Louise Brooks
Encyclopedia
Mary Louise Brooks generally known by her stage name Louise Brooks, was an American
dancer, model
, showgirl
and silent film
actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut
. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W. Pabst films: in Pandora's Box
(1929), Diary of a Lost Girl
(1929), and Prix de Beauté
(Miss Europe) (1930). She starred in 17 silent films and, late in life, authored a memoir
, Lulu in Hollywood.
, Louise Brooks was the daughter of Leonard Porter Brooks, a lawyer
, who was usually too busy with his practice to discipline his children, and Myra Rude, an artistic mother who determined that any "squalling brats she produced could take care of themselves".
Rude was a talented pianist
who played the latest Debussy and Ravel for her children, inspiring them with a love of book
s and music
. None of this protected her nine-year old daughter Louise from sexual abuse
at the hands of a neighborhood predator. This event had a major influence on Brooks' life and career, causing her to say in later years that she was incapable of real love, and that this man "must have had a great deal to do with forming my attitude toward sexual pleasure....For me, nice, soft, easy men were never enough – there had to be an element of domination". (When Brooks at last told her mother of the incident, many years later, her mother suggested that it must have been Louise's fault for "leading him on".)
Brooks began her entertainment career as a dancer, joining the Denishawn modern dance company (whose members included founders Ruth St. Denis
, and Ted Shawn
, as well as a young Martha Graham
) in 1922. In her second season with the company, Brooks had advanced to a starring role in one work opposite Shawn. A long-simmering personal conflict between Brooks and St. Denis boiled over one day, however, and St. Denis abruptly fired Brooks from the troupe in 1924, telling her in front of the other members that "I am dismissing you from the company because you want life handed to you on a silver salver". The words left a strong impression on Brooks; when she drew up an outline for a planned autobiographical novel in 1949, "The Silver Salver" was the title she gave to the tenth and final chapter.
Thanks to her friend Barbara Bennett
(sister of Constance
and Joan
), Brooks almost immediately found employment as a chorus girl in George White's Scandals
, followed by an appearance as a featured dancer in the 1925 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies
on Broadway
. As a result of her work in the Follies, she came to the attention of Paramount Pictures
producer Walter Wanger
, who signed her to a five-year contract with the studio in 1925. (She was also noticed by visiting movie star Charlie Chaplin
, who was in town for the premiere of his film The Gold Rush
. The two had an affair that summer.)
films over the next few years, starring with Adolphe Menjou
and W. C. Fields
, among others.
She was noticed in Europe for her pivotal vamp role in the Howard Hawks
directed silent "buddy film", A Girl in Every Port
in 1928.
It has been said that her best American role was in one of the early sound film dramas, Beggars of Life
(1928), as an abused country girl on the run with Richard Arlen
and Wallace Beery
playing hoboes she meets while riding the rails. Much of this film was shot on location, and the boom microphone was invented for this film by the director William Wellman, who needed it for one of the first experimental talking scenes in the movies.
By this time in her life, she was mixing with the rich and famous, and was a regular guest of William Randolph Hearst
and his mistress, Marion Davies
, at San Simeon, being close friends with Davies' niece, Pepi Lederer
. Her distinctive bob haircut
, which became eponymous, and is still recognised to this day, helped start a trend; many women styled their hair in imitation of her and fellow film star Colleen Moore
. Soon after the film Beggars Of Life was made, Brooks, who loathed the Hollywood "scene", refused to stay on at Paramount after being denied a promised raise, and left for Europe to make films for G. W. Pabst, the prominent German Expressionist director.
Paramount attempted to use the coming of sound films to pressure the actress, but she called the studio's bluff. It was not until 30 years later that this rebellious move would come to be seen as arguably the most savvy of her career, securing her immortality as a silent film legend and independent spirit. Unfortunately, while her initial snubbing of Paramount alone would not have finished her in Hollywood altogether, her refusal after returning from Germany to come back to Paramount for sound retakes of The Canary Murder Case
(1929) irrevocably placed her on an unofficial blacklist
. Actress Margaret Livingston
was hired to dub Brooks's voice for the film, and the studio claimed that Brooks' voice was unsuitable for sound pictures.
, directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in his New Objectivity
period. The film is based on two plays by Frank Wedekind
(Erdgeist
and Die Büchse der Pandora
) and Brooks plays the central figure, Lulu. This film is notorious for its frank treatment of modern sexual mores
, including one of the first screen portrayals of a lesbian
. Brooks then starred in the controversial social drama Diary of a Lost Girl
(1929), based on the book by Margarete Böhme
and also directed by Pabst, and Prix de Beauté
(1930) by Italian
author Augusto Genina
, the latter being filmed in France, and having a famous surprise ending. All these films were heavily censored
, as they were very "adult" and considered shocking in their time for their portrayals of sexuality
, as well as their social satire
.
(1931) and It Pays to Advertise (1931). Her performances in these films, however, were largely ignored, and few other job offers were forthcoming due to her informal "blacklisting".
Despite this, William Wellman, her director on Beggars of Life, offered her the feminine lead in his new picture, The Public Enemy
starring James Cagney
. However, Brooks turned down the role in order to visit her then-lover George Preston Marshall
in New York City, and the part instead went to Jean Harlow
, who began her own rise to stardom largely as a result. Brooks later explained herself to Wellman by saying that she hated making pictures because she simply "hated Hollywood", and according to film historian James Card
, who came to know Brooks intimately later in her life, "she just wasn't interested....She was more interested in Marshall". In the opinion of Brooks's biographer Barry Paris
, "turning down Public Enemy marked the real end of Louise Brooks's film career".
For the rest of her movie career, she was reduced to playing bit parts and roles in B pictures
and short films. One of her directors at this time was a fellow Hollywood outcast, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, working under the pseudonym
"William Goodrich". Brooks starred in Arbuckle's Educational Pictures
comedy short, Windy Riley Goes Hollywood
(1931).
Brooks retired from the screen after completing one last film, the John Wayne
western Overland Stage Raiders
(1938) in which she played the romantic lead with a long hairstyle that rendered her all but unrecognizable from her "Lulu" days. She then briefly returned to Wichita
, where she was raised. "But that turned out to be another kind of hell," she said. "The citizens of Wichita either resented me having been a success or despised me for being a failure. And I wasn't exactly enchanted with them. I must confess to a lifelong curse: My own failure as a social creature." After an unsuccessful attempt at operating a dance studio, she returned East and, after brief stints as a radio actor and a gossip columnist, worked as a salesgirl in a Saks Fifth Avenue
store in New York City for a few years, then eked out a living as a courtesan
with a few select wealthy men as clients.
Brooks had also been a heavy drinker since age 14, but she remained relatively sober
to begin writing about film, which became her second career. During this period she began her first major writing project, an autobiographical novel called Naked on My Goat, a title taken from Goethe's Faust
. After working on the novel for a number of years, she destroyed the manuscript by throwing it into an incinerator.
She was a notorious spendthrift for most of her life, even filing for bankruptcy
in 1932, but was kind and generous to her friends, almost to a fault. Despite her two marriages, she never had children, referring to herself as "Barren Brooks". Her many lovers from years before had included a young William S. Paley
, the founder of CBS
. According to Louise Brooks: Looking For Lulu, Paley provided a small monthly stipend
to Brooks for the rest of her life, and according to the documentary this stipend kept her from committing suicide
at one point. She also had an on-again, off-again relationship with George Marshall throughout the 1920s and 1930s (which she described as "abusive
"). He was the biggest reason she was able to secure a contract with Pabst. Marshall repeatedly asked her to marry him and after finding that she had had many affairs while they were together, married film actress Corinne Griffith
instead.
and Greta Garbo
as a film icon (Henri Langlois
: "There is no Garbo, there is no Dietrich, there is only Louise Brooks!"), much to her amusement. It would lead to the still ongoing Louise Brooks film revivals, and rehabilitated her reputation in her home country. James Card
, the film curator for the George Eastman House
, discovered Louise living as a recluse in New York City about this time, and persuaded her to move to Rochester, New York to be near the George Eastman House film collection. With his help, she became a noted film writer in her own right. A collection of her witty and cogent writings, Lulu in Hollywood, was published in 1982. She was profiled by the film writer Kenneth Tynan
in his essay, "The Girl With The Black Helmet", the title of which was an allusion to her fabulous bob, worn since childhood, a hairstyle claimed as one of the ten most influential in history by beauty magazines the world over.
She rarely gave interviews, but had special relationships with John Kobal
and Kevin Brownlow
, the film historians, and they were able to capture on paper some of her personality. In the 1970s she was interviewed extensively, on film, for the documentaries Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture
(1976), produced and directed by Gary Conklin
, and in the Hollywood series (1980) directed by Kevin Brownlow
and David Gill
. Lulu in Berlin (1984) is another rare filmed interview, produced by Richard Leacock
and Susan Woll, released a year before her death, but filmed a decade earlier. Author Tom Graves was allowed into Brooks' apartment for an interview in 1982, and later wrote about the at times awkward and tense conversation in his brief book "My Afternoon With Louise Brooks."
As is the case with many of her contemporaries, a number of Brooks' films, according to the documentary Looking for Lulu, are considered to be lost. Her key films survive, however, particularly Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl which have been released to DVD in North America by the Criterion Collection and Kino Video, respectively. As of 2007, Prix de Beaute and The Show Off have also seen limited North American DVD release, as well. Her short film (and one of her only talkies), Windy Riley Goes Hollywood was included on the DVD release of Diary of a Lost Girl. Her final film, Overland Stage Raiders, was released to VHS but has yet to receive a North American DVD release.
, which she didn't hesitate to use whenever she felt like it. In addition, she had made a vow to herself never to smile on stage unless she felt compelled to, and although the majority of her publicity photos show her with a neutral expression, she had a dazzling smile. By her own admission, she was a sexually liberated woman, not afraid to experiment, even posing fully nude for art photography
, and her liaisons with many film people were legendary, although much of it is speculation.
Louise Brooks as an unattainable film image served as an inspiration for Adolfo Bioy Casares
when he wrote his science fiction
novel The Invention of Morel
(1940) about a man attracted to Faustine, a woman who is only a projected 3-D image. In a 1995 interview, Casares explained that Faustine is directly based on his love for Louise Brooks who "vanished too early from the movies". (Elements of The Invention of Morel, minus the science fiction elements, served as a basis for Alain Resnais
's 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad
.)
Brooks also had an influence in the graphics world – she had the distinction of inspiring two separate comics: the long-running Dixie Dugan newspaper strip by John H. Striebel
that started in the late 1920s and ran until 1966, which grew out of the serialized novel and later stage musical, "Show Girl", that writer J.P. McEvoy
had loosely based on Louise's days as a Follies girl on Broadway; and the erotic comic books of Valentina, by the late Guido Crepax
, which began publication in 1965 and continued for many years. Crepax became a friend and regular correspondent with Louise late in her life. Hugo Pratt
, another comics artist, also used her as inspiration for characters, and even named them after her.
