Silent film actress Louise Brooks was born on this day in 1906. The actress and dancer is probably best known today for her work in G.W. Pabst's films Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl. She was feisty, rebellious, stubborn, beautiful, and unforgettable. To many, she is merely a ghost of a long-gone era of filmmaking, a starlet who didn't quite survive the leap into talkies. To me, she is my classic film gateway drug.
I wish I could remember the exact moment I first saw her face: those dark eyes, straight eyebrows, smirking lips, and that helmet of shiny black bobbed hair. I know it was sometime during my sophomore year of high school, and I was in the middle of my goth phase (ugh). I saw her somewhere, and I had to know everything about her. I bought and read Louise Brooks by Barry Paris, and her memoir Lulu in Hollywood. I bought books about old Hollywood in used bookstores, and I learned not only about Louise's life and career but some of her contemporaries as well. I started watching Turner Classic Movies, and saw my first silent movie (The Unknown starring Lon Chaney). I printed out the TCM programming schedule and taped it to my bedroom wall, highlighting the films I wanted to see that week, taking special care to never miss their Silent Sunday Nights. I started taping movies religiously, the stacks of VHS cassettes piling up in my room. When I finally got a chance to see my beloved Louise in one of her silent films, it was magic.
When I started my junior year, my school binder was decorated with a collage of pictures of Louise, Lillian Gish, Colleen Moore, Mary Pickford, Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Anna May Wong, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Billy Haines, Harold Lloyd, Myrna Loy. I had fallen in love with the movies and there was no turning back. I guess I have Louise to thank for that. There's something so special about finding something that speaks to you in those awkward teenage years. I'm sure if I never saw her face I would have found my love for film in some other way, but I'm happy it happened the way it happened. What started out as a fascination with an actress and a vague appreciation for a few old movies that I'd watched as a kid turned into a lifelong love affair. I had found something that was mine.
Happy Birthday LB.
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