Elaine Weber: Out at 79...and Looking for Love!

When Elaine Weber was growing up in Pennsylvania in the 1930s, gas cost 10 cents a gallon. You could buy a car for $265 and a house for $7,800. But you couldn't be an out lesbian.

Weber knew she liked girls when she was about 13 years old. "I messed around with a bunch of girls when I was in high school. But in those years..."she says, her voice trailing off, "we didn't talk about it... I just didn't follow up. When the war hit I wanted to go down to Philly and sign up but they wouldn't take me because I was underage. I gave up and went to work," she adds.

She got married in 1949, had two sons, and lived a traditional life, eventually retiring to Ocala, Fla., but the feelings she discovered as a teenager had not gone away. After her husband of 51 years died, Weber's life moved in a very different direction. "I came out when I was 79 and I haven't stopped since," she says with twinkling eyes and a sly grin.

As if coming out at that age in super conservative Ocala were not enough, Weber followed her life-changing announcement by appearing in the documentary film, Out Late. The film, produced and directed by life and business partners Beatrice Alda and Jennifer Brooke through their Forever Films production company, presents the stories of five people, all of whom were older than 50 when they came out.

The idea for the film came from a conversation the filmmakers had with friends about one of their mothers who was in her 80s and had not been with someone for a very long time. "He was conjecturing that possibly she was gay," Brooke explains, "and we thought this would make an interesting story... about people coming out that late."

In addition to Weber the film also features two Canadian men (one partnered and one single), a partnered lesbian from Kansas and a male-to-female transsexual. Weber is the oldest person in the film.

"They are very dynamic in different ways," Brooke says, "and they each tell a different piece of the story."

 Weber's story underscores the importance of gay content in entertainment. "I saw a movie on Lifetime called An Unexpected Love and then shortly after that The L Word came out and that did it," Weber explains. "I said OK...stop this foolishness and come on out. But I had no idea what direction to head into. I was in Publix [Supermarket] and I saw these two girls and I thought, damn they look like they're partners... so I said, 'Is that your partner behind you,' and she said, 'Yes, as a matter of fact it is.' And I said I want to talk to you. We exchanged names and phone numbers and the rest is history."

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At first Weber felt uncomfortable being a visible lesbian. "But someone snapped my picture at a pride picnic and put it on the front page of the newspaper ...." A fellow bingo player finished the outing by showing the photo around the bingo hall.

Weber decided to come out to her family one person at a time. When her brother asked if she were going to remarry, she said, "Well ... since you asked, I'm looking for a woman..." He said he'd known since she was 17 years old and "I said, then why didn't you tell me."

One by one she told her family. Her granddaughter said, "'You go Nana!' A daughter-in-law and the son who lives with her didn't take the news as well. Her son said she couldn't be a lesbian. "I said why not and he said, 'because you're not pretty enough and you're too old...' I said do you like living here?"  

Weber's film career began when she answered an ad looking for people who came out later in life. "I emailed right away," she adds.

Alda and Brooke filmed Weber at her Ocala home and at a local bar. "It was fabulous... the girls were great," Weber remembers. The film also includes an interview with Weber's good friend, Suzanne Noe, who produces ProSuzy.com, a Tampa Bay lesbian activity and networking web site.

 "Elaine and I met at a Silver Threads celebration, an event for lesbians 50 and older, in January 2005," Noe recalls. "We started talking and then dancing and for an "older gal" she was a great dancer and just so much fun. We hit it off and became the closest friends. She began coming to many of our events and getting involved in the Ocala LGBT meetings and trying to build the Lesbian community there. Her biggest desire is to find a woman to love and one who will love her. She is so loving, caring and giving that someone will get a great package," Noe adds.

The Out Late screening at the Tampa Clip International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival was a very special night for Weber. "We applied to Tampa specifically so Elaine could go to the film," Brooke says. Weber rented a limo, packed it with friends and made the trip from Ocala to Tampa.

"I haven't come off that cloud yet... When I came down off of the stage in Tampa, what really sent me into orbit was the standing ovation and the cheering. I walked up the aisle [in the Tampa Theater] and there was a gentleman and he reached over and shook my hand and said, 'Thank you, thank you very much.' And I thought, what did I do?"

Weber, who travels around Ocala in her Sebring convertible decorated with rainbow stickers, now feels at home in the gay community. "It's a loving community and people are so close... much closer than when I was in the heterosexual end of it," she says.  "When my pastor asked me to speak in church... about living openly... I said it just seems strange to me that when they build houses they put closets in them and they're for clothes and shoes, not people...I feel sorry for the young ones that are having a rough time especially if the parents throw them out... that's just absolutely stupid."

Weber, now 83, is not shy about what she is looking for -- love... and sex -- but she realizes that a long-term relationship is probably not in her future. "I don't even buy green bananas... a long-term relationship at my age? No... I just want a little fun," she says laughing.

Out Late continues to be shown at festivals and will be theatrically released in 2009.