Born on June 13, 1879, in Pennsylvania, child prodigy Lois Weber became a concert pianist who toured the United States in her 20s.

Weber left home and also joined the evangelical Church Army Workers as a street-corner social activist living in poverty. Eventually, she decided to become an actress and met her husband Wendell Smalley in a theater troupe; they married in 1904. She was hired by Alice Guy-Blaché at Gaumont Studios in New York, where soon she was writing scripts, and Smalley joined her there. Weber wrote scenarios, designed sets and costumes, directed, and edited. The couple was credited as the Smalleys and also worked on dozens of features for other small production companies, including Rex Motion Picture Company, which they essentially took over and ran. Rex merged with five other studios to form Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1912, and the pair relocated to Los Angeles. After the incorporation of Universal City in 1913, Weber was elected its first mayor.

In 1914, she directed 27 movies and co-directed a silent adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, making her the first American woman to direct a feature-length film in the U.S. But Universal wasn’t very interested in making feature-length films at that time, so the couple moved to the Bosworth company, where she was regarded as the best known, most respected and highest-paid of the women directors in Hollywood at that time. By 1915, she was as famous as D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. deMille.

She directed and starred in a feature film she had written called Hypocrites, which featured full-frontal female nudity in the figure of “The Naked Truth.” It must have been tastefully done to make it past the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. The film was a huge hit and made Weber a household name.

Film historian Richard Koszarski wrote: “Lois Weber had worked with her own production unit at Universal City and had rapidly achieved prominence as the top director on that enormous lot. Her films tackled such controversial issues as birth control, divorce, and abortion, and while raising storms of controversy and censorship, pulled millions of dollars into Universal’s coffers. By 1917, she had the power to demand that the company sponsors a private studio for her — Sunset Boulevard Studio — Weber controlled every aspect of production herself, even acting in them when the time allowed…” 

Weber directed 10 feature-length films in 1916, nine of which she wrote, becoming Universal’s highest-paid director and enjoying complete freedom in most stages in the filmmaking process. She exemplified the auteur director, saying, “A real director should be absolute …  What other artist has their work interfered with by someone else?”  Universal head Carl Laemmle said, “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, the Smalleys were transferred to Universal’s Bluebird Photoplays brand where they made a dozen features. In Shoes, a poor shop girl who supports her family of five sells her virginity to replace her only pair of shoes. Where Are My Children? addressed abortion, and brought her international fame. 1917’s follow-up to that film, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, in support of legalizing birth control, featured her last screen appearance as a doctor’s wife arrested for illegally distributing family planning information.

In 1917, she formed her own production company, Lois Weber Productions, becoming the first American female director to run her own movie studio.

While Weber and Smalley were often co-credited as directors, it was generally known that Weber was the force behind the films, and she increasingly took credit for her accomplishments. The marriage was stumbling as Weber was lauded and Smalley was increasingly seen as an indolent womanizer.

In 1917, she was the only woman granted membership in the Motion Picture Directors Association.

She continued to work at Universal until the end of 1918, and rented out her studio to other independent producers, but found it difficult to pay the bills and find the capital to finance her own productions. She signed with Famous Players-Lasky for five films to be distributed in Paramount theaters. They were melodramas like To Please One Woman, Too Wise Wives, What’s Worth While? and What Do Men Want? (which Paramount decided not to distribute. They canceled her contract in 1921.)

As the U.S. entered the Jazz Age in the 1920s, Weber came to be seen as passé and her values seemed increasingly archaic. Her moralizing tone wasn’t suited to the era of the flapper.

After making 13 films, Lois Weber Productions collapsed by April 1921. In an attempt to fix their troubled marriage, the Smalleys toured the world for the rest of 1921 but ended up divorcing in June 1922. She returned to a Hollywood in which few independents could survive. She went back to Universal and directed A Chapter in Her Life, but critics felt it was out of step with the times, and she felt hindered by the strong control the studios now exerted, as well as the censorship of the Hays Code. She suffered a nervous collapse in 1923 and retired from public life for several years.

Once again, she was hired by Carl Laemmle at Universal, this time to take charge of all story development based on the adaptation of popular novels (including 1923’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera.) Her directorial comebacks were 1926’s The Marriage Clause and 1927’s Sensation Seekers. She directed her final silent movie in 1927, The Angel of Broadway, but it had mixed reviews and poor box office — the demise of the silents was fast approaching.

White Heat, 1934’s tale of racial prejudice, was her final film, and her only talkie. She died destitute in 1939 from a bleeding ulcer at 60 years old.

Weber was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. 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. IMDb credits her with directing 135 films, writing 114, and acting in 100. Of these, as few as 20 have been preserved.