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Louise Brooks was born Mary Louise Brooks in 1906, and she was always unconventional. She was the daughter of a Kansas lawyer, but she left at the age of 16 to go to New York and join Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn with their Denishawn dancers. Two years later she had a falling out with Shawn and was fired. She then worked in the George White's Scandals, the Ziegfeld Follies (where she was a semi-nude dancer, and was noticed, and signed to a Hollywood contract by Paramount Pictures, where she had several minor movies as a sexy flapper girl in comedies). She finally got her big break in a starring role in Beggars Of Life, and predictably she left Hollywood to go to Europe. But she had had the title role in The Canary Murder Case in 1929, which had been filmed as a silent, and Paramount asked her to return to dub the movie, and she refused, which effectively blacklisted her in Hollywood. She made two incredible movies with legendary German director G.W. Pabst, Pandora's Box, and Diary Of A Lost Girl and I highly recommend both. She made Prix de Beaute in France, and in the early 1930s she returned to Hollywood (minus her trademark flapper hairdo) where she could only get minor roles, and she returned to Kansas, and later New York. She lived an alcoholic life in obscurity (supported by former admirers including William S. Paley, founder of CBS). In the 1950s and 1960s she was "rediscovered" by film critics, and she wrote many articles and books about her life, which I also highly recommend. She is likely best remembered for her distinctive hair style! She passed away in 1985 at the age of 78.

Important Added Info: Note that this letter has been personally autographed (signed) by Louise Brooks! We have previously auctioned several of these Louise Brooks letters from her to Jan Wahl (see below). In the letter, she primarily writes about wanting to introduce Jan Wahl to a woman she describes as both "stingy" and says that she "knew her only as a woman during her lesbian days"! She says the woman is about 70, but that through her, Wahl could "meet lots of attractive people and young people who would do you good". She advises Wahl to "show your teeth and look beautiful". She adds "Please do not show this letter to your friends", and she underlined that sentence, obviously because she did not want her gossip about the woman to get back to her. She added a few words to the letter, including where she said the woman called her husband "a weak little drunk", and she added in the word "pansy". At the end of the letter, she typed "Love" and hand wrote "Louise" (and several of her other letters are signed with a nickname instead, which makes this letter signed "Louise" that much nicer).

As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

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Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775