Louise Brooks | |
|---|---|
 Brooksc. 1926 | |
| Born | Mary Louise Brooks (1906-11-14)November 14, 1906 Cherryvale, Kansas, U.S. |
| Died | August 8, 1985(1985-08-08) (aged 78) Rochester, New York, U.S. |
| Resting place | Holy Sepulchre Cemetery (Rochester, New York) |
| Other names | Lulu, Brooksie, The Girl in the Black Helmet |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1925–1938 |
| Known for | Pandora's Box (1929) Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) |
| Spouses | |
| Signature | |
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Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985) was an American film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as anicon of theflapper culture, in part due to thebob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career.[1][2][3]
At the age of 15, Brooks began her career as a dancer and toured with theDenishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts where she performed oppositeTed Shawn.[4] After being fired, she found employment as achorus girl inGeorge White's Scandals and as a semi-nude[5] dancer in theZiegfeld Follies inNew York City.[5][6] While dancing in theFollies, Brooks came to the attention ofWalter Wanger, a producer atParamount Pictures, and signed a five-year contract with the studio.[5][7] She appeared in supporting roles in various Paramount films before taking the heroine's role inBeggars of Life (1928).[8] During this time, she became an intimate friend of actressMarion Davies and joined the elitesocial circle ofpress baronWilliam Randolph Hearst atHearst Castle inSan Simeon.[9][10]
Dissatisfied with her mediocre roles in Hollywood films, Brooks went to Germany in 1929 and starred in three feature films that launched her to international stardom:Pandora's Box (1929),Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), andMiss Europe (Prix de Beauté) (1930); the first two were directed byG. W. Pabst. By 1938, she had starred in 14 silent films and 10 sound films. After retiring from acting, she fell upon financial hardship and became what she termed "akept woman" to three wealthy men.[11] For the next two decades, she wasalcoholic andsuicidal.[12][13] Following the rediscovery of her films by cinephiles in the 1950s, a reclusive Brooks began writing articles about her film career; her insightful essays drew considerable acclaim.[11][14] She published her memoir,Lulu in Hollywood, in 1982.[14][15] Three years later, she died of aheart attack at age 78.[16]
Brooks was born inCherryvale, Kansas,[19] the daughter of Leonard Porter Brooks,[20] a lawyer, who was usually preoccupied with his legal practice,[21] and Myra Rude,[20] an artistic mother who said that any "squalling brats she produced could take care of themselves".[22] Rude was a talented pianist who played the latestDebussy andRavel for her children, inspiring them with a love of books and music.[23]
Brooks described the hometown of her childhood as a typicalMidwestern community where the inhabitants "prayed in the parlor and practiced incest in the barn."[24] When Louise was nine years old, a neighborhood man sexually abused her.[25] Beyond the physical trauma at the time, the event continued to have damaging psychological effects on her personal life as an adult and on her career. That early abuse caused her later to acknowledge that she was incapable of real love, explaining 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."[26] 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".[27] In 1919, Brooks and her family moved toIndependence, Kansas, before relocating toWichita in 1920.[28][29]
Brooks began her entertainment career as a dancer, joining theDenishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts modern dance company inNew York at the age of 15 in 1922.[4][30] The company included foundersRuth St. Denis andTed Shawn, as well as a youngMartha Graham.[31] As a member of the globe-trotting troupe, Brooks spent a season abroad in London and in Paris.[30] In her second season with the Denishawn company, she advanced to a starring role in one work opposite Shawn. But one day, a long-simmering personal conflict between Brooks and St. Denis boiled over, and St. Denis abruptly fired Brooks from the troupe in the spring of 1924, telling her in front of the other members: "I am dismissing you from the company because you want life handed to you on a silver salver."[32] These words made 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 the tenth and final chapter.[33] Brooks was 17 years old at the time of her dismissal.[34] Thanks to her friendBarbara Bennett, the sister ofConstance andJoan Bennett, Brooks almost immediately found employment as a chorus girl inGeorge White's Scandals,[6] followed by an appearance as a semi-nude[5] dancer in the 1925 edition of theZiegfeld Follies at theAmsterdam Theater on42nd Street.[5][6][30]
As a result of her work in theFollies, Brooks came to the attention ofWalter Wanger, a producer atParamount Pictures.[5] An infatuated Wanger signed her to a five-year contract with the studio in 1925.[7] Soon after, Brooks met movie starCharlie Chaplin at a cocktail party given by Wanger.[5] Chaplin was in town for the premiere of his filmThe Gold Rush (1925) at theStrand Theatre on Broadway.[5] Chaplin and Brooks had a two-month affair[a] that summer while Chaplin was married toLita Grey.[10][11][35] When their affair ended, Chaplin sent her a check; she declined to write him a thank-you note.[36]
Brooks made her screen debut in the silentThe Street of Forgotten Men, in an uncredited role in 1925.[37] Soon she was playing the female lead in a number of silent light comedies andflapper films over the next few years, starring withAdolphe Menjou andW. C. Fields,[30] among others.[37]
After her small roles in 1925, both Paramount andMGM offered her contracts.[38] At the time, Brooks had an on-and-off affair withWalter Wanger, head ofParamount Pictures and husband of actressJustine Johnstone.[5] Wanger tried to persuade her to take the MGM contract to avoid rumors that she only obtained the Paramount contract because of her intimate relationship with him.[38][39] Despite his advice, she accepted Paramount's offer.[40] During this time, Brooks gained acult following in Europe for her pivotal vamp role in the 1928Howard Hawks silentbuddy filmA Girl in Every Port.[41] Her distinctivebob haircut helped start a trend, and many women styled their hair in imitation of both her and fellow film starColleen Moore.[42][43]
In the early sound film dramaBeggars of Life (1928), Brooks plays an abused country girl who kills her foster father when he "attempts, one sunny morning, to rape her."[8][44] Ahobo (Richard Arlen) happens on the murder scene and convinces Brooks to disguise herself as a young boy and escape the law by "riding the rails" with him.[45] In a hobo encampment, or "jungle," they meet another hobo (Wallace Beery).[8] Brooks's disguise is soon uncovered and she finds herself the only female in a world of brutal, sex-hungry men.[46] Much of this film was shot on location in theJacumba Mountains near the Mexican border,[8] and theboom microphone was invented for this film by the directorWilliam Wellman, who needed it for one of the first experimental talking scenes in the movies.[47][48]
The filming ofBeggars of Life proved to be an ordeal for Brooks.[49] During the production, she had aone-night stand with a stuntman who, the next day, spread a false rumor on the set that Brooks had contracted syphilis during a previous weekend stay with a producer,[50][51] ostensiblyJack Pickford.[b] Concurrently, Brooks's interactions with her co-star Richard Arlen deteriorated, as Arlen was a close friend of Brooks's then-husbandEddie Sutherland and, according to Brooks, Arlen took a dim view of her casual liaisons with crew members.[53] Amid these tensions, Brooks repeatedly clashed with Wellman, whose risk-taking[54] directing style nearly killed her in a scene where she recklessly[c] climbs aboard a moving train.[56]
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Soon after the production ofBeggars of Life was completed, Brooks began filming thepre-Code crime-mystery filmThe Canary Murder Case (1929).[51] By this time she was socializing with wealthy and famous persons. She was a frequent house guest of media magnateWilliam Randolph Hearst and his mistressMarion Davies atHearst Castle inSan Simeon,[10] being intimate friends with Davies's lesbian niece,Pepi Lederer.[9][42] While partying with Lederer, Brooks had a brief sexual liaison with her.[57] At some point in their friendship, Hearst and Davies were made aware of Lederer's lesbianism. Hearst arranged for Lederer to be committed to a mental institution for drug addiction.[57] Several days after her arrival at the institution, Lederer — Brooks's closest friend and companion — committed suicide by jumping to her death from a hospital window.[57] This event traumatized Brooks and likely led to her further dissatisfaction withHollywood and the West Coast.[10]