In her 2011 novel of supernatural horror, Houdini Heart, Ki Longfellow
uses Brooks as an actual character in the leading character's visions.
In an interview with James Lipton
on Inside the Actors Studio
, Liza Minnelli
related her preparation for portraying Sally Bowles in the film Cabaret
: "I went to my father, and asked him, what can you tell me about thirties glamour? Should I be emulating Marlene Dietrich or something? And he said no, I should study everything I can about Louise Brooks."
In 1991 the British new wave
group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
released a single named "Pandora's Box
" as a tribute to Brooks. The video for the single used extensive footage of Brooks from the movie and included a text intro which explained who Brooks was. And, for the 1988 Siouxsie and The Banshees album (Peepshow
) and tour, singer Siouxsie Sioux
sported a hairdo and costumes in Brooks's style.
An exhibit titled "Louise Brooks and the 'New Woman' in Weimar Cinema" ran at the International Center of Photography
in New York City in 2007, focusing on Brooks' iconic screen persona and celebrating the hundredth anniversary of her birth.
, the director of the film she made with Fields, but by 1927 had fallen "terribly in love" with George Preston Marshall
, owner of a chain of laundries and future owner of the Washington Redskins
football team, following a chance meeting with him that she later referred to as "the most fateful encounter of my life". She divorced Sutherland, mainly due to her budding relationship with Marshall, in June 1928.
In 1933, she married Chicago millionaire
Deering Davis, but abruptly left him in March 1934 after only five months of marriage, "without a good-bye... and leaving only a note of her intentions" behind her. According to Card, Davis was just "another elegant, well-heeled admirer", nothing more. The couple officially divorced in 1938.
Brooks enjoyed fostering speculation about her sexuality
, cultivating friendships with lesbian
and bisexual women including Pepi Lederer
and Peggy Fears
, but eschewing relationships. She admitted to some lesbian dalliances, including a one-night affair with Greta Garbo
. She later described Garbo as masculine but a "charming and tender lover". Despite all this, she considered herself neither lesbian nor bisexual:
and emphysema
for many years. She was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery
in Rochester, New York
.
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
dancer, model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
, showgirl
Showgirl
A showgirl is a dancer or performer in a stage entertainment show. Showgirl is also often used as a term for a promotional model in trade fairs and car shows, etc...
and silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut
Bob cut
A "bob cut" is a short haircut for women in which the hair is typically cut straight around the head at about jaw-level, often with a fringe at the front.-The beginning:...
. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W. Pabst films: in Pandora's Box
Pandora's Box (film)
Pandora's Box is a 1929 German silent melodrama film based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora . Directed by Austrian filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the film stars Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer...
(1929), Diary of a Lost Girl
Diary of a Lost Girl
Diary of a Lost Girl is a 1929 silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring the American silent star Louise Brooks. It is shot in black and white, and various versions of the film range from 79 minutes to 116 minutes in length. This was Brooks' second and last film with Pabst, and...
(1929), and Prix de Beauté
Prix de Beauté
Prix de Beauté , is a 1930 film directed by Augusto Genina. It is notable for being the first sound film made by Louise Brooks, although all of her dialogue and singing were dubbed.-Plot:...
(Miss Europe) (1930). She starred in 17 silent films and, late in life, authored a memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
, Lulu in Hollywood.
Early life
Born in Cherryvale, KansasCherryvale, Kansas
Cherryvale is a city in Montgomery County, Kansas, United States. The population was 2,386 at the 2000 census.-History:Cherryvale was founded on the land of the Osage Indians who were pushed out by veterans of the American Civil War looking for land. The first white man to purchase property and...
, Louise Brooks was the daughter of Leonard Porter Brooks, a lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, who was usually too busy with his practice to discipline his children, and Myra Rude, an artistic mother who determined that any "squalling brats she produced could take care of themselves".
Rude was a talented pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
who played the latest Debussy and Ravel for her children, inspiring them with a love of book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s and music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. None of this protected her nine-year old daughter Louise from sexual abuse
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
at the hands of a neighborhood predator. This event had a major influence on Brooks' life and career, causing her to say in later years that she was incapable of real love, and that this man "must have had a great deal to do with forming my attitude toward sexual pleasure....For me, nice, soft, easy men were never enough – there had to be an element of domination". (When Brooks at last told her mother of the incident, many years later, her mother suggested that it must have been Louise's fault for "leading him on".)
Brooks began her entertainment career as a dancer, joining the Denishawn modern dance company (whose members included founders Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis was an early modern dance pioneer.-Biography:Ruth St. Denis founded Adelphi University's dance program in 1938 which was one of the first dance departments in an American university...
, and Ted Shawn
Ted Shawn
Ted Shawn , originally Edwin Myers Shawn, was one of the first notable male pioneers of American modern dance. Along with creating Denishawn with former wife Ruth St. Denis he is also responsible for the creation of the well known all-male company Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers...
, as well as a young Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
) in 1922. In her second season with the company, Brooks had advanced to a starring role in one work opposite Shawn. A long-simmering personal conflict between Brooks and St. Denis boiled over one day, however, and St. Denis abruptly fired Brooks from the troupe in 1924, telling her in front of the other members that "I am dismissing you from the company because you want life handed to you on a silver salver". The words left a strong impression on Brooks; when she drew up an outline for a planned autobiographical novel in 1949, "The Silver Salver" was the title she gave to the tenth and final chapter.
