1906-11-14 ( 118 years old ) in Cherryvale, Kansas, USA
Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985) was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the Jazz Age and flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career.
Brooks began her career as a dancer. While dancing in the Ziegfeld Follies in New York City, she came to the attention of Walter Wanger, a producer at Paramount Pictures, and was signed to a five-year contract with the studio. She appeared in supporting roles in various Paramount films before taking the heroine's role in Beggars of Life (1928).
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), and Miss Europe (1930); the first two were directed by G. W. Pabst. By 1938, she had starred in seventeen silent films and eight sound films.
After retiring from acting, she fell upon financial hardship and became a paid escort. For the next two decades, she struggled with alcoholism and suicidal tendencies.
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. She published her memoir, Lulu in Hollywood, in 1982. Three years later, she died of a heart attack at age 78.
[preceding biography, edited, from Wikipedia]
Movies
Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films
2011-04-03
Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl
1999-06-14
Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu
1998-05-05
1001 Films
1989-01-01
Louise Brooks
1986-04-17
Lulu in Berlin
1984-05-27
Overland Stage Raiders
1938-09-20
Empty Saddles
1936-12-20
Windy Riley Goes Hollywood
1931-05-02
God's Gift to Women
1931-04-13
It Pays to Advertise
1931-02-18
Miss Europe
1930-08-01
Diary of a Lost Girl
1929-09-27
The Canary Murder Case
1929-02-16
Pandora's Box
1929-01-30
Beggars of Life
1928-09-22
A Girl in Every Port
1928-02-26
The City Gone Wild
1927-11-12
Now We're in the Air
1927-10-21
Rolled Stockings
1927-06-18
Evening Clothes
1927-03-19
Just Another Blonde
1926-12-13
The Show Off
1926-08-16
It's the Old Army Game
1926-07-10
A Social Celebrity
1926-03-29
Love 'Em and Leave 'Em
1926-03-19
The American Venus
1926-01-31
The Street of Forgotten Men
1925-07-24
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