Brooks, who now loathed the Hollywood "scene", refused to stay on at Paramount after being denied a promised raise.[58][d] Learning of her refusal, her friend and loverGeorge Preston Marshall counseled[e] her to sail with him to Europe in order to make films with directorG. W. Pabst, the prominentAustrian director.[58] On the last day of filmingThe Canary Murder Case[58] Brooks departed Paramount Pictures to leave Hollywood for Berlin to work for Pabst.[58] It was not until thirty years later that this rebellious decision would come to be seen as arguably the most beneficial to her career, securing her immortality as a silent film legend and independent spirit.[59]
While her snubbing of Paramount alone would not have finished her altogether in Hollywood, her subsequent refusal, after returning from Germany, to come back to Paramount for sound retakes ofThe Canary Murder Case (1929) irrevocably placed her on an unofficialblacklist.[60] Angered by her refusal, the studio allegedly claimed that Brooks's voice was unsuitable for sound pictures[f] and another actress,Margaret Livingston,[g] was hired to dub Brooks's voice for the film.[61]
Brooks traveled to Europe accompanied by Marshall and his English valet.[36] The German film industry was Hollywood's only major rival at the time, and the film industry based in Berlin was known as theFilmwelt ("film world"), reflecting its self-image as a highly glamorous "exclusive club".[62] After their arrival inWeimar Germany, she starred in the 1929 silent filmPandora's Box, directed by Pabst in hisNew Objectivity period.[63] Pabst was one of the leading directors of thefilmwelt, known for his refined, elegant films that represented thefilmwelt "at the height of its creative powers".[64] The filmPandora's Box is based on two plays byFrank Wedekind (Erdgeist andDie Büchse der Pandora),[65] and Brooks plays the central figure, Lulu.[65] This film is notable for its frank treatment of modern sexual mores, including one of the first overt on-screen portrayals of a lesbian.[66]
Brooks's performance inPandora's Box made her a star. In looking for the right actress to play Lulu, Pabst had rejectedMarlene Dietrich as "too old and too obvious".[51] In choosing Brooks, a relative unknown who had only appeared — not to very great effect — in secondary roles, Pabst was going against the advice of those around him.[67] Brooks recalled that "when we madePandora's Box, Mr. Pabst was a man of 43 who astonished me with his knowledge on practically any subject. I, who astonished him because I knew practically nothing on every subject, celebrated my twenty-second birthday with a beer party on a London street."[68] Brooks claimed her experience shootingPandora's Box in Germany was a pleasant one:
In Hollywood, I was a pretty flibbertigibbet whose charm for the executive department decreased with every increase in my fan mail. In Berlin I stepped to the station platform to meet Mr. Pabst and became an actress. And his attitude was the pattern for all. Nobody offered me humorous or instructive comments on my acting. Everywhere I was treated with a kind of decency and respect unknown to me in Hollywood. It was just as if Mr. Pabst had sat in on my whole life and career and knew exactly where I needed assurance and protection.[68]
After the filming ofPandora's Box concluded, Brooks had a one-night stand[h] with Pabst,[69] and the director cast Brooks again in his controversial social dramaDiary of a Lost Girl (1929), based onthe book byMargarete Böhme.[70] In performingDiary of a Lost Girl, Brooks drew upon her memories of being molested as a 9-year-old and then being blamed by her mother for her own molestation, later recalling on that day she became one of the "lost".[71] On the final day of shootingDiary of a Lost Girl, Pabst counseled Brooks not to return to Hollywood and instead to stay in Germany and to continue her career as a serious actress.[68] Pabst expressed concern that Brooks's carefree approach towards her career would end in dire poverty "exactly like Lulu's".[68][72] He further cautioned Brooks that Marshall and her "rich American friends" would likely shun her when her career stalled.[68][72]
When audiences and critics first viewed Brooks's German films, they were bewildered by her naturalistic acting style.[59] Viewers purportedly exited the theatre vocally complaining, "She doesn't act! She does nothing!"[59][73] In the late 1920s, cinemagoers were habituated to stage-style acting with exaggerated body language and facial expressions. Brooks's acting style was subtle because she understood that the close-up images of the actors' bodies and faces made such exaggerations unnecessary.[59] Explaining her method, Brooks said that acting "does not consist of descriptive movement of face and body but in the movements of thought and soul transmitted in a kind of intense isolation."[59] This innovative style continues to be used by contemporary film actors but, at the time, it was surprising to viewers who assumed she wasn't acting at all.[59] Film criticRoger Ebert later wrote that, by employing this method, "Brooks became one of the most modern and effective of actors, projecting a presence that could be startling."[59]