Thanks to her friend Barbara Bennett
Barbara Bennett
Barbara Jane Bennett was an American silent film actress.Born into an acting family, she was the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison. Her sisters were actresses Constance and Joan Bennett.Bennett would never succeed to...
(sister of Constance
Constance Bennett
-Early life:She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison , a wealthy performer of English and Spanish ancestry...
and Joan
Joan Bennett
Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies well into the sound era...
), Brooks almost immediately found employment as a chorus girl in George White's Scandals
George White's Scandals
George White's Scandals were a long-running string of Broadway revues produced by George White that ran from 1919–1939, modelled after the Ziegfeld Follies. The "Scandals" launched the careers of many entertainers, including W.C. Fields, the Three Stooges, Ray Bolger, Helen Morgan, Ethel Merman, ...
, followed by an appearance as a featured dancer in the 1925 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. As a result of her work in the Follies, she came to the attention of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
producer Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger was an American film producer. An intellectual and a socially conscious movie executive who produced provocative message movies and glittering romantic melodramas, Wanger's career began at Paramount Pictures in the 1920s and led him to work at virtually every major studio as either a...
, who signed her to a five-year contract with the studio in 1925. (She was also noticed by visiting movie star Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, who was in town for the premiere of his film The Gold Rush
The Gold Rush
The Gold Rush is a 1925 silent film comedy written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin in his Little Tramp role. The film also stars Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite....
. The two had an affair that summer.)
American film career
Brooks made her screen debut in the silent The Street of Forgotten Men, in an uncredited role in 1925. Soon, however, she was playing the female lead in a number of silent light comedies and flapperFlapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
films over the next few years, starring with Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Jean Menjou was an American actor. His career spanned both silent films and talkies, appearing in such films as The Sheik, A Woman of Paris, Morocco, and A Star is Born...
and W. C. Fields
W. C. Fields
William Claude Dukenfield , better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer...
, among others.
She was noticed in Europe for her pivotal vamp role in the Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
directed silent "buddy film", A Girl in Every Port
A Girl in Every Port (1928 film)
A Girl in Every Port is a silent comedy film about two sailors. Renowned stripper Sally Rand played one of their many girlfriends.The film was remade as Goldie in 1931, with Spencer Tracy, Warren Hymer, and Jean Harlow.-Cast:...
in 1928.
It has been said that her best American role was in one of the early sound film dramas, Beggars of Life
Beggars of Life
Beggars of Life is an early sound film with talking sequences starring Wallace Beery as a rail-riding hobo and Louise Brooks as a girl on the run. Based on a novel called Beggars of Life by Jim Tully, the film is often regarded as Brooks's best American movie...
(1928), as an abused country girl on the run with Richard Arlen
Richard Arlen
-Biography:Born Sylvanus Richard Van Mattimore in St. Paul, Minnesota, he attended the University of Pennsylvania. He served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. His first job after the war was with St. Paul's Athletic Club...
and Wallace Beery
Wallace Beery
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
playing hoboes she meets while riding the rails. Much of this film was shot on location, and the boom microphone was invented for this film by the director William Wellman, who needed it for one of the first experimental talking scenes in the movies.
By this time in her life, she was mixing with the rich and famous, and was a regular guest of William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
and his mistress, Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
, at San Simeon, being close friends with Davies' niece, Pepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer was an American actress and writer. She was the niece of actress Marion Davies.-Early life & career:Josephine Rose Lederer was born in Chicago in 1910 and later formally adopted the name...
. Her distinctive bob haircut
Bob cut
A "bob cut" is a short haircut for women in which the hair is typically cut straight around the head at about jaw-level, often with a fringe at the front.-The beginning:...
, which became eponymous, and is still recognised to this day, helped start a trend; many women styled their hair in imitation of her and fellow film star Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore was an American film actress, and one of the most fashionable stars of the silent film era.-Early life:...
. Soon after the film Beggars Of Life was made, Brooks, who loathed the Hollywood "scene", refused to stay on at Paramount after being denied a promised raise, and left for Europe to make films for G. W. Pabst, the prominent German Expressionist director.
Paramount attempted to use the coming of sound films to pressure the actress, but she called the studio's bluff. It was not until 30 years later that this rebellious move would come to be seen as arguably the most savvy of her career, securing her immortality as a silent film legend and independent spirit. Unfortunately, while her initial snubbing of Paramount alone would not have finished her in Hollywood altogether, her refusal after returning from Germany to come back to Paramount for sound retakes of The Canary Murder Case
The Canary Murder Case (film)
The Canary Murder Case is a crime/mystery film made by Paramount Pictures, directed by Malcolm St. Clair and Frank Tuttle.The screenplay was written by S.S. Van Dine , Albert S. Le Vino and Florence Ryerson, based on novel The Canary Murder Case by S.S...
(1929) irrevocably placed her on an unofficial blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
. Actress Margaret Livingston
Margaret Livingston
Margaret Livingston was an American film actress, most notable for her work during the silent film era....
was hired to dub Brooks's voice for the film, and the studio claimed that Brooks' voice was unsuitable for sound pictures.
In Europe
Once in Germany, she starred in the 1929 film Pandora's BoxPandora's Box (film)
Pandora's Box is a 1929 German silent melodrama film based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora . Directed by Austrian filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the film stars Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer...
, directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in his New Objectivity
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
period. The film is based on two plays by Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
(Erdgeist
Earth Spirit (play)
Earth Spirit is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the first part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays , both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". In German folklore an erdgeist is a gnome, first described in Goethe's Faust...
and Die Büchse der Pandora
Pandora's Box (play)
Pandora's Box is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the second part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays , both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed".G. W. Pabst directed a silent film version , which was loosely based on the play, in 1929...
