One of the greatest stars of the French silent cinema, Musidora began her life as Jeanne Roques in Paris, February 23, 1889. Brought up by a feminist mother, Musidora wrote her first novel at age fifteen. She gained fame playing France's first screen vamp, Irma Vep (an anagram of "vampire") in Louis Feuillade's 1915-16 film series, Les Vampires. She played its femme fatale with great aplomb, appearing in each of its ten semi-independent episodes in a different disguise, both male and female. But Musidora was more than a film actress, she was a novelist, poet, dancer painter, songwriter and playwright. Yet there is very little historical attention to Musidora's off-screen film roles, despite the fact that she became a film director at a time when very few women had such opportunities. At her death in 1957, she left behind seven unpublished screenplays and several films that she directed or co-directed.