Her appearances in Pabst's two films made Brooks an international star. According to film critic and historianMolly Haskell, the films "expos[ed] her animal sensuality and turn[ed] her into one of the most erotic figures on the screen — the bold, black-helmeted young girl who, with only a shy grin to acknowledge her 'fall,' became a prostitute inDiary of a Lost Girl and who, with no more sense of sin than a baby, drives men out of their minds inPandora's Box."[67]
Near the end of 1929, English film critic and journalistCedric Belfrage interviewed Pabst for an article about Brooks's film work in Europe that was published in the February 1930 issue of the American monthlyMotion Picture.[74] According to Belfrage, Pabst attributed Brooks's acting success outside the U.S. to her seemingly inherent or instinctive "European" sensibilities:
the eminent Herr Pabst described it to me over a cocktail in the Bristol Bar, Berlin. "Louise,'" said Herr Pabst, "has a European soul. You can't get away from it. When she described Hollywood to me — I have never been there — I cry out against the absurd fate that ever put her there at all. She belongs to Europe and to Europeans. She has been a sensational hit in her German pictures. I do not have her play silly little cuties. She plays real women, and plays them marvelously."[74]
Belfarge elaborated on Brooks's opinion of Hollywood, and referred to Pabst's firsthand knowledge of that opinion. "The very mention of the place," he stated, "gives her a sensation of nausea."[74] He continued, "The pettiness of it, the dullness, the monotony, the stupidity — no, no, that is no place for Louise Brooks."[74]
After the success of her German films, Brooks appeared in one more European film,Miss Europe (1930), a French film by Italian directorAugusto Genina.[75]
Dissatisfied with Europe, Brooks returned to New York in December 1929.[76] When she returned to Hollywood in 1931, she was cast in two mainstream films,God's Gift to Women (1931) andIt Pays to Advertise (1931), but her performances were largely ignored by critics, and few other job offers were forthcoming due to her informal "blacklisting".[f] As the sole member of the cast who had refused to return to make the talkie version ofThe Canary Murder Case, Brooks became convinced that "no major studio would hire [her] to make a film."[77]
Purportedly, Wellman — despite their previous acrimonious relationship onBeggars of Life[45] — offered Brooks the female lead in his new pictureThe Public Enemy, starringJames Cagney.[78] Brooks turned down Wellman's offer in order to visit Marshall in New York City,[79] and the coveted role instead went toJean Harlow,[78] who then began her own rise to stardom. Brooks later claimed she declined the role because she "hated Hollywood,"[51] but film historianJames Card, who came to know Brooks intimately later in her life, said that Brooks "just wasn't interested ... She was more interested in Marshall".[80] In the opinion of biographerBarry Paris, "turning downPublic Enemy marked the real end of Louise Brooks's film career".[80]
She returned to Hollywood after being offered of a $500 weekly salary from Columbia Pictures but, after refusing to do a screen test for aBuck Jones Western film, the contract offer was withdrawn.[81] She made one more film at that time, a two-reel comedy short,Windy Riley Goes Hollywood (1931), directed by disgraced Hollywood outcastFatty Arbuckle,[82] who worked under thepseudonym "William Goodrich".[81][83]
Brooks declared bankruptcy in 1932,[84] and began dancing in nightclubs to earn a living. She attempted a film comeback in 1936 and did a bit part inEmpty Saddles,[85] aWestern that led Columbia to offer her a screen test, contingent on appearing in the 1937 musicalWhen You're in Love, uncredited, as a specialty ballerina in the chorus.[86] In 1937, Brooks obtained a bit part in the filmKing of Gamblers after a private interview on a Paramount set with directorRobert Florey, who "specialised in giving jobs to destitute and sufficiently grateful actresses."[86][87] Unfortunately, after filming, Brooks's scenes were deleted.