) and Brooks plays the central figure, Lulu. This film is notorious for its frank treatment of modern sexual mores
Mores
Mores, in sociology, are any given society's particular norms, virtues, or values. The word mores is a plurale tantum term borrowed from Latin, which has been used in the English language since the 1890s....
, including one of the first screen portrayals of a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
. Brooks then starred in the controversial social drama Diary of a Lost Girl
Diary of a Lost Girl
Diary of a Lost Girl is a 1929 silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring the American silent star Louise Brooks. It is shot in black and white, and various versions of the film range from 79 minutes to 116 minutes in length. This was Brooks' second and last film with Pabst, and...
(1929), based on the book by Margarete Böhme
Margarete Böhme
Margarete Böhme was, arguably, one of the most widely read German writers of the early 20th century. Böhme authored 40 novels – as well as short stories, autobiographical sketches, and articles. The Diary of a Lost Girl, first published in 1905 as Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, is her best known and...
and also directed by Pabst, and Prix de Beauté
Prix de Beauté
Prix de Beauté , is a 1930 film directed by Augusto Genina. It is notable for being the first sound film made by Louise Brooks, although all of her dialogue and singing were dubbed.-Plot:...
(1930) by Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
author Augusto Genina
Augusto Genina
Augusto Genina was an Italian film pioneer. He was a movie producer and director.Born in Rome, Genina was a drama critic and wrote comedies for the Il Mondo Magazine, under advise of Aldo de Benedetti switches to movies for the "Film d'Arte Italiana", that produces his first film "La moglie di sua...
, the latter being filmed in France, and having a famous surprise ending. All these films were heavily censored
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
, as they were very "adult" and considered shocking in their time for their portrayals of sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
, as well as their social satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
.
Life after film
When she returned to Hollywood in 1931, she was cast in two mainstream films: God's Gift to WomenGod's Gift to Women
God's Gift to Women is a Pre-Code musical romantic comedy film released by Warner Brothers, and starring Frank Fay and Laura LaPlante....
(1931) and It Pays to Advertise (1931). Her performances in these films, however, were largely ignored, and few other job offers were forthcoming due to her informal "blacklisting".
Despite this, William Wellman, her director on Beggars of Life, offered her the feminine lead in his new picture, The Public Enemy
The Public Enemy
The Public Enemy is a 1931 American Pre-Code crime film starring James Cagney and directed by William A. Wellman. The film relates the story of a young man's rise in the criminal underworld in prohibition-era urban America...
starring James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
. However, Brooks turned down the role in order to visit her then-lover George Preston Marshall
George Preston Marshall
George Preston Marshall was the owner and president of the Washington Redskins of the National Football League from 1932 until his death in 1969.-Contributions:...
in New York City, and the part instead went to Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
, who began her own rise to stardom largely as a result. Brooks later explained herself to Wellman by saying that she hated making pictures because she simply "hated Hollywood", and according to film historian James Card
James Card
James Card was a film preservationist who established the motion picture collection at George Eastman House, one of the major moving image archives in the United States....
, who came to know Brooks intimately later in her life, "she just wasn't interested....She was more interested in Marshall". In the opinion of Brooks's biographer Barry Paris
Barry Paris
Barry Paris is an author and journalist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His best-known works include acclaimed biographies of film stars Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo and Audrey Hepburn. He is a movie reviewer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and co-host of a weekly radio show on WQED-FM. Paris...
, "turning down Public Enemy marked the real end of Louise Brooks's film career".
For the rest of her movie career, she was reduced to playing bit parts and roles in B pictures
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
and short films. One of her directors at this time was a fellow Hollywood outcast, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, working under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"William Goodrich". Brooks starred in Arbuckle's Educational Pictures
Educational Pictures
Educational Pictures was a film distribution company founded in 1919 by Earle Hammons . Educational primarily distributed short subjects, and today is probably best known for its series of 1930s comedies starring Buster Keaton, as well as for a series of one-reel comedies featuring Shirley...
comedy short, Windy Riley Goes Hollywood
Windy Riley Goes Hollywood
Windy Riley Goes Hollywood is a 1931 short comedy film directed by Fatty Arbuckle using the pseudonym of William Goodrich. It featured Louise Brooks in her first talkie.-Plot:...
(1931).
Brooks retired from the screen after completing one last film, the John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
western Overland Stage Raiders
Overland Stage Raiders
Overland Stage Raiders is a 1938 Three Mesquiteers film starring John Wayne and directed by George Sherman. The film is notable for being the final film in which silent film icon Louise Brooks performed...
(1938) in which she played the romantic lead with a long hairstyle that rendered her all but unrecognizable from her "Lulu" days. She then briefly returned to Wichita
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
, where she was raised. "But that turned out to be another kind of hell," she said. "The citizens of Wichita either resented me having been a success or despised me for being a failure. And I wasn't exactly enchanted with them. I must confess to a lifelong curse: My own failure as a social creature." After an unsuccessful attempt at operating a dance studio, she returned East and, after brief stints as a radio actor and a gossip columnist, worked as a salesgirl in a Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury American specialty store owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises , a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the high-end specialty store market in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, i.e. 'the 3 B's' Bergdorf, Barneys, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor...
store in New York City for a few years, then eked out a living as a courtesan
Courtesan
A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
with a few select wealthy men as clients.
