Watch Apple TV+ Movies
TV Shows and more
Try 7-Day Free
Home >

Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks

Birthday: 1906-11-14 | Place of Birth: 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]

...

Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2011
Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films

as    Herself (archive footage)

1998
Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu

as    Herself (archive footage)

1986
Louise Brooks

as    Herself (Archival Footage)

1984
Lulu in Berlin

as    Herself

1980
Hollywood

as    Self

1976
1938
Overland Stage Raiders

as    Beth Hoyt

1931
Windy Riley Goes Hollywood

as    Betty Grey

1931
God's Gift to Women

as    Florine

1930
Miss Europe

as    Lucienne

1930
Diary of a Lost Girl

as    Thymian Henning

1929
Pandora's Box

as    Lulu

1929
The Canary Murder Case

as    The Canary

1928
A Girl in Every Port

as    Marie / Mam'selle Godiva

1928
Beggars of Life

as    The Girl (Nancy)

1927
Rolled Stockings

as    Carol Fleming

1926
It's the Old Army Game

as    Mildred Marshall

1926
The American Venus

as    Miss Bayport

1925
The Street of Forgotten Men

as    A Moll (uncredited)