (1927) [Dir] [Scr]
''The Angel of Broadway'' (1927) [Dir]
''White Heat'' (1934) [Dir]
Acker, Ally. ''Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema 1896-Present''. New York, 1991.
Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. ''Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary''. Westport, CT; London, 1995.
Koszarski, Richard. ''Hollywood Directors: 1914-1940''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Lowe, Denise. ''An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American films, 1895-1930''. Routledge, 2005.
Norden, Martin F. ''The Birth Control Films of Margaret Sanger and Lois Weber''. (forthcoming).
Pendergast, Tom and Sara Pendergast, eds. ''International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers'', Vol. 2: Directors. Detroit, MI: 2000.
Stamp, Shelley. "'Exit Flapper, Enter Woman,' or Lois Weber in Jazz Age Hollywood". ''Framework'' (Fall 2010).
Tibbetts, John C. and James M. Welsh. ''The Encyclopedia of Filmmakers''. Vol. Two. New York, NY: 2002.
Unterburger, Amy L., ed. ''Women Filmmakers & Their Films''. Detroit, MI; New York; and London, 1998.
Literature on Lois Weber
The Films of Lois Weber
Category:1879 births
Category:1939 deaths
Category:American actors
Category:American film actors
Category:American silent film actors
Category:Female film directors
Category:Actors from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Category:Silent film directors
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