Brooks had also been a heavy drinker since age 14, but she remained relatively sober
Sobriety
Sobriety is the condition of not having any measurable levels, or effects from, alcohol or other drugs that alter ones mood or behaviors. According to WHO "Lexicon of alcohol and drug terms..." sobriety is continued abstinence from alcohol and psychoactive drug use...
to begin writing about film, which became her second career. During this period she began her first major writing project, an autobiographical novel called Naked on My Goat, a title taken from Goethe's Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
. After working on the novel for a number of years, she destroyed the manuscript by throwing it into an incinerator.
She was a notorious spendthrift for most of her life, even filing for bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
in 1932, but was kind and generous to her friends, almost to a fault. Despite her two marriages, she never had children, referring to herself as "Barren Brooks". Her many lovers from years before had included a young William S. Paley
William S. Paley
William S. Paley was the chief executive who built Columbia Broadcasting System from a small radio network into one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States.-Early life:...
, the founder of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
. According to Louise Brooks: Looking For Lulu, Paley provided a small monthly stipend
Stipend
A stipend is a form of salary, such as for an internship or apprenticeship. It is often distinct from a wage or a salary because it does not necessarily represent payment for work performed, instead it represents a payment that enables somebody to be exempt partly or wholly from waged or salaried...
to Brooks for the rest of her life, and according to the documentary this stipend kept her from committing suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
at one point. She also had an on-again, off-again relationship with George Marshall throughout the 1920s and 1930s (which she described as "abusive
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
"). He was the biggest reason she was able to secure a contract with Pabst. Marshall repeatedly asked her to marry him and after finding that she had had many affairs while they were together, married film actress Corinne Griffith
Corinne Griffith
Corinne Mae Griffith was an American actress. Dubbed "The Orchid Lady of the Screen", she was one of the most popular film actresses of the 1920s and widely considered the most beautiful actress of the silent screen...
instead.
Rediscovery
French film historians rediscovered her films in the early 1950s, proclaiming her as an actress who surpassed even Marlene DietrichMarlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
and Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
as a film icon (Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema...
: "There is no Garbo, there is no Dietrich, there is only Louise Brooks!"), much to her amusement. It would lead to the still ongoing Louise Brooks film revivals, and rehabilitated her reputation in her home country. James Card
James Card
James Card was a film preservationist who established the motion picture collection at George Eastman House, one of the major moving image archives in the United States....
, the film curator for the George Eastman House
George Eastman House
The George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and...
, discovered Louise living as a recluse in New York City about this time, and persuaded her to move to Rochester, New York to be near the George Eastman House film collection. With his help, she became a noted film writer in her own right. A collection of her witty and cogent writings, Lulu in Hollywood, was published in 1982. She was profiled by the film writer Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
in his essay, "The Girl With The Black Helmet", the title of which was an allusion to her fabulous bob, worn since childhood, a hairstyle claimed as one of the ten most influential in history by beauty magazines the world over.
She rarely gave interviews, but had special relationships with John Kobal
John Kobal
John Kobal was an Austrian-born British based film historian responsible for The Kobal Collection, a commercial photograph library related to the film industry....
and Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
, the film historians, and they were able to capture on paper some of her personality. In the 1970s she was interviewed extensively, on film, for the documentaries Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture
Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture
Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture is a documentary film produced and directed by Gary Conklin, and released in 1976.The film tells the cultural story of Berlin during the Weimar Republic through interviews with a number of persons who were involved in literature, film, art, and...
(1976), produced and directed by Gary Conklin
Gary Conklin
Gary Conklin is an independent American filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California.Conklin works predominantly in the documentary genre. His films focus on cultural icons of the 20th century...
, and in the Hollywood series (1980) directed by Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
and David Gill
David Gill (film historian)
David Ian Gill was born in Papua New Guinea, the son of Cecil Gill, a missionary doctor. His uncle was the sculptor Eric Gill. The family returned to England in 1933 where Gill attended the Belmont Abbey School, Hereford...
. Lulu in Berlin (1984) is another rare filmed interview, produced by Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock was a British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.-Early life and career:...
and Susan Woll, released a year before her death, but filmed a decade earlier. Author Tom Graves was allowed into Brooks' apartment for an interview in 1982, and later wrote about the at times awkward and tense conversation in his brief book "My Afternoon With Louise Brooks."
As is the case with many of her contemporaries, a number of Brooks' films, according to the documentary Looking for Lulu, are considered to be lost. Her key films survive, however, particularly Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl which have been released to DVD in North America by the Criterion Collection and Kino Video, respectively. As of 2007, Prix de Beaute and The Show Off have also seen limited North American DVD release, as well. Her short film (and one of her only talkies), Windy Riley Goes Hollywood was included on the DVD release of Diary of a Lost Girl. Her final film, Overland Stage Raiders, was released to VHS but has yet to receive a North American DVD release.
Legacy
Brooks had always been very self-directed, even difficult, and was notorious for her salty languageLanguage
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, which she didn't hesitate to use whenever she felt like it. In addition, she had made a vow to herself never to smile on stage unless she felt compelled to, and although the majority of her publicity photos show her with a neutral expression, she had a dazzling smile. By her own admission, she was a sexually liberated woman, not afraid to experiment, even posing fully nude for art photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, and her liaisons with many film people were legendary, although much of it is speculation.
Louise Brooks as an unattainable film image served as an inspiration for Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, and translator. He was a friend and collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote what many consider one of the best pieces of fantastic fiction, the novella The Invention of Morel.-Biography:Adolfo Bioy...
when he wrote his science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel The Invention of Morel
The Invention of Morel
La invención de Morel — translated as The Invention of Morel or Morel's Invention — is a science fiction novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. It was Bioy Casares' breakthrough effort, for which he won the 1941 First Municipal Prize for Literature of the City of Buenos Aires...
