Jun 18, 2011

Louise, the Flapper or Lulu in Hollywood






"All my life it has been fun for me"

Mary Louise Brooks
November 14, 1906  Kansas U.S. - August 8, 1985  New York, U.S.
the silent movie star ... the flapper, the bobbed haircut ... 
worked with WC Fields 3 times
fall in love 100 times ...

married 3
24 movies
and was happy


Independent spirit, remarkable beauty, and a  trademark hair style ...  


At the age of 4, she was on stage. 
At 15 years old, decided to go alone, to NY, and joined the  Denishaw Dance Company, the main american modern dance company. 
In 1925 joined the legendary Ziegfeld Follies Group, where she's the main attraction.
Makes her first movie "The Street of Forgotten Men" in 1925.
Signed with Paramount Pictures a 5 years contract, and in 1927, goes to live in Hollywood.
In 1928, they denied her a higher cachet, and Louise, leaves Paramount, and goes to Germany, to film Pandora's Box, Directed by G.W.Pabst.
The best she could do, in fact.


Pandora's Box - 1929

 In 1933, she married a Chicago millionaire, Deering Davis ...
... 1933 Chicago (I was there too)

Latter, when movies started to have sound, and still sad with Paramount, Louise,  refuses a 
US$10.000 offer to double her own voice in the "Canary Murder Case", produced without sound and unreleased. Producers, were furious, and they start spreading the rumor, that she had a horrible voice.

That lie, had a huge effect on her career, and left her without work in the cinema.
She was a wonderful model too.
Latter, she works on CBS radio, and show the world, her voice. 
In the following years, forgotten by the cinema and the public, she had to work at the Sack's Fifth Avenue, as a seller.


... how much more sophisticated we can get here?
Brooks,  enjoyed the speculation about her sexuality, cultivating friendships with lesbian and bisexual women. 



... and a one-night affair with Greta Garbo, that she described "as masculine but a charming and tender lover"




She considered herself neither lesbian nor bisexual, she just played with people's imagination.


"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 [...]" 


a flapper and a teaser ... and an Actress, that I love.
a woman ahead her time ... 


Here's my tribute to Louise "Lulu" Brooks, that I met,  somewhere, in the 30's.

I love you, Louise ...








p.s.
I'm sure, she will love to have an Henry Mancini soundtrack 


Lujon



...

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