Robert B. Weide

Robert B. Weide (born June 20, 1959) is an American screenwriter, producer, and director. He has directed a number of documentaries and was the principal director and an executive producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm for the show's first five years. His documentaries have focused on four comedians: W. C. Fields, Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, and Woody Allen. His latest documentary, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (2021), explores the life and works of Kurt Vonnegut. Weide has received an Academy Award nomination and Primetime Emmy Award win for Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth (1999). He also received Emmy Awards for W. C. Fields: Head Up (1986), and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Early work and education Weide began working with film at an early job inspecting 16 mm educational films at the Fullerton Public Library in Orange County, California. In 1978, while taking film production courses at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, Weide decided to produce a documentary film on the Marx Brothers, inspired by his love of their work. Undeterred by repeated rejections of his applications to the USC School of Cinema-Television, he worked on the project on his own time and with help from Charles H. Joffe got the rights to clips necessary to make the film. The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell was broadcast in 1982 on PBS and became "one of the highest-rated programs in PBS history".