(1940) about a man attracted to Faustine, a woman who is only a projected 3-D image. In a 1995 interview, Casares explained that Faustine is directly based on his love for Louise Brooks who "vanished too early from the movies". (Elements of The Invention of Morel, minus the science fiction elements, served as a basis for Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais is a French film director whose career has extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Nuit et Brouillard , an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.He began...
's 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad
Last Year at Marienbad
L'Année dernière à Marienbad is a 1961 French film directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet....
.)
Brooks also had an influence in the graphics world – she had the distinction of inspiring two separate comics: the long-running Dixie Dugan newspaper strip by John H. Striebel
John H. Striebel
John H. Striebel was an American illustrator and comic strip artist who was best known for the newspaper strip Dixie Dugan, which was scripted by J. P. McEvoy...
that started in the late 1920s and ran until 1966, which grew out of the serialized novel and later stage musical, "Show Girl", that writer J.P. McEvoy
J.P. McEvoy
Joseph Patrick McEvoy , also sometimes credited as John P. McEvoy or Joseph P. McEvoy, was an American writer whose stories were published during the 1920s and 1930s in popular magazines such as Liberty, The Saturday Evening Post and Cosmopolitan...
had loosely based on Louise's days as a Follies girl on Broadway; and the erotic comic books of Valentina, by the late Guido Crepax
Guido Crepax
Guido Crepax was an Italian comics artist. He is most famous for his character Valentina, created in 1965 and very representative of the spirit of the sixties. The Valentina series of books and strips became noted for Crepax's sophisticated drawing, and for the psychedelic, dreamlike storylines,...
, which began publication in 1965 and continued for many years. Crepax became a friend and regular correspondent with Louise late in her life. Hugo Pratt
Hugo Pratt
Hugo Eugenio Pratt was an Italian comic book creator who was known for combining strong storytelling with extensive historical research on works such as Corto Maltese...
, another comics artist, also used her as inspiration for characters, and even named them after her.
In her 2011 novel of supernatural horror, Houdini Heart, Ki Longfellow
Ki Longfellow
Ki Longfellow is an American novelist, playwright, theatrical producer, theater director and entrepreneur. In Britain, as the widow of Vivian Stanshall, she is well known as the guardian of his artistic heritage, but elsewhere she is best known for her own work, especially the novel The Secret...
uses Brooks as an actual character in the leading character's visions.
In an interview with James Lipton
James Lipton
James Lipton is an American writer, poet, composer, actor and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City. He is the executive producer, writer and host of the Bravo cable television series Inside the Actors Studio, which debuted in 1994...
on Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio is a series on the Bravo cable television channel, hosted by James Lipton. It is produced and directed by Jeff Wurtz; the executive producer is James Lipton. The program, which premiered in 1994, is distributed internationally by CABLEready and is broadcast in 125 countries...
, Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
related her preparation for portraying Sally Bowles in the film Cabaret
Cabaret (film)
Cabaret is a 1972 musical film directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey. The film is set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic in 1931, under the ominous presence of the growing National Socialist Party....
: "I went to my father, and asked him, what can you tell me about thirties glamour? Should I be emulating Marlene Dietrich or something? And he said no, I should study everything I can about Louise Brooks."
In 1991 the British new wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are a synthpop group whose founding members are originally from the Wirral Peninsula, England...
released a single named "Pandora's Box
Pandora's Box (OMD song)
"Pandora's Box", subtitled "It's a Long, Long, Way" for the US release, was the second single released by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark from the album Sugar Tax. The song was inspired by silent film actress Louise Brooks and is named after the 1928 film Pandora's Box she starred in...
" as a tribute to Brooks. The video for the single used extensive footage of Brooks from the movie and included a text intro which explained who Brooks was. And, for the 1988 Siouxsie and The Banshees album (Peepshow
Peepshow (album)
Peepshow is the ninth studio album by the English band Siouxsie and the Banshees and their first as a quintet. With the arrival of multi-instrumentalist Martin McCarrick, Peepshow was one of their most musically complex albums, including the singles "Peek-a-Boo" and "The Last Beat of My...
) and tour, singer Siouxsie Sioux
Siouxsie Sioux
Siouxsie Sioux is an English singer-songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer of the critically acclaimed rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees and of its splinter group The Creatures . The Banshees produced eleven studio albums and a string of hit singles including "Hong Kong Garden",...
sported a hairdo and costumes in Brooks's style.
An exhibit titled "Louise Brooks and the 'New Woman' in Weimar Cinema" ran at the International Center of Photography
International Center of Photography
The International Center of Photography is a photography museum, school, and research center in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
in New York City in 2007, focusing on Brooks' iconic screen persona and celebrating the hundredth anniversary of her birth.
Personal life
In the summer of 1926, Brooks married Eddie SutherlandA. Edward Sutherland
A. Edward Sutherland aka Eddie Sutherland was a film director and actor. Born Albert Edward Sutherland in London, he was from a theatrical family. His father, Al Sutherland, was a theatre manager and producer and his mother, Julie Ring, was a vaudeville performer...
, the director of the film she made with Fields, but by 1927 had fallen "terribly in love" with George Preston Marshall
George Preston Marshall
George Preston Marshall was the owner and president of the Washington Redskins of the National Football League from 1932 until his death in 1969.-Contributions:...
