Louise Brooks: A silent film star who became famous decades later

Her sexual power, air of dangerous sex would take decades to find an audience, but when it did she became an icon!

Photo: Tattoo of Louise Brooks

Based on just 2 films, American actress Louise Brooks proved she was the greatest actress of silent cinema.

At the age of four Louise first appeared onstage as the bride in TOM THUMB'S WEDDING. At 9 she was sexually molested, and when she told her mom she was told "she must have asked for it". In her book, she said from that point on she preferred violence with her sex, and pain.

To understand the power Louise Brooks had on film, take a look at this music tribute video. Even if you've never heard of her before, you will never forget her after this:

Louise got a job with the GEORGE WHITE SCANDALS, a competitor of Ziegfeld and found herself chased after by rich men.
Here is a scene of her stripping down at the beach, click on Watch On Youtube:

George White's "Scandals" was a series of popular Broadway musical revues that "combined the best of America's own burgeoning popular music (as opposed to the imported European variety) with fast-moving sketches and glamorous women."

The Scandals shows ran for 20 years, from 1919 to 1939, and helped to launch the careers of such showbiz giants as W.C. Fields, the Three Stooges, Ray Bolger, Helen Morgan, Ethel Merman, Ann Miller, Bert Lahr, Rudy Vallée, Louise Brooks, and Eleanor Powell. Although the Scandals shows were not as lavishly staged as Flo Ziegfield's productions, they were renowned for the quality of their songs and stage talent.

Here is a musical number from Orchestral Maneuverers In The Dark:

PANDORA'S BOX:

Starring Louise Brooks and directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Pandora's Box follows Lulu, a seductive, thoughtless young woman whose raw sexuality and uninhibited nature bring ruin to herself and those who love her. It is based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist (1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (1904). Released in 1929, Pandora's Box was a critical failure, dismissed by German critics as a bastardization of its source material. Brooks' role in the film was also subject to criticism, fueled by the fact that Brooks was an American. In the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, the film was shown in significantly truncated and re-edited versions, which eliminated certain subplots, including the film's original, downbeat ending.

By the mid-20th century, Pandora's Box was rediscovered by film scholars and began to earn a reputation as an deserving unsung classic of Weimar German cinema. The film would go on to influence many form of media and the image of Louise Brooks instantly became one of cinema's most recognizable and unforgettable image, uploaded here in full hd, rediscover the tragic magic and beauty that is Pandora's Box and Louise Brooks.

DIARY OF A LOST GIRL

Looking For Lulu - Documentary on Louise Brooks (1998)

1998 documentary about the life of Louise Brooks, created by Hugh Munro Neely. Narrated by Shirley MacLaine and featuring numerous interviews with friends and relatives of the legendary star, it also contains excerpts from many of her films including her first on-screen appearance.

Her films were banned by Hitler, Stalin, many U.S. states and were often re-edited by police boards when the film did play stateside.

Louise Brooks became a courtesan of rich men, though the American word for courtesan is prostitute. William S. Paley was a OSS psychological warfare agent in World War 2, helped set up CIA, and then started CBS-TV News . He hired many agents (including Edward R. Murrow). He fell madly in love with Louise, and after they broke up, sent her money every month her entire life. Why? It is said he never got over her and cared about her to the end of his life.
In his will, he put aside a trust to send her money until she died.
Here's an interesting footnote about Paley, when he and the CIA set up CBS News they came up with the " Fairness Doctrine" which was actually a trick. If you wanted to say you were against the Korean War and didn't think it could be won, all networks would call the military to ask to also appear "in fairness". All the military would have to do is say no, and the person against the war could not be on TV!
Paley was one clever guy!

Here is a great BBC documentary about her:

Behind the paywall: Beggars of Life (1928) - with Louise Brooks, Wichita's Silent Mega-Star

Beggars of Life (1928) is quite remarkable for its vivid portrayal of hobo life in a pre-Depression America and for the opening sequence of Louise Brooks under attack from her guardian who tries to rape her. After killing her treacherous caretaker, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada. Beggars of Life presents a beautifully photographed portrait that is tough, gritty, realistic, and also a touching story that goes against the norm, especially in the context of 1920's cinema.

Louise Brooks is a film legend, and rightly so. This film is regarded as Brooks's best American movie. Part fairy tale, part picaresque, part documentary, Beggars of Life features actual hobos in bit parts and a story co-written by the hobo memoirist, Jim Tully, but its strongest points emerge from the strange cocktail of Brooks' mysterious femininity and the cocky masculine ego standard to Wellman's direction.