Louise Brooks: A Biography
by Barry Paris
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barry ParisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-07-10
ISBN: 0816637814
Number of pages: 624
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780816637812
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Book Reviews of Louise Brooks: A Biography
Book Review: Everything you ever wanted to know about Louise Brooks...
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an extremely thorough, even-handed and well-written bio. The author's approach is intelligent and his research and references are extensive.
One learns that Brooks began as an upper middle class wildchild from the plains who determined early to be a great dancer. She had talent and determination. But Fate along with timing made it possible for her to escape Kansas for New York City at the tender age of 15 (!) to train with a premiere dance company. She seems never to have gotten past being that wildchild and was, at 17, dismissed from the troupe for unacceptable behavior. Soon she was a dancer on Broadway, including a stint with the Ziegfeld Follies. Next stop, the movies!
Being admittedly "selfish and stubborn" as well as volatile, Brooks tore through New York, Paris, London, Hollywood, Berlin and back, living it up and burning bridges all around. By age 25 she was finished in terms of ever becoming a movie star or great dancer. She eventually disappeared into a gin bottle, was reduced to dance instruction, retail sales and finally "love for sale."
This is all fascinating enough, but her late-in-life resurrection as a rediscovered silent era "icon" (based mostly on films made in Europe in the late 20's) and as a newly minted writer is the surprising twist toward the end of an otherwise bleak life story.
Her work in Pabst's "Pandora's Box" ought to provide Brooks all the immortality any actress could desire. She is spectacular as Lulu and deserves every accolade. She was a beauty, but there were other beauties of her era who achieved greater stardom - Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow. Her "black helmet" hairstyle was well suited to her looks, but it's more likely that Colleen Moore actually popularized the look, having been a superstar of the 20's (which Brooks wasn't)and the iconic "flapper." As for her skill as a writer (with reference to "Lulu in Hollywood"), I find Brooks interesting, insightful and even poetic, but there is an underlying note of bitterness that undermines any claim of objectivity. And, considering her decades of gin guzzling, I question her ability to be very accurate 40-50 years after the fact. For me, the mystique and power of Louise Brooks comes down to her performance in "Pandora's Box," her primary and glorious claim to fame.
Read "Louise Brooks" by Barry Paris and form your own conclusions. Don't miss "Pandora's Box." The Criterion Collection DVD boxed set includes Kenneth Tynan's 1979 profile, the TCM production, "Looking for Lulu," a 1970's interview with Brooks and other extras.
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
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