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]

Filmography

• 2026Away with Words — Louise Brooks
• 2012Clara Bow: Hollywood's Lost Screen Goddess
• 2010Flappers, Speakeasies, and the Birth of Modern Culture
• 1995The Casting Couch
• 19891001 Films — (archival)
• 1938Overland Stage Raiders — Beth Hoyt
• 1937When You're in Love — Specialty Ballerina in Chorus
• 1936Empty Saddles — Boots Boone
• 1931God's Gift to Women — Florine
• 1931It Pays to Advertise — Thelma Temple
• 1931Windy Riley Goes Hollywood — Betty Grey
• 1930Miss Europe — Lucienne
• 1929Diary of a Lost Girl — Thymian Henning
• 1929Pandora's Box — Lulu
• 1929The Canary Murder Case — The Canary
• 1928A Girl in Every Port — Marie / Mam'selle Godiva
• 1928Beggars of Life — The Girl (Nancy)
• 1927Evening Clothes — Fox Trot
• 1927Now We're in the Air — Griselle and Grisette
• 1927Rolled Stockings — Carol Fleming
• 1927The City Gone Wild — Snuggles Joy
• 1926A Social Celebrity — Kitty Laverne
• 1926It's the Old Army Game — Mildred Marshall
• 1926Just Another Blonde — Diana O'Sullivan
• 1926Love 'Em and Leave 'Em — Janie Walsh
• 1926The American Venus — Miss Bayport
• 1926The Show Off — Clara
• 1925The Street of Forgotten Men — A Moll

Appearances as themselves (9)

• 2011Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films — Herself (archive footage)
• 2007Why Be Good?: Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema — Self (archive footage)
• 1999Clara Bow: Discovering the "It" Girl — Self (archive footage)
• 1998Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu — Herself (archive footage)
• Mysteries and Scandals — Self (archive footage)
• 1986Louise Brooks — Herself (Archival Footage)
• 1984Lulu in Berlin — Self
• Hollywood — Self
• 1976Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture — Self - Interviewee