July 4th in the Life of Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks lived through some 78 July 4th celebrations of Independence Day, including the 150th anniversary in 1926 and the 200th in 1976. This rambling post looks at the July 4th holiday in the life of the actress.

In 1926, Brooks was back in New York City, after having completed work on It's the Old Army Game in Florida, where she met the film's director, Eddie Sutherland. The two became involved, and would marry a few weeks later on July 21. How exactly Brooks spent this particular July 4th we don't know, but I would guess it was with Eddie. 

And here is newspaper bit for It's the Old Army Game, which was showing at the Strand in Minneapolis, Minnesota (as well as many other cities and towns across America) on July 4th 1926. Brooks stardom was just starting to take off.

In 1976, Brooks was living in Rochester, New York, having moved there some years earlier. At this time in her life, she spent most of her time in her apartment, reading, writing letters, and working on her various writing projects (namely her essays and articles). Brooks liked to watch television and listen to the radio, and thus it's likely she watched some TV coverage of the American bicentennial. I remember that holiday, and media coverage was hard to escape.

One other event we can place with certainty on a July 4th occurred in 1968, when Brooks visited composer David Diamond at his Rochester home. Perhaps she attended an independence day gathering. According to the local newspaper, the weather in Rochester was partly sunny with a high in the low to mid 70s. It might have been a nice day to have an outdoor gathering. (Fans may recall Diamond from his memorable appearance in the 1998 documentary Louise Brooks Looking for Lulu.)

David Diamond in 1987

Speaking of the weather, among the miscellaneous items found in Brooks' papers was this reply from The Answer Man. According to its Wikipedia page, The Answer Man was a 15-minute radio program that aired from 1937 to 1956 on the Mutual Broadcasting System as well as in syndication. Questions submitted by listeners were answered on the air by Albert Mitchell, and those who sent questions not used in the program were given answers by mail.

Brooks had written a few brief notes on the reverse of this reply, including a couple of phone numbers. Given the context, I'll assume Brooks wrote to The Answer Man sometime prior to the show leaving the air in 1956, to which she received a reply by someone on staff with the initials of "jp". (I will also assume Brooks listened to the show while living in New York City. The Answer Man aired on WNBC  -- then operating on the 660 AM frequency -- in New York City from 1950 until the show's conclusion in 1956. The Answer Man aired twice a day from Monday through Friday: it ran as a 15-minute program, typically broadcast in the early afternoon at 1:30 PM and during the evening at 6:15 PM.)

As best I can figure, Brooks was in Peterboro, New Hampshire on July 4, 1923. That is where Denishawn had its summer camp. Seemingly, something of note happened in Peterboro on July 4, 1923 -- I say that because Brooks tried to recall what the weather was like that day. She even went so far as to send away for the information. (Time and again, Brooks tried to place her memories in the context of the weather. It was one way to help her set the scene in her earliest efforts at writing, especially when she was working on Naked on My Goat.) 

I'll finish with this July 4, 1982 newspaper clipping from McComb, Mississippi. Just a few months earlier, Brooks' Lulu in Hollywood was published. And in its wake reviews, articles, and columns like this one devoted to the actress appeared in newspapers just about everywhere. I can imagine Brooks feeling a sense of accomplishment and excitement that her book, something she had worked on for years and which meant a great deal, had been published and was garnering good reviews. Louise Brooks had long wished to be a writer....

 

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. 

Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks, to screen on July 30th in London

Pandora's Box, Louise Brooks' great screen triumph, will be shown at Wilton's Music Hall in London one month from today, on July 30th. This special screening will feature a live piano score by Christopher Eldred. More information about this event, including ticket availability, can be found HERE. 

Otherwise, here is what the venue says about the event: 

"Louise Brooks stars as the effortlessly seductive Lulu, a high class courtesan and dancer who brings destruction to the Berlin bourgeoisie with her turbulent love affairs, both male and female.   

Heavily censored in its day, G.W. Pabst‘s 1929 Weimar masterpiece nonetheless launched flapper icon Brooks to international stardom and Pandora’s Box still feels incredibly modern today, ranking amongst the Guardian’s top 100 films of all time. 

Experience this rare special screening with live piano score by Christopher Eldred."

More about Pandora's Box can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website on its Pandora's Box (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. 

Where else to find the Louise Brooks Society online

For the last number of months I've been rebuilding the Louise Brooks Society's social media presence. (Regular readers of this blog know why.) And so, here is a refresher of where else to find the LBS.

Besides its widely praised website at www.pandorasbox.com, the LBS also has this longstanding blog and a YouTube account as well as a more recently established Substack. Each are rich in content. 

All of the LBS's 20+ social media accounts are listed on the LBS website's Social Media page. The LBS has accounts on Threads, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.... As of today, the two primary social media accounts are its Bluesky and Instagram accounts. Each has drawn more than 1000 followers. 

On a more modest scale, there is also the reestablished Facebook group. 

I hope you'll take the time to explore one or more of these accounts. And please remember to like and subscribe. Everything helps.

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.

 

The books that Louise Brooks read and / or owned

For more than a few years now, I've been keeping lists of book that Louise Brooks either owned, read, or is know to have owned and / or read. Brooks never kept a list herself, so what I have compiled is gathered from a number of sources -- such as the archive at the George Eastman Museum (to whom Brooks gifted her film books) and the archive at Wichita State University (who have her personal books). Other books are referenced in both vintage and contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, in Brook's letters, in the Barry Paris biography, etc....

I have handled a few books over time, and currently own two. The one I have owned the longest is The Twenties in Vogue, by Carolyn Hall and a foreword by Gloria Swanson. (This first edition hardback was published in 1983 by Harmony Books. For those interested, inexpensive used copies can be found online, including amazon.) My copy includes a few handwritten annotation by Brooks. The half-title page has three annotations (as shown) including a notation mentioning that the book was a gift from the New Yorker editor William Shawn received on September 27, 1983. Below it, the actress signed her name, and added "Rochester, N.Y." (Shawn edited the essays in Lulu in Hollywood, and wrote that book's original foreword.)

Louise Brooks gave away many of her books, even valuable ones, and said so. There is, as well, a notation on the title page. "To Marge - all my love - Louise - September 28, 1983." This notation suggests Brooks gave the book away the day after she received it, and seemingly after recording that her picture (the Edward Steichen portrait) appears on page 89 and her name (in the index, now underlined) on page 158.

On page 104, Brooks also wrote the name of George Gershwin next to a portrait of the composer. And as well, on pages 134 and 135, in the chapter "New Books for Your Morning Room Table", Brooks checked off a number of titles. They were A Passage to India by E.M. Forester, Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley, An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, and Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh. I would guess these were books Louise had read. Not checked off were Fiesta by Ernest Hemingway, The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, Anna Livia Plurabelle by James Joyce, and Living by Henry Green. (I am pretty sure Brooks had read other Hemingway.)

I'll guess and say the "Marge" to whom the book is dedicated was the neighbor upstairs who is prominently mentioned in the Paris biography. They were close, and Marge helped the then elderly Brooks on a number of occasions. 

[For those wondering, I purchased this book on-line some years ago -- likely from someone who got it from Marge or her estate.] Here are a few scans from my copy.

 

The other book I own which once belonged to Louise Brooks is Best Stories to Tell Children by Sara Cone Bryant. It is inscribed on the first free end-paper "To Louise Brooks from Momma Xmas 1912". This book was given to Brooks when she was just 6 years old. It too is a first edition, having been first published in 1912 and priced at $1.25.) I can imagine little Louise reading the book, or having it read to her.

Out of curiosity, I did a little research on the author. Sara Cone Bryant was a once well known American lecturer, teacher, and writer. She wrote children's books in the early 20th century. She also supported and took a leadership role in women's suffrage. (That latter fact, I feel, is interesting in view of the fact that Brooks' mother was the person who likely found this book at a local Cherryvale store. I wonder if Louise's mother, Myra, knew of Sara Cone Bryant. To learn more about this author, check out her Wikipedia page. And to check out or even read the book itself, check out its Internet Archive record.

[For those wondering, this book was recently gifted to me by the Estate of Louise Brooks after it having sat in a Wichita, Kansas attic for decades.] Here are a few scans.

 

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. 

Louise Brooks Coming Attraction Slides page updated

The Louise Brooks Society page devoted to coming attraction slides has been updated. I've added a bit of new information, re-arranged a couple of slides, and added a link to a must view video, which I have also embedded below. 

What are coming attraction slides? The answer, simply put, is that they were the equivalent of today's previews or trailers. During the silent and early sound era era, glass slides were projected in theaters as a means of alerting the audience to a venue’s future offerings, or coming attraction. 

The Louise Brooks Society page devoted to coming attraction slides collects examples of slides for every one of the actress' American silent and sound films -- except It Pays to Advertise and Windy Riley Goes Hollywood. There are 38 slides shown. There are also scans of placeholder images for Evening Clothes (variant slide), as well as God's Gift to Women and When You're in Love. I don't know if there were slides created for any of Brooks' three European films. As of today, none have turned up.

If you are interested in coming attraction slides, the one site you simply MUST VISIT is Robert Byrne's Starts Thursday. It is an amazing site which contains an informative history of coming attraction slides, as well examples of more than 11,000+ beautifully scanned slides. One could spend days looking at the many different slides. And yes, these are a number of examples of Louise Brooks related slides, including some not pictured here. The history of glass slides was surveyed by Byrne in 2026 in an video talk presented by the San Francisco Film Preserve. It can be found on YouTube HERE.  Also well worth a visit is the Coming Attraction Lantern Slides (W. Ward Marsh collection) at the Cleveland Public Library. Though a smaller collection, it is a treasure trove of imagery collected by Marsh, a Cleveland newspaper critic who also happened to have reviewed a number of Brooks' film for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. And for a little more background, there is this 2014 article on SLATE. 

 

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. 

Celebrating the first day of Summer with Louise Brooks

It's the first day of summer! To help everyone enjoy the new season and warm temperatures, here are some images of Louise Brooks at the beach.

As a member of Denishawn, in 1923. Louise Brooks is second from right.
Martha Graham is center. This picture was likely taken in 
New England near the Atlantic coastline.

 

As a Paramount actress, in 1927. Louise Brooks is center, with Sally Blane (left)
and Nancy Phillips (right). Picture taken in So. California on the Pacific Coast.

Another in Southern California in 1927, with Sally Blaine.

A candid at the historic Cavalier Beach Club, Virginia Beach, VA in 1929.

In a scene from Prix de beaute, filmed in France in 1929.
I would guess this was taken on the Mediterranean.

At the beach in 1933, at the Atlantic Ocean.

In the last picture shown above, Louise Brooks is shown standing on an Atlantic Ocean beach while walking her dog, a terrier. The women she is talking with, also shown in profile to the left, is Lois Long (aka "Lipstick"), the well known New Yorker writer who was once married to the New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno. (When this picture was taken, Long and Arno were divorced.) It is interesting to note that as late as 1933, Brooks was still wearing her hair in a bob and rather short.

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. 

Rolled Stockings, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927

Rolled Stockings, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927. The film is a drama set among students at the fictional Colfax College. It was one of a number of similarly-themed films aimed toward the youth market of the 1920s. Besides Louise Brooks, who was then 20 years old, its cast included a few of Paramount's "junior stars" -- then up-and-comers Richard Arlen, James Hall, Nancy Phillips, and El Brendel. Brooks plays the love interest of two brothers, one a fop, the other an athlete. 

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

To add verisimilitude, Rolled Stockings was largely filmed on and around the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. It also includes footage of actual crew races between the University of California and the University of Washington.

A summer release, the film proved popular wherever it was shown. Harrison’s Reports, a film industry trade journal, described Rolled Stockings as "a light comedy drama of college life" that was "Pretty good entertainment for the hot weather." The Chicago Tribune named it one of the six best films of June, 1927. Not surprisingly, the film found a receptive audience in college towns across the country. The critic for the Ann Arbor Times News, for example, appreciatively stated "The three stars, Louise Brooks, James Hall and Richard Arlen are so thoroughly likable and the story so different from the usual line of college bunk, that Rolled Stockings proves to be a delightful bit of cinema entertainment."

Rolled Stockings was a cut above many of the other motion pictures about the younger generation. The Seattle Times praised the film, noting "Paramount’s ‘youth’ picture, which is now at the Coliseum Theatre, has everything -- a thrilling college crew race, some exciting automobile scenes, snappy comedy, a good love story and lots of pep." Regina Cannon of the New York American proclaimed, "This is another college story and it is realistic enough to be entertaining. . . . Louise Brooks is seen for the first time in a ‘straight’ role. This child is so smartly sophisticated that it has seldom been her lot to portray anything but baby vamps on the screen. She has an unusual personality which the camera catches and magnifies, dresses snappily and makes the most of her every movie moment.”

Critics were divided on Brooks, the star of the film. Some noted her "provoking presence" and "demure charm, with its tricky suggestion of mild sophistication." The Los Angeles Examiner wrote, "Louise Brooks is utterly adorable as Carol Fleming. She is exactly the type college boys swoon over. She displays a sincerity in her work that has been absent from her previous roles. Though this particular part offers little opportunity to show any great acting, she measures up splendidly in the few scenes that border on the emotional." Across town, the Los Angeles Daily Illustrated News stated "Louise Brooks, judging by this film, is destined to go a long way. She has some of Colleen Moore's qualities with a dash of Florence Vidor thrown in, and a lot of her own distinctive personality."

The New York Daily Mirror countered, stating "Louise Brooks looks remarkably like Clara Bow, though she lacks the famed pep of our national flapper." The Washington Times went even further, "The leading role is borne by Louise Brooks and the part could have been better cast. Miss Brooks has the bad habit of stalking through her screen parts like an automaton and her face is devoid of emotion under all circumstances." In a piece titled "Louise Brooks Shows Acting Ability in Rivoli Feature," Mark K. Bowman found middle ground in the Portland Oregonian, "In the past Miss Brooks has been accused of strutting instead of acting, but it is apparent in this latest picture that she is endeavoring to do less posing, which is a promising move."

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

-- The film was based on a topical story, "Sheiks and Sheibas," by Frederica Sagor. Along with raccoon coats, flagpole sitters, goldfish swallowers, hip flasks, and ankle watches, rolled stockings worn by women were one of the many fads of the Jazz Age.

-- Rolled Stockings was first called Sheiks and Sheibas, but the title was changed because it conflicted with a First National property. At different times, different trade journals reported that Monty Brice and then Frank Strayer would direct the film, with Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Sterling Holloway among the cast.

-- Sally Blane, who had an uncredited part in Rolled Stockings, was born Elizabeth Jane Young and was the sister of actress Loretta Young.

-- Grover Jones, a gag man, doubled as director while the Rolled Stockings  company was on location in Berkeley, California. Director Richard Rosson was summoned to Hollywood by the death of his mother and Jones took the microphone and directed shots of the California-Washington boat race.

-- Years later, in an interview, Brooks said director Richard Rosson didn't want to direct the film, and in fact, didn't even want to be a director. "He'd been Allan Dwan's assistant, and it was an assistant that he wanted to be. During [this picture] he sat sweating, with a trembling script. There wasn't enough Bromo-Seltzer to float him out of his chair."

More about the film can be found on the recently updated Louise Brooks Society website 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.   

A Visual Mystery in Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks - can you help?

The more often you watch a particular film, the more things you notice which you might not have taken note of previously... the way light might come into a window, the way a character walks, the way a room is dressed. 

Over the years, I have likely watched Pandora's Box (1929) some twenty times, or more. I don't really know how many times I have viewed the film, but I always try to watch it with fresh eyes. It wasn't until my twelfth viewing, some years ago, that I really noticed the jazz combo performing during the wedding reception scene. That got me to wondering who they were, until I spotted the name of the group on their drum-kit. They were Sid Kay's Fellows, a real jazz combo from the time. I went into excited research mode, and ended up writing a couple of blog posts on the group. The first of them, from April 2012, is Music in Pandora's Box: Sid Kay's Fellows. A follow up post from October of that same year is More on Sid Kay's Fellows. Check 'em out.

Another thing I noticed in the film and began to wonder about is the wood relief sculpture of a praying man hanging on the wall of Lulu's room - the same room where her husband is killed. I wondered who made it? Was it just a piece of random set dressing (unlikely, as Pabst was a meticulous film maker), or was it a piece of art from the time? Here are a few screen grabs depicting the art in question.

 

 

 

I couldn't find any references to the sculpture in the literature about the film. I did some internet searches, and looked at some art books, and nearly gave up until I came across the work of a German expressionist artist and writer named Ernest Barlach. According to his Wikipedia entry, his "literary and artistic work would fall between the categories of twentieth-century Realism and Expressionism" The same could be said for G.W. Pabst.

I don't know that the piece in Pandora's Box is by Barlach, but it sure does look like his work. I also did a Google search under the name "Ernst Barlach" and filtered the results for images. I am leaning in his direction. Are there any art historians or Ernst Barlach experts who could weigh in on this mystery? Is there a catalog raisonne of his work?

... And speaking of artwork seen in Pandora's Box, I wonder what ever happened to this painting of Brooks as a harlequin? Does anyone know? Does anyone know who painted it? This painting looks like something that was commissioned for the film, whereas the praying man figure looks like a pre-existing work of art.

 

More about Pandora's Box can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website on its Pandora's Box (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.