Brooks, Louise

(born Nov. 14, 1906, Cherryvale, Kan., U.S.—died Aug. 8, 1985, Rochester, N.Y.) U.S. film actress. She danced in Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies (1925) and soon gained a Hollywood contract. Noted for her magnetic screen presence and dark bobbed hair, she personified the 1920s flapper in the silent films A Girl in Every Port (1928) and Beggars of Life (1928). In Germany she gave legendary performances in G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box (1928) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929). Back in Hollywood (1930), however, she was offered only minor roles, and she retired in 1938 with little fame and no fortune. Her films were rediscovered in the 1950s, and her book Lulu in Hollywood (1982) won critical praise.

Brooks, Louise (1906–85) movie actress; born in Cherryvale, Kans. She began as a professional dancer with the Ruth St. Denis company in 1921. After working on Broadway, she went to Hollywood; her striking good looks created her image as a lightweight but she emerged as a talented actress in such films as A Girl in Every Port (1928). Still dissatisfied with the roles she was offered, she went to Germany where she made her finest films, such as Pandora's Box (1929), under the direction of G. W. Pabst. Returning to Hollywood in the mid-1930s, she again became disillusioned with the movie world and by the 1940s she had vanished into total obscurity. She was rediscovered living in Rochester, N.Y., by movie buffs in the 1950s and began to write about motion pictures.