Brooks made two more films after that, including the 1938 WesternOverland Stage Raiders in which she played the romantic lead oppositeJohn Wayne,[88] with a long hairstyle that rendered her all but unrecognizable from her Lulu days.[81][82] In contemporary reviews of the film in newspapers andtrade publications, Brooks received little attention from critics. The review byThe Film Daily in September 1938 provides one example, barely mentioning her, saying only, "Louise Brooks makes an appearance as a female attraction."[89]Variety, the nation's leading entertainment publication, also devoted very little ink to her in its review. "Louise Brooks is the femme appeal with nothing much to do", it reports, "except look glamorous in a shoulder-length straight-bangcoiffure."[90]
Brooks's career prospects as a film actress had significantly declined by 1940.[83] According to the federal census in May that year, she was living in a $55-a-month apartment at 1317 NorthFairfax Avenue inWest Hollywood and was working as acopywriter for a magazine.[91] Soon, however, Brooks found herself unemployed and increasingly desperate for a steady income. She also realized during this time that "the only people who wanted to see me were men who wanted to sleep with me."[92] That realization was underscored by Brooks's longtime friend, Paramount executive Walter Wanger, who warned her that she would likely "become acall girl" if she remained in Hollywood.[92] Upon hearing Wanger's warning, Brooks purportedly also remembered Pabst's earlier predictions about the dire circumstances to which she would be driven if her career stalled in Hollywood: "I heard his [Pabst's] words again — hissing back to me. And listening this time, I packed my trunks and went home to Kansas."[68]
Brooks briefly returned toWichita, where she was raised,[12] but this undesired return "turned out to be another kind of hell".[92] "I retired first to my father's home in Wichita," she later recalled, "but there I found that the citizens could not decide whether they despised me for having once been a success away from home or for now being a failure in their midst".[12] For her part, Brooks admitted that "I wasn't exactly enchanted with them," and "I must confess to a lifelong curse: My own failure as a social creature."[93]
After an unsuccessful attempt at operating adance studio, she returned to New York City. Following brief stints there as a radio actor insoap operas and a gossip columnist,[94] she worked as asalesgirl in aSaks Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan.[92] Between 1948 and 1953, Brooks embarked upon a career as acourtesan with a few select wealthy men as clients.[95] As her finances eroded, an impoverished Brooks began working regularly for anescort agency in New York.[11] Recalling this difficult period in her memoirs, Brooks wrote that she frequently pondered suicide:
I found that the only well-paying career open to me, as an unsuccessful actress of thirty-six, was that of a call girl ... and (I) began to flirt with the fancies related to little bottles filled with yellow sleeping pills.[12][92]
Brooks spent subsequent years "drinking and escorting" while subsisting in obscurity and poverty in a small New York apartment.[11] By this time, "all of her rich and famous friends had forgotten her."[11] Angered by this ostracism, she attempted to write a tell-all memoir titledNaked on My Goat, a title drawn fromGoethe's epic play,Faust.[92] After working on that autobiography for years, Brooks destroyed the entire manuscript by throwing it into an incinerator.[96][97] As time passed, she increasingly drank more and continued to suffer from suicidal tendencies.[92]
There is no Garbo! There is no Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks![i]
In 1955,[26] French film historians such asHenri Langlois rediscovered[59] Brooks's films, proclaiming her an unparalleled actress who surpassed evenMarlene Dietrich andGreta Garbo as a film icon,[1][26] much to her purported amusement.[i] This rediscovery led to a Louise Brooks film festival in 1957 and rehabilitated her reputation in her home country.[26][11]
During this time,James Card, the film curator for theGeorge Eastman House inRochester, New York,[98] discovered Brooks "living as a recluse" in New York City.[59] He persuaded her in 1956 to move to be near the George Eastman House film collection where she could study cinema and write about her past career.[99] With Card's assistance, she became a noted film writer.[59] Although Brooks had been a heavy drinker since the age of 14,[13] she remained relatively sober to begin writing perceptive essays on cinema in film magazines, which became her second career.[92] A collection of her writings, titledLulu in Hollywood,[14][15] published in 1982 and still in print, was heralded by film critic Roger Ebert as "one of the few film books that can be called indispensable."[11]
