Louise Brooks, necrologio di Herbert Mitgang

Louise Brooks, proud star of silent screen, dead at 78 di Herbert Mitgang ("New York Times", August 10, 1985)
Louise Brooks, the silent movie actress from small - town Kansas whose helmet of bobbed brunet hair became her trademark and a symbol of the disdainful flapper of the 1920's, died of a heart attack Thursday at her home in Rochester. She was 78 years old and for nearly 30 years had lived in retirement in a small one - bedroom apartment, sick, poor, proud and alone. Discovered in a Broadway chorus line as a teen - ager in George White's Scandals in 1924, she went from modeling semi - nude for a theatrical photographer to posing for a classic head shot by Edward Steichen. She moved on to the movies, making 24 films in a career that began in 1925 and ended in 1938, at the age of 32. Broke but indipendent, she worked as a $ 40 - a - week salesclerk at Saks Fifth Avenue for two years after Worls War II. Miss Brooks' film included two early masterpieces made by G. W. Pabst, the German director, in 1929 Pandora's box, in which she played the amoral temptress Lulu, and Diary of a lost girl, when she gas casting the role of a middle class girl of 16 who is seduced.

The 21 - year - old American dancer from Cherryvale Kansas, as chosen to play Lulu in Berlin over several German actresses, including Marlene Dietrich.. She had left Hollywood in 1928 after B. P. Schulberg, the Paramount executive, had turned down her request for a raise. Among her Hollywood films were The American Venus (1926), The show off (1926), Evening clothes (1927), Rolled stockings (1927) and A girl in every port (1928). When she returned from Germany, her disputes with Hollywood executives continued and she appeared only in minor roles: in God's gift to women (1931) and The public enemy (1931), among others. Her last film was Overland stage raiders (1938), a John Wayne western. A new generation discovered Miss Brooks when both Pabst films were shown and acclaimed in New York two years ago. She had gained renewed attention in 1979 after the New Yorker printed a profile by Kenneth Tynan titled The girl in the black helmet In recent years, Miss Brooks frequently wrote about movies, past and present, in the more serious film journals. Her memoir, Lulu in Hollywood, published in 1982 by Knopf, was acclaimed for its intelligence and style. In an introduction by William Shawn for Lulu in Hollywood, the New York editor wrote: It should not come to us as a surprise that a film actress can write, but, so, narrow are our expectations, it does. We are even more surprised when it turns out that the actress is one of the great beauties of all time. And we are out - and - out astonished when we learn that many people think she possesses an erotic eloquence unmatched by that of any other woman ever to have appeared on the screen. It may well be that number of beautiful, eloquently erotic film actresses who have been able to write is very, very small. But, wheather it is small or large, in my judgement Louise Brooks must head the list. Louise Brooks is not only an actress who writes; she is a writer who acts. Miss Brooks settled in Rochester in 1956 at the urging of James Card a fan and curator of the Eastman House museum. Then she studied films, including seven of her own, and devoted herself to writing. She was married for brief periods, first to Eddie Sutherland, a director, and then to Deering Davis, a dancer. She told Mr. Tynan that she had never been in love,was supported at various times by several millionaires, but declined to marry them. Miss Brooks has no known survivors.