, owner of a chain of laundries and future owner of the Washington Redskins
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
football team, following a chance meeting with him that she later referred to as "the most fateful encounter of my life". She divorced Sutherland, mainly due to her budding relationship with Marshall, in June 1928.
In 1933, she married Chicago millionaire
Millionaire
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. It can also be a person who owns one million units of currency in a bank account or savings account...
Deering Davis, but abruptly left him in March 1934 after only five months of marriage, "without a good-bye... and leaving only a note of her intentions" behind her. According to Card, Davis was just "another elegant, well-heeled admirer", nothing more. The couple officially divorced in 1938.
Brooks enjoyed fostering speculation about her sexuality
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, cultivating friendships with lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
and bisexual women including Pepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer was an American actress and writer. She was the niece of actress Marion Davies.-Early life & career:Josephine Rose Lederer was born in Chicago in 1910 and later formally adopted the name...
and Peggy Fears
Peggy Fears
Peggy Fears was an American actress, who appeared in Broadway musical comedies during the 1920s and 1930s before becoming a Broadway producer.-Theater:Leaving New Orleans at the age of 16, she attended the Semple School...
, but eschewing relationships. She admitted to some lesbian dalliances, including a one-night affair with Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
. She later described Garbo as masculine but a "charming and tender lover". Despite all this, she considered herself neither lesbian nor bisexual:
Death
On August 8, 1985, Brooks was found dead of a heart attack after suffering from arthritisArthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
and emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...
for many years. She was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery (Rochester, New York)
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery is a Catholic cemetery in Rochester, NY. The cemetery is across Lake Avenue from Riverside Cemetery.- Notable Burials :...
in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
.
Filmography
| Title | Year | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7/1925 | A Moll | incomplete (missing reel 7) | |
| 1/1926 | Miss Bayport | lost film Lost film A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons... |
|
| 3/1926 | Kitty Laverne | lost film | |
| It's the Old Army Game It's the Old Army Game It's the Old Army Game is a 1926 silent film comedy starring W. C. Fields and Louise Brooks. It was directed by A. Edward Sutherland and co-stars Sutherland's aunt stage actress Blanche Ring in one of her few silent film appearances. It's an original screen story for Fields based on several skits... |
7/1926 | Mildred Marshall | extant |
| 8/1926 | Clara | extant | |
| Just Another Blonde | 12/1926 | Diana O'Sullivan | lost film |
| Love 'Em and Leave 'Em Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (film) Love 'Em and Leave 'Em is a 1926 silent American comedy-drama film directed by Frank Tuttle and starring Evelyn Brent.- Cast :* Evelyn Brent as Mame Walsh* Lawrence Gray as Bill Billingsley* Louise Brooks as Janie Walsh* Osgood Perkins as Lem Woodruff... |
3/1926 | Janie Walsh | extant |
| Evening Clothes | 3/1927 | Fox Trot | lost film |
| Rolled Stockings | 6/1927 | Carol Fleming | lost film |
| Now We're in the Air Now We're in the Air Now We're in the Air is a silent film starring the unofficial late-1920s comedy team of Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton, and Louise Brooks. The movie was directed by Frank R... |
10/1927 | Griselle/Grisette | lost film |
| 11/1927 | Snuggles Joy | lost film | |
| 2/1928 | Marie, Girl in France | extant | |
| Beggars of Life Beggars of Life Beggars of Life is an early sound film with talking sequences starring Wallace Beery as a rail-riding hobo and Louise Brooks as a girl on the run. Based on a novel called Beggars of Life by Jim Tully, the film is often regarded as Brooks's best American movie... |
9/1928 | The Girl (Nancy) | extant |
| 2/1929 | Margaret Odell | extant (sound version only) | |
| Pandora's Box Pandora's Box (film) Pandora's Box is a 1929 German silent melodrama film based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora . Directed by Austrian filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the film stars Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer... |
1/1929 | Lulu | extant |
| Diary of a Lost Girl Diary of a Lost Girl Diary of a Lost Girl is a 1929 silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring the American silent star Louise Brooks. It is shot in black and white, and various versions of the film range from 79 minutes to 116 minutes in length. This was Brooks' second and last film with Pabst, and... |
9/1929 | Thymian | extant |
| Prix de Beauté Prix de Beauté Prix de Beauté , is a 1930 film directed by Augusto Genina. It is notable for being the first sound film made by Louise Brooks, although all of her dialogue and singing were dubbed.-Plot:... |
1930 | Lucienne Garnier | extant |
| It Pays to Advertise | 2/1931 | Thelma Temple | |
| God's Gift to Women God's Gift to Women God's Gift to Women is a Pre-Code musical romantic comedy film released by Warner Brothers, and starring Frank Fay and Laura LaPlante.... |
4/1931 | Florine | |
| Windy Riley Goes Hollywood Windy Riley Goes Hollywood Windy Riley Goes Hollywood is a 1931 short comedy film directed by Fatty Arbuckle using the pseudonym of William Goodrich. It featured Louise Brooks in her first talkie.-Plot:... |
5/1931 | Betty Grey | |
| Empty Saddles | 12/1936 | 'Boots' Boone | |
| When You're in Love | 2/1937 | Chorus Girl | uncredited |
| King of Gamblers | 4/1937 | Joyce Beaton | scenes deleted |
| Overland Stage Raiders Overland Stage Raiders Overland Stage Raiders is a 1938 Three Mesquiteers film starring John Wayne and directed by George Sherman. The film is notable for being the final film in which silent film icon Louise Brooks performed... |
1938 | Beth Hoyt |