In her later years, Brooks rarely granted interviews, yet had special relationships with film historiansJohn Kobal andKevin Brownlow.[92][100] In the 1970s, she was interviewed extensively on film for the documentariesMemories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture (1976), produced and directed byGary Conklin, andHollywood (1980), by Brownlow andDavid Gill.Lulu in Berlin (1984) is another rare filmed interview, produced byRichard Leacock and Susan Woll, released a year before her death but filmed a decade earlier.[101] In 1979, she was profiled by the film writerKenneth Tynan in his essay "The Girl in the Black Helmet", the title an allusion to her bobbed hair, worn since childhood.[18][102] In 1982, writerTom Graves was allowed into Brooks's small apartment for an interview, and later wrote about the often awkward and tense conversation in his article "My Afternoon with Louise Brooks".[103]
In the summer of 1926, Brooks marriedEddie Sutherland,[105] the director of the film she made withW. C. Fields,[30] but by 1927 had become infatuated[106] withGeorge Preston Marshall, owner of a chain of laundries and future owner of theWashington Redskins football team,[105] following a chance meeting with him that she later referred to as "the most fateful encounter of my life".[107] She divorced Sutherland, mainly due to her budding relationship with Marshall, in June 1928.[108] Sutherland was purportedly extremely distraught when Brooks divorced him and, on the first night after their separation, he attempted to take his life with an overdose of sleeping pills.[109]
Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, Brooks continued her on-again, off-again relationship with George Preston Marshall, which she later described as abusive.[104] Marshall was purportedly "her frequent bedfellow and constant adviser[e] between 1927 and 1933."[36][104] Marshall repeatedly asked her to marry him but, after learning that she had had many affairs while they were together and believing her to be incapable of fidelity, he married film actressCorinne Griffith instead.[104]
In 1925, Brooks sued the New York glamour photographerJohn de Mirjian to prevent publication of his risqué studio portraits of her; the lawsuit made him notorious.[110]
In 1933, she married Chicago millionaireDeering Davis, a son ofNathan Smith Davis Jr., 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.[111] According to Card, Davis was just "another elegant, well-heeled admirer", nothing more.[111] The couple officially divorced in 1938.
In her later years, Brooks insisted that both her previous marriages were loveless and that she had never loved anyone in her lifetime: "As a matter of fact, I've never been in love. And if I had loved a man, could I have been faithful to him? Could he have trusted me beyond a closed door? I doubt it."[24] Despite her two marriages, she never had children, referring to herself as "Barren Brooks."[112] Her many paramours from years before had included a youngWilliam S. Paley, the founder ofCBS.[59] Paley provided a small monthlystipend to Brooks for the remainder of her life, and this stipend kept her from committing suicide at one point.[11][98][104]
Sometime in September 1953, Brooks converted toRoman Catholicism,[24][113] but she left the church in 1964.[114]
By her own admission, Brooks was a sexually liberated woman, unafraid to experiment, even posing nude for art photography.[110][115]
Brooks enjoyed fostering speculation about her sexuality,[114] cultivating friendships withlesbian andbisexual women includingPepi Lederer andPeggy Fears, but eschewing relationships. She admitted to some lesbian dalliances,[116] including a one-night stand withGreta Garbo.[117] She later described Garbo as masculine but a "charming and tender lover".[118][119] Despite all this, she considered herself neither lesbian nor bisexual:
I had a lot of fun writing "Marion Davies' Niece" [an article about Pepi Lederer], leaving the lesbian theme in question marks. All my life it has been fun for me. ... When I am dead, I believe that film writers will fasten on the story that I am a lesbian ... I have done lots to make it believable ... All my women friends have been lesbians. But that is one point upon which I agree positively withChristopher Isherwood: There is no such thing as bisexuality. Ordinary people, although they may accommodate themselves, for reasons of whoring or marriage, are one-sexed. Out of curiosity, I had two affairs with girls — they did nothing for me.[120]
According to biographer Barry Paris, Brooks had a "clear preference for men", but she did not discourage the rumors that she was a lesbian, both because she relished their shock value, which enhanced her aura, and because she personally valued feminine beauty. Paris claims that Brooks "loved women as a homosexual man, rather than as a lesbian, would love them. ... The operative rule with Louise was neither heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality. It was just sexuality ..."[121]
On August 8, 1985, after suffering from degenerativeosteoarthritis of the hip[65] andemphysema[122] for many years, Brooks died of aheart attack in her apartment inRochester, New York.[16]
Since her death in 1985, significant allusions to Brooks have appeared in novels, comics, music, and film.
I went to my father [film directorVincente Minnelli], 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.
Brooks has inspired cinematic characters such asSally Bowles inBob Fosse's 1972 filmCabaret.[2] For her portrayal of Bowles,Liza Minnelli reinvented the character with "Lulu makeup andhelmet-like coiffure" based on Brooks's 1920s persona.[2] Similarly, films such asJonathan Demme'sSomething Wild features a reckless femme fatale (Melanie Griffith) who calls herself "Lulu" and wears a bob, and in the 1992 filmDeath Becomes Her,Isabella Rossellini plays Lisle von Rhoman, a character inspired by Brooks. InNora Ephron's 1994 filmMixed Nuts,Liev Schreiber portrays a character with a strong resemblance to Ms. Brooks for the cut of her hair, her mannerisms and facial expressions. More recently, in 2018, thePBS filmThe Chaperone was released, which depicts Brooks's initial arrival in New York and alludes to her career decline as an actress.[123] The film starsHaley Lu Richardson andElizabeth McGovern.[123]
Brooks's film persona served as the literary inspiration forAdolfo Bioy Casares when he wrote hisscience fiction novelThe Invention of Morel (1940) about a man attracted to Faustine, a woman who is only a projected 3-D image.[124] 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 ofThe Invention of Morel, minus the science fiction elements, served as a basis forAlain Resnais's 1961 filmLast Year at Marienbad.[124]
InNeil Gaiman's novelAmerican Gods, the character Czernobog refers to Brooks as the greatest movie star of all time.[125] InAli Smith's 2011 novelThere But For The, the character Brooke Bayoude is revealed at a dinner party to have been named after Louise Brooks, though in a play on Brooks's name the dinner guests apparently mistake Brooks forDebbie Flood orLouise Woodward.[126] In her 2011 novel of supernatural horror,Houdini Heart,Ki Longfellow uses Brooks as an actual character in the leading character's visions. Brooks appears as a central character in the 2012 novelThe Chaperone byLaura Moriarty.[123] InGayle Forman's novelsJust One Day andJust One Year, the protagonist is called "Lulu" because her bobbed hair resembles Brooks'. In the German novelThe Director (2023) byDaniel Kehlmann, Brooks, as well as G.W.Pabst, appears as a character.
In 1987, the Dutch authorWillem Frederik Hermans published a book,The Saint of the Clockmakers, in which Louise Brooks plays a role.
Brooks also had a significant influence in the graphics world. She inspired the long-runningDixie Dugan newspaper strip byJohn H. Striebel.[127] The strip began in the late 1920s and ran until 1966. It grew out of the serialized novel and later stage musical,Show Girl, that writerJ. P. McEvoy had loosely based on Brooks's days as aFollies girl on Broadway.[128]
Brooks also inspired the erotic comic books ofValentina, by the lateGuido Crepax, which began publication in 1965 and continued for many years.[114][129] Crepax became a friend and regular correspondent of Brooks late in her life.Hugo Pratt, another comics artist, also used her as inspiration for characters, and even named them after her.
Other comics have drawn upon Brooks's distinctive hair-style. Brooks was the visual model for the character of Ivy Pepper in Tracy Butler'sLackadaisy comic series.[130] More recently, illustratorRick Geary published a 2015 graphic novel entitledLouise Brooks: Detective in which Brooks, "her movie career having sputtered to a stop," returns to her native Kansas in 1940 and becomes a private investigator who solves murders.[131]
Brooks has been referenced in a number of songs. In 1991, Britishnew wave groupOrchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released "Pandora's Box" as a tribute to Brooks's film. Similarly,Soul Coughing's 1998 song "St. Louise Is Listening" contains several references to Brooks, and the song "Interior Lulu" released the next year byMarillion is a reference to Brooks and mentions her in its first lines.
In 2011, American metal groupMetallica and singer-songwriterLou Reed released the double albumLulu with a Brooks-like mannequin on the cover. InNatalie Merchant's self-titled 2014 album, the song "Lulu" is a biographical portrait of Brooks.[132]
Brooks made 24 films in total. 16 are extant in their entirety, 4 are partially lost, and 4 are completely lost.[133] Her key films survive, however, particularlyPandora's Box andDiary of a Lost Girl, which have been released on DVD in North America by theCriterion Collection andKino Video, respectively.
As of 2007,Miss Europe andThe Show Off have also seen limited North American DVD release. Her short film (and one of her only talkies)Windy Riley Goes Hollywood was included on the DVD release ofDiary of a Lost Girl. Her final film,Overland Stage Raiders, was released on VHS and then in 2012 on DVD.
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1925 | The Street of Forgotten Men | A Moll | Herbert Brenon | Incomplete (missing reel 2)[134] |
| 1926 | The American Venus[30] | Miss Bayport | Frank Tuttle | Lost film. In the late 1990s some fragments in both black & white and color were found in Australia.[135] In 2018 a three-second-longtechnicolor screen test featuring Brooks was discovered by archivist Jane Fernandes, the only color film footage of the actress during her prime known to exist.[136][137][138] Another lost scene was found in 2018 in aYouTube video that had been uploaded to the site in 2007.[135] |
| 1926 | A Social Celebrity | Kitty Laverne | Malcolm St. Clair | Lost film |
| 1926 | It's the Old Army Game | Mildred Marshall | A. Edward Sutherland | Extant |
| 1926 | The Show Off | Clara | Malcolm St. Clair | Extant |
| 1926 | Just Another Blonde | Diana O'Sullivan | Alfred Santell | Fragments survive |
| 1926 | Love 'Em and Leave 'Em | Janie Walsh | Frank Tuttle | Extant |
| 1927 | Evening Clothes | Fox Trot | Luther Reed | Lost film |
| 1927 | Rolled Stockings | Carol Fleming | Richard Rosson | Lost film |
| 1927 | Now We're in the Air | Griselle/Grisette | Frank R. Strayer | In 2016, a 23-minute fragment was found at the Czech national film archive in Prague. The surviving material was preserved and shown for the first time at theSan Francisco Silent Film Festival on June 2, 2017.[133] |
| 1927 | The City Gone Wild | Snuggles Joy | James Cruze | Lost film |
| 1928 | A Girl in Every Port | Marie, Girl in France | Howard Hawks | Extant |
| 1928 | Beggars of Life | The Girl (Nancy) | William A. Wellman | Extant: Sound version is considered lost; only silent version survives. |
| 1929 | The Canary Murder Case | Margaret Odell | Malcolm St. Clair | Extant: Silent and sound versions survive. |
| 1929 | Pandora's Box | Lulu | G. W. Pabst | Extant |
| 1929 | Diary of a Lost Girl | Thymian | G. W. Pabst | Extant |
| 1930 | Miss Europe | Lucienne Garnier | Augusto Genina | Extant - Alternate title:Prix de Beauté [Beauty Prize]. Brooks's first sound film.[72] Silent and sound versions survive. |
| 1931 | It Pays to Advertise | Thelma Temple | Frank Tuttle | Extant |
| 1931 | God's Gift to Women | Florine | Michael Curtiz | Extant |
| 1931 | Windy Riley Goes Hollywood | Betty Grey | Roscoe Arbuckle | Extant |
| 1936 | Empty Saddles | "Boots" Boone | Lesley Selander | Extant |
| 1937 | When You're in Love | Chorus Girl | Robert Riskin | Extant (Uncredited role) |
| 1937 | King of Gamblers | Joyce Beaton | Robert Florey | Extant (Scenes deleted)[87] |
| 1938 | Overland Stage Raiders | Beth Hoyt | George Sherman | Extant |
These days, even though she is bedridden - in addition to osteoarthritis, she suffers from emphysema - the eyes remain unclouded. Over the phone, she sounds every bit as forthright as she is said to have been in her heyday, and she is delighted by the renewed interest in her pictures.
...includes an introduction by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society...
Louise Brooks, late of the Follies, has startled Broadway with an injunction suit to restrain John De Mirjian, theatrical photographer, from further distribution of nude portraits which he has made of her.
The exhibit ran from January 19 through April 29, 2007 at the ICP museum.
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