Trivia

Briefly the mistress of CBS founder William Paley, who secretly provided her with a yearly pension for the rest of her life.

As a child, one of her best friends was Vivian Vance who played Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy (1951).

Trying to make a Hollywood comeback after working in Europe, she turned down an offer to star with James Cagney in the classic L'ennemi public (1931). The role could have revitalized her career.

After retiring, she went on to write many witty and intelligent essays on the film industry.

By 1946, she had to take a $40-a-week job as a sales girl at Saks Fifth Avenue to make a living.

A 20th Century-Fox talent scout spotted a girl named Linda Carter in a play and offered her a screen test. Linda Carter was actually Brooks, who was attempting a comeback. (July 1938)

She personified the rebellious young woman of the 1920s who came to be known as a "flapper".

Though her later lover, Eastman House curator James Card is often given credit for the rediscovery of this once forgotten actress, the curator of the French Cinematheque was championing her work as early as 1936 and for many years his museum owned the only known print in the world of her most famous film, Loulou (1929).

Was close friends with IT Girl Clara Bow.

Marlene Dietrich was sitting in Georg Wilhelm Pabst's office, ready to accept the role of Lulu in Loulou (1929) at the same time Brooks walked out on her Paramount contract.

Provided the inspiration for the British band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's 1991 hit "Pandora's Box". The promo video clip features lead singer Andy McCluskey intercut with images from Loulou (1929).

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#44) (1995).

Opened a dance studio in Beverly Hills. It failed because of a financial scandal involving her business partner. On 30 July 1940, Brooks boarded a train back to Kansas, leaving Hollywood for good. She opened a dance studio in Wichita and wrote a booklet, "The Fundamentals of Good Ballroom Dancing."

Her cremated remains are interred at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester, New York. At her memorial service, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" was played and passages from "Lulu in Hollywood" were read.

In Neil Gaiman's novel "American Gods", the character Czernobog called her the "greatest American actress of all time".

Early in her career, Brooks took up residence in the Algonquin hotel where she was befriended by director Edmund Goulding and initially turned down his offer of a screen test because she thought he was trying to seduce. Her personal behavior got her thrown out of the Algonquin and she moved to the respectable Martha Washington, where too she was asked to leave. She said, "Within a month, my wearing apparel had got me kicked out of two hotels".

Along with fellow Hollywood star Colleen Moore, Brooks is famous for popularizing the bob haircut in the mid to late 1920s. It must be noted that actress Mary Thurman had already cinematically debuted a Dutch boy bob haircut in 1920. Likewise, Ragtime dancer Irene Castle and French actress Polaire had famously bobbed their own hair nearly a decade earlier.

On February 6, 1932, she filed for bankruptcy and began dancing in nightclubs to earn a living.

In 1943, she was paid $1500 for the rights to publish her ghostwritten story by "The American Weekly" magazine, but it was never published because Brooks refused to name names or provide salacious details.

Director husband A. Edward Sutherland blamed his impotence on Brooks' promiscuity.

Turned down the Jean Harlow role in L'ennemi public (1931) made by former director William A. Wellman in favor of going to New York to be reunited with George Marshall. Brooks is sometimes erroneously credited in cast lists for the movie as "Bess".

Her father, Leonard Porter Brooks, was a lawyer. Her mother, Myra Rude Brooks, was a talented pianist.

During the mid-1940s, when she was not appearing in films, she lived in New York City and worked a variety of jobs, some of which included working as a sales girl at Saks Fifth Avenue, gossip columnist and radio commentator.

Brooks claimed she fell in love with William Collier Jr. and wrote to Kevin Brownlow in 1966 that he was "the only actor I had ever cared for".

Her first autobiography, entitled "Naked On My Goat", was thrown into an incinerator by her own hand.

Her favorite actress was Margaret Sullavan.

As a young aspiring actress, she became good friends with Barbara Bennett, sister of Constance Bennett and Joan Bennett.

Was a dancer-showgirl before becoming an actress.

Considered three of her favorite films to be Pygmalion (1938), Le Magicien d'Oz (1939) and Un Américain à Paris (1951).

Celebrity spokesperson for Lux Toilet Soap (1931).

She auditioned unsuccessfully for the Louise Platt role in Les gars du large (1938).

Was the inspiration for the stage play "Show Girl", which, in turn, inspired the comic strip "Dixie Dugan". She was also the inspiration for Italian cartoonist Guido Crepax's comic strip/graphic novel "Valentina". Brooks and Crepax became pen pals as a result.

She left her home at age 16 to join Ruth St. Denis' and Ted Shawn's Denishawn modern dance company.

Originally cast as a manicurist in "A Social Celebrity," Brooks was pushed into the lead opposite Adolphe Menjou when leading lady Greta Nissen dropped out of the cast.

Louise Brooks experienced a resurrection as a movie star in the 50s. Her early works were emphasized and she was now considered as one of the most important actresses of the past silent film.

Around 1928, up-and-coming playwright Frank Launder envisioned her as Emmeline in a film of Henry De Vere Stacpoole's "The Blue Lagoon" for British filmmaker Herbert Wilcox. The finished product, Le Lagon bleu (1949) would eventually star Jean Simmons in a role first proposed to Brooks.

She began to write about her former film career. The articles were published as a book many years later and offers an insight to the former Hollywood system and to the life of other stars.

Henri Langlois said about her: "There is no Greta Garbo! There is no Marlene Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks".

Her trademark became her haircut which established the Eton crop (Bubikopf) as a vogue.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 106-107. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.

She turned away from the film business disappointed and she earned her living at the radio and in night clubs.

For Pabst and René Claire she acted in the French production "Prix de beauté" (1930). Afterwards Louise Brooks returned to the USA but she had to content herself with little succes.

After Life magazine wrote an article about her in their February 1980 issue she replied to the magazine: "Charming Horst photo. Truthful text on Brooks.".