Louise Brooks : Wichita's Silent Mega-Star

Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985), affectionately called "Brooksie" by her friends, and known professionally as Louise Brooks, was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as a Jazz Age icon and as a flapper sex symbol due to her striking bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career.

Her childhood best friend was Vivian Vance, who later rose to fame in her own right as an actress, best known for her role as Ethel Mertz on "I Love Lucy".

In 1919, at the age of 13, the Brooks family moved to Wichita. In Wichita, her father pursued his law practice and chased his dream of becoming a United States District Judge. He even served as the Kansas Assistant Attorney General in 1945.

A precocious teen, Brooks immersed herself in dance. She studied and practiced, and even choreographed pieces that were performed at a local movie theater prior to a film, as well as at her high school. Brooks also attended dance concerts. It is known, for example, that she attended a Wichita performance of the noted Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet from Chicago. On another occasion, Brooks and other students from her dance class traveled to see the famous Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, who was performing in a nearby town.

Brooksie attended Wichita High School, later renamed to Wichita High School East when Wichita North High School was completed in 1929.

She'd gone through the skinny little girl stage in grade school and the awkward teen-age state during her first year or two in high school, but the dance lessons she'd taken finally began to pay off in her amazing transformation into a beautiful, confident, talented young lady.

Once in Hollywood, this stunning tastemaker's presence in the ’20s & ’30s made women everywhere want to chop their hair, and created the bold and wildly popular “flapper girl” movement. Louise Brooks’ dark and exotic looks drew a throng of faithful followers that continues to this day.

With a trip to Berlin. Director G.W. Pabst cast her in two films– Pandora’s Box (1928), and Diary of a lost Girl (1929), that dispelled all doubts about her talent and she rose to having cult status.

Brooks was known to be strongly independent, and unliked by Hollywood’s elite for not always being the submissive woman expected of her. A beautiful woman who was as smart as she was attractive seemingly posed a substantive threat to the male-dominated industry.

After Hollywood, Brooks operated a dance studio in Wichita in the early 1940s, and later worked as a radio actor and gossip columnist. She died in 1985.

Today, Brooks is lauded as one of the first naturalistic actors in film, playing more to the subtle than the melodramatic.
---
This video is non-monetized and provided for educational purposes only, under fair use principles in U.S. copyright laws.
All rights reserved by respective authorized parties.

#Wichita