Factorygirl82's Blog

So I’ve recently been reading a biography on Louise Brooks.  You may not know her name or maybe you do and that makes you ridiculously cool in my book. But you definitely know her face.

Recognize her? I thought you might. I don’t remember the first time I learned about Louise Brooks.  I was introduced to silent films as a young girl by my mother.  I’ve seen mainly Charlie Chaplin films and then Broken Blossom with Lillian Gish. I think the first Louise Brooks film I saw was Pandora’s Box which is her most famous film. She definitely is one of those film stars that just has something about her. Her look is iconic even to this day.  Almost a hundred years after she made her Cleopatra bob famous Lady Gaga has it in one of her music videos.

Sorry I know it’s not the best picture of it but if you watch the Alejandro music video there is no mistaking where the inspiration for the hair style came from.

I’ve always thought Louise was cool to look at. She is beautiful and photographs amazingly. But after reading her biography I really became a fan of her as a person. Louise was from the Mid West and moved away from home at 16 to be a Denishaw dancer. She was the ultimate flapper. She liked to drink and smoke but let’s face in the 1920s who didn’t! She was also not apologetic for who she was ever. She was stubborn and arrogant but one of those people who had ever reason to be arrogant. She was an amazing dancer. She stumbled into film on accident.  She never really cared about money or fame it just happened to her. Louise was one of those lucky accidental stars. She was very smart and as we would say today has no filter when it came to how she spoke. She never thought she was a good actress and the reason she didn’t go into “talkies” wasn’t as the studios said because she didn’t have a good voice it was as she put it “I wasn’t an actress”

Louise was a strong independent woman. She never thought you needed a man to be happy and she preferred to have fun and make her own way in the world. I admire that. So if you get a chance check out her films or read about her.  Her own writings are always very funny and insightful. All in all I aspire to have Louise’s fierce, funny, independent attitude in me.

Thanks for reading! As always check out my etsy shop. And major apologies for writing how I talk!

This entry was posted on May 23, 2011 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Diary of a Lost Girl, Louise Brooks, Lulu, Pandoras Box, Silent Film Star, Silent Films, Vintage Clothing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.