New Find 1 - Mention of Louise Brooks in Charlie Chaplin's FBI file

There is still a lot of interesting Louise Brooks & silent film material yet to discover. This post is the first in an ongoing series highlighting some of the newly found material I have just recently come across while stuck at home due to the coronavirus. With time on my hands, I have turned to picking through some of the many online databases and archives - some of which are newly accessible (due to the physical restrictions put on researchers because of the coronavirus), and some of which I am returning to in order to more thoroughly explore their holdings. As I am always finding out, it pays to not only have more than one set of key words to search under, but to look in the most unlikely places. You never know what you will find. Be sure and follow this blog for more discoveries in the coming weeks. 

As is known, Louise Brooks and Charlie Chaplin had an affair in the summer of 1925. It took place around the time Chaplin was visiting New York City for the premiere of The Gold Rush. Chaplin was married at the time, and was twice Brooks' age. (He was 36 years old, and she was just 18.) The affair was brief, and lasted just a couple-three months. Nevertheless, newspapers of the time took notice, and tongues wagged, if only in an oblique manner. Below is four panel comic strip which alludes to the affair between the then little known showgirl and international film star. It appeared in a NYC newspaper in the Fall of 1925, around the time Brooks' own "draped nudes scandal" was unfolding after she posed in a semi-nude state for the photographer, John DiMirjian.

