Louise Brooks' early dance teachers

I have been updating my Day by Day Chronology on the Louise Brooks Society website. And, in doing so, I have been looking into Brooks' early life and early dance teachers -- teachers she studied with (and in some instances performed with) before she joined Denishawn in 1922. I have come across a good deal of new information, much of which has been added to the Louise Brooks chronology.

I have also shaped this information into a handful of entries for a longtime work-in-progress, my Louise Brooks Encyclopedia. (It's something I have been working on intermittently for more than a decade.)  Presented below are near final drafts of five entries for Brooks' first teachers, along with two additional related entries, one for the "Dance of Wheat," and one for the Mills-Fisher School of Dance and Dramatic Arts. I have also added images from Kansas newspapers of the time.

Before I conclude this introduction, I want to give a big THANK YOU to Becca Pascoe, my sister-in-law and a master genealogist. She was able to track down information I wasn't able to find -- namely images and the dates of these five individual's births and deaths -- except for one, the elusive Alice Mills. That's a bit ironic, as Mills is the best known of these five women. It was Alice Mills who chaperoned the 15 year old Brooks to the Denishawn school in New York City. What ever happened to Alice Mills ? (Becca found out that she was married in 1907, and died sometime before her husband, Ross Mills, who passed away in 1976.)

Early newspaper clippings about Louise Brooks.

BIXBY, BLANCHE (1895– 1977)

Dance instructor who led the junior department of the Wichita College of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1920, Brooks took part in at least two programs in which Bixby was also involved.

Bixby studied dance in St. Louis, and in 1922 married Vernon Hendry, who was also on staff of the drama department of the Wichita College. In March 1920, Brooks was part of a group of young dancers – 21 pupils of Bixby and Alice Campbell – who performed in the two-part fantasy, “The Fairies Child,” at the Philharmony Hall in Wichita. In October of that same year, Brooks along with seven other dancers (including Bixby and Alice Mills) performed “The Dance of Wheat” during the annual International Wheat Show in Wichita.

Newspaper clippings about Blanche Bixby.

BUCKPITT, MAY ARGUE (1882-1972)

Athletic instructor, and director of gymnasium classes at the Y.W.C.A. in Independence, Kansas. Buckpitt is mentioned in Brooks' essay "Kansas to New York," which is included in Lulu in Hollywood.

According to newspaper accounts from the time, Buckpitt had been in charge of athletic training of young women at Teachers College, Columbia University, and had overseen a women’s athletic club in Lima, Ohio before relocating to Independence in late 1916. She seems to have been friendly with the Brooks family, as a Wichita newspaper reported she came to Wichita to visit with Brooks’ Mother and spend the weekend in November 1921.

Louise Brooks met Buckpitt as early as May 1917, when the then 11-year-old spent the day with Buckpitt’s gymnasium class at the city park in Independence (prior to the Brooks’ family having relocated from Cherryvale). In May 1919, Brooks danced in “The Gloating Dance of Destruction” at the Beldorf theater in Independence. (see ad below) Her dance was part of “The Progress of Peace,” an allegorical pantomime of fifty characters written and produced by Buckpitt. In October 1919, Brooks took lessons in aesthetic dancing at the Y.W.C.A. under the supervision of Buckpitt, and later that same month, took part in "Fi-Fi of the Toy Shop," a musical fantasy staged at the Beldorf. (Does anyone have a portrait of  Buckpitt from circa 1920.) 

An early portrait, and likely the first advertisement to contain Louise Brooks' name.

CAMPBELL, ALICE (1892-1956)

Instructor at the Wichita College of Music and Dramatic Art, and a leading figure in Wichita cultural affairs who had a hand in teaching dance to the teenage Brooks. Campbell is mentioned in Brooks' essay "Kansas to New York," which is included in Lulu in Hollywood.

Campbell started at the Wichita College of Music and Dramatic Art in the Spring of 1916, and was advertised as a "post graduate of one of the best known schools of expression in America, expert in fancy dancing, with five years' college teaching experience." The school referred to was the Morse School of Oratory and Expression, an early 20th-century institution dedicated to elocution, dramatic art, and physical culture based in St. Louis, Missouri.

Campbell supervised or choreographed Brooks' public performances on at least four occasions. In March 1920, Brooks was part of a group of young dancers – pupils from the Wichita College – who performed in a two-part fantasy, The Fairies Child, at the local Philharmony Hall. In June 1920, Brooks performed two solo dances and as part of an ensemble made up of members of the adult dancing class from the Wichita College, again at Philharmony Hall. And in January 1921, Brooks and others performed aesthetic dances at the Wichita College following the staging of a play, Betty’s Degree. The most significant pre-Denishawn production involving Brooks was the "Dance of Wheat," which was staged under the direction of Campbell in 1920. The “Dance of Wheat” was performed 26 times, twice daily between October 4th and the 16th, on a stage dressed to resemble an ancient Greek temple. Brooks was one of eight, mostly adult dancers who accompanied renown soloist Domina Marini. Notably, in 1921, Campbell dismissed Brooks from her dancing class at the Wichita College.

For more about Alice Campbell and Louise Brooks, see the prior post on the Louise Brooks Society blog. 

Newspaper clippings about Alice Campbell.

 
“DANCE OF WHEAT”

The “Dance of Wheat” is an interpretive dance staged at the International Wheat Show in Wichita, Kansas in October 1920. Brooks, then 13 years old, was one of nine dancers who appeared in the piece.

The “Dance of Wheat” featured Domina Marini, a ballet dancer and choreographer active in the early 20th century. Born in Italy, she trained with the Imperial Russian Ballet alongside Anna Pavlova, with whom she reportedly later performed.

The “Dance of Wheat” was performed 26 times, twice daily between October 4th and the 16th, on a stage dressed to resemble an ancient Greek temple. The dance was led by soloist Marini (as Ceres, the Goddess of Grains) and accompanied by eight dancers (nymphs and dryads) under the direction of Alice Campbell of the Wichita College of Music and Dramatic Art. The eight accompanying dancers were Brooks, Blanche Bixby, Alice Mills, Louise McCormick, Marian Orr Dickson, Marie Hull, Jacqueline Stice and Martha Hatfield.

Louise Brooks is among the figures standing before the Greek Temple.

MILLS, ALICE E. (1886?-19XX)

Wichita-based dance teacher and one-half of the Mills-Fisher School of Dance and Dramatic Arts, which Brooks would attend for more than half-a-year. Mills is mentioned in Brooks' essay "Kansas to New York," which is included in Lulu in Hollywood. Notably, it was Mills who chaperoned Brooks to the Denishawn school in New York City in 1922.

Mills had been a student of the Denishawn School of Dancing in Los Angeles, taking lessons from Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. In 1921, Mills and Miriam A. Fischer founded the Mills-Fisher School of Dance and Dramatic Arts in Wichita, with Mills offering lessons in Denishawn technique. (According to press reports, Mills was the only teacher in the state of Kansas with a certificate accredited by Denishawn.) In September 1922, Mills opened the first Midwestern branch of Denishawn, also in Wichita.

As a thirteen-year-old, Brooks danced alongside Mills in the “Dance of Wheat” during the International Wheat Show in Wichita in October 1920. Brooks became a pupil of Mills at the Mills-Fisher School following her dismissal from Alice Campbell’s dancing class and subsequent involvement with the Edna L. Shaw School of Dancing. As a student at the Mills-Fisher School, Brooks performed three times in public. In December 1921, Brooks performed a solo dance at a Christmas pageant, and a few days later, performed another solo dance at another Christmas themed program, with both programs under the direction of Mills. In June 1922, Brooks took part in a program at the Arcadia Theater in Wichita in which she performed two character studies, a Denishawn number (as an Egyptian slave), and as a soloist in a flower ballet. Earlier, in January 1922, Brooks and other students from the Mills-Fischer School attend a performance by Anna Pavlova and her Ballet Russe in Hutchinson, Kansas.

A newspaper ad for Alice Mills' Denishawn school.

MILLS-FISHER SCHOOL OF DANCE AND DRAMATIC ARTS

Private school in Wichita (located in the A.O.U.W. Hall) opened in 1921 and operated by Miriam A. Fischer and Alice E. Mills. Brooks took dancing lessons at the school under the direction of Mills.

According to newspaper accounts from the time, Fischer had been a student of the Vestoff-Serova School of Russian dancing in New York City, while Mills was a student of the Denishawn School of Dancing in Los Angeles. Reportedly, Mills was the only teacher in the state of Kansas with a certificate accredited by Denishawn.

A newspaper clipping about the Mills-Fischer School, which Brooks attended.

SHAW, EDNA L. (1882-1935)

Wichita, Kansas newspaper woman, dance instructor and founder of the Edna L. Shaw Academy. Brooks attended the Academy in the first half of 1921.

For some ten years beginning in 1911, Shaw was a contributor to the Wichita Beacon; her columns concerned women's health and exercise, dance, fashion and other topics. In 1912, she established a school for social and classic dancing, and in 1920 opened the Edna L. Shaw Academy (also referred to in newspaper accounts as the Edna L. Shaw School of Dancing). It claimed to be the largest and best equipped school offering private instruction in the Southwest.. (In 1920, notably, Shaw was barred from membership in the First Methodist Episcopal church in Wichita due to her activities as a dance teacher, with her exclusion from the church making news around the state.) Eventually, Shaw left Kansas for California, and in the late 1920s and early 1930s was a writer for the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News and its later incarnation, the Hollywood Citizen News, once mentioning Brooks in her society column. 

Newspaper accounts record Brooks participating in public recitals at the school on three occasions, once performing a toe dance in June 1921. Sometime before the end of the year, Brooks had moved to the Mills-Fischer School of Dance and Dramatic Arts.

Newspaper clippings about Edna Shaw.

 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928

Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928. Directed by William Wellman the year after he made Wings (the first film to win an Academy Award), Beggars of Life is a terse drama about a girl (Louise Brooks) dressed as a boy who flees the law after killing her abusive stepfather. With the help of a young hobo, she rides the rails through a male dominated underworld in which danger is close at hand. Picture Play magazine described the film as “Sordid, grim and unpleasant,” adding, “it is nevertheless interesting and is certainly a departure from the usual movie.”

More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website filmography page.

Beggars of Life is based on the 1924 novelistic memoir of the same name by Jim Tully, a celebrated “hobo author” highly regarded by H.L. Mencken and other literati of the time. Though shot as a silent and released in that format, Beggars of Life has the distinction of being Paramount’s first sound film: a synchronized musical score, sound effects, a few lines of dialogue and a song were added to some prints at the time of the film’s release. Advertisements for the film boasted “Come hear Wallace Beery sing!” The gravel-voiced character actor and future Oscar winner plays Oklahoma Red, a tough hobo with a soft heart. Richard Arlen, who the year before had starred in Wings, plays a vagabond and Brooks’ romantic interest.

In 1928, Beggars of Life was named one of the six best films for October by the Chicago Tribune; it also made the honor roll for best films of the year in an annual poll conducted by Film Daily. Musical Courier called Beggars of Life ” . . . one of the most entertaining films of the littered season.” And Photoplay thought it “good entertainment.” Nevertheless, it is not especially well known today, and its grim story set among the desperate and the downtrodden drew mixed reviews upon release. One Baltimore newspaper said it would have limited appeal, quipping, “Tully tale not a flapper fetcher for the daytime trade.”

Louella Parsons, writing in the Los Angeles Examiner, echoed the sentiment when she stated, “I was a little disappointed in Louise Brooks. She is so much more the modern flapper type, the Ziegfeld Follies girl, who wears clothes and is always gay and flippant. This girl is somber, worried to distraction and in no comedy mood. Miss Brooks is infinitely better when she has her lighter moments.” Her cross-town colleague, Harrison Carroll, added to the drumbeat of disdain when he wrote in the Los Angeles Evening Herald, “Considered from a moral standpoint, Beggars of Life is questionable, for it throws the glamour of adventure over tramp life and is occupied with building sympathy for an escaping murderess. As entertainment, however, it has tenseness and rugged earthy humor.”

Critics in New York were also divided on the merits of Beggars of Life, and many of them instead focused on Brooks’ unconventional, cross-dressing appearance. In the New York Times, Mordaunt Hall noted, “Louise Brooks figures as Nancy. She is seen for the greater part of this subject in male attire, having decided to wear these clothes to avoid being apprehended. Miss Brooks really acts well, better than she has in most of her other pictures.” The New York Morning Telegraph stated, “Louise Brooks, in a complete departure from the pert flapper that it has been her wont to portray, here definitely places herself on the map as a fine actress. Her characterizations, drawn with the utmost simplicity, is genuinely affecting.” While Quinn Martin of the New York World wrote, “Here we have Louise Brooks, that handsome brunette, playing the part of a fugitive from justice, and playing as if she meant it, and with a certain impressive authority and manner. This is the best acting this remarkable young woman has done.”

Also getting attention for their role in Beggars of Life was Edgar “Blue” Washington. The Afro-American newspaper wrote, “In Beggars of Life, Edgar Blue Washington, race star, was signed by Paramount for what is regarded as the most important Negro screen role of the year, that of Big Mose. The part is that of a sympathetic character, hardly less important to the epic of tramp life than those of Wallace Beery, Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen, who head the cast.”

Girls dressed as boys, pastoral life gone wrong, the mingling of races, desperation depicted among the glitz and glamour of the twenties — there is a lot happening in Beggars of Life. It is, arguably, Brooks’ best American silent.

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— With an added musical score, sound effects, and a song sung by Wallace Berry (either “Hark the Bells” or “Don’t You Hear Them Bells?” or “I Wonder Where She Sits Tonight”), Beggars of Life is considered Paramount’s first sound film. In Baltimore, Beggars of Life was the first “talking sequence picture” to play in the Century Theater.

— “Beggars of Life” by J. Keirn Brennan and Karl Hajos was recorded by The Troubadours, Scrappy Lambert and other artists and released as a 78 rpm recording. The label of these recordings describe it as “Theme Song of the Motion Picture production.”

— Edgar Washington (1898 – 1970) was a prizefighter and noted semi-pro baseball player (in the Negro Leagues) before entering films in the late Teens. He was a pioneer among African-American actors, and was given the nickname “Blue” by friend Frank Capra. Also in the film in a bit part was Michael Donlin, an outfielder whose Major League career spanned from 1899 to 1914.

— In 1965, director William Wellman wanted to bring Louise Brooks to San Francisco and screen Beggars of Life as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, but it never came to be. Instead, he screened Wings for a packed house at the local Masonic auditorium.

— The first ever book on the film, Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film, was published by the Louise Brooks Society in 2017. The book is authored by LBS Director Thomas Gladysz, and features a foreword by author and actor William Wellman Jr.  (Purchase on amazon.)

More about Beggars of Life can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Beggars of Life (filmography page). 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.