Louise Brooks: A Biography
by Barry Paris
List Price:
Our Price: $15.39
You Save: $7.56 (33%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $7.99 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Barry ParisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-07-10
ISBN: 0816637814
Number of pages: 624
Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Book Reviews of Louise Brooks: A Biography
Book Review: Meet Ms. Brooks
Summary: 5 Stars
What a brick of a book! Isn't it curious that a silent movie star who only made a couple of films of which only a couple are worth the mention gets a 500+ page biography when many more prolific actors don't get one at all? But Ms. Brooks was not just an actress or dancing performer, she was that oh-so-rare thing in entertainment, she was a personality (and also a "character"). Her trademark bob became a cultural icon and at least one film made history as one of the best - if not THE best - silent of all times: Pandora's Box - to the importance of which Louise Brooks was a vital ingredient. Still, success ultimately eluded her, mostly due to her own vitriolic temperament and unpredictability. Neither in the US nor in Europe, where she made her best films, could she reap the fruits of her efforts. Nor could she, after leaving the movie biz behind for good, come back as a dancer, declaring in a very somber mood to a close relative shortly before her death in 1985: "How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything (...). And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of "not trying". I tried with all my heart."
Barry Paris' assessment of this glorious and dark lady is a model example of biographing. Never lurid or slanderous, as is so common in celebrity biographies these days, he verifies almost every one of his quotes with the original source. However, despite his obvious adoration for the subject of his research, he doesn't stumble into the trap of unduly polishing Ms. Brooks life either and relates her rather deft and frequent sexual episodes with historical precision. Sex, in fact, was one of the major forces - positively and negatively - in her life according to herself. Coming from Kansas, deeply bible-belted, she was like many Americans caught in the dichotomy of puritan restraint and the contrecoup of extreme license in matters bodily (and alcoholically!).
After reading "A Biography" one has the impression of having met Ms. Brooks in person - experiencing her erotic attraction as well as her volatile personality, but also her erudition. A woman who fit neither social nor male expectations of a striking beauty, a fact which might ultimately have been the stumbling block of her life. Paris has exhausted all available sources, turned every stone and read every letter surviving from Louise Brooks (and there apparently were a lot as she was an expansive epistolarian, especially late in life when sickness and wariness of the world prevented her from leaving her small and spartan apartment in Rochester) presenting all of it in a light language that pulls the reader along even through barrages of names, places and events (and possibly a slight tendency to digress here and there, though always cought in time) giving not only an intimate portrait of the greatest of the "lost" silent stars, but also a thorough picture of her times.
What Ms. Brooks saw in some of her contemporaries (C. Chaplin and G. W. Pabst among them) she failed to see in herself: "To be a great person is the final work of art" And she did, indeed, succeed in that.
Summary of Louise Brooks: A Biography
FilmThe long-awaited republication of this captivating account of the star's life.
Louise Brooks left Wichita, Kansas, for New York City at age fifteen and lived the kind of life of which legends are made. From her beginnings as a dancer to her years in Hollywood, Berlin, and beyond, she was hailed and reviled as a new type of woman: independent, intellectually daring, and sexually free. In this widely acclaimed, first and only comprehensive biography, Barry Paris traces Brooks's trajectory from her childhood through her fall into obscurity and subsequent "resurrection" as a brilliant writer and enduring film icon.
"Star biographies don't get any better than Barry Paris's Louise Brooks." USA Today
"This account has the aphrodisiac gloss of Brooks herself: you meet the stare of a modern icon, a picture that taunts your inability to touch the real thing. A necessary and stimulating book, it is itself an important part of Brooks's life after death." The New Republic
"Absorbing, wonderfully well researched and, all in all, an exemplar of its kind." London Spectator
"Louise Brooks is not simply a summary of her movie plots and love affairs but a serious work of film and social history." New York Magazine
Barry Paris is an award-winning biographer, film and music critic, and contributor to the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and other publications. He lives in Pittsburgh.
Translation Inquiries: Alfred A. Knopf
Theater Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Theater Books
Looking Out: Perspectives on Dance and Criticism in a Multicultural WorldMacmillan Pub Co; Published: 1995-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $110.82
Directors on Directing: A Source Book of the Modern Theatreby Toby Cole, Helen Krich Chinoy
Allyn & Bacon; Published: 1963-01-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $92.40
Price in other shops:
Voice and the Actorby Cicely Berry
Wiley; Published: 1991-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
A Trip to the Light Fantastic: Travels With a Mexican Circusby Katie Hickman
Harpercollins; Published: 1995-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Who On Earth Is Tom Baker? An Autobiographyby Tom Baker
Harper Collins, 1997; Published: 1997; Hardcover; Book
Who on Earth Is Tom Baker?by Tom Baker
Harpercollins Audio; Published: 1997-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $133.82
Streisand: A Biographyby Anne Edwards
Little Brown & Co (T); Published: 1997-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.79
Price in other shops:
The Orton Diariesby Joe Orton
Da Capo Press; Published: 1996-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.48
Price in other shops:
Understanding Movies (12th Edition)by Louis Giannetti
Allyn & Bacon; Published: 2010-01-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $69.99
Price in other shops:
The Theater Experience Tenth Editionby Edwin Wilson
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; Published: 2005-12-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $50.00
Similar Books and other products
Harlow in Hollywood: The Blonde Bombshell in the Glamour Capital, 1928-1937by Darrell Rooney, Mark A. Vieira
Angel City Press; Published: 2011-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $31.50
Price in other shops:
The Actors: Rare Films Of Louise Brooks Vol.2Release date: 2009-12-28; DVD
Best price: $16.99
The Actors: Rare Films Of Louise Brooks Vol.3Release date: 2009-12-28; DVD
Best price: $16.99
Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Baraby Eve Golden
Vestal Press; Published: 1998-05-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.17
Price in other shops:
The Actors: Rare Films Of Louise Brooks Vol.1Release date: 2009-12-28; DVD
Best price: $16.99
Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modernby Joshua Zeitz
Broadway; Published: 2007-02-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
Clara Bow: Runnin' Wildby David Stenn
Cooper Square Press; Published: 2000-03-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.67
Price in other shops:
Diary of a Lost GirlKino International; Release date: 2001-11-13; DVD
Best price: $16.48
Price in other shops:
Pandora's Box (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2006-11-28; DVD
Best price: $25.53
Price in other shops:
Lulu In Hollywood: Expanded Editionby Louise Brooks
Univ Of Minnesota Press; Published: 2000-07-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.80
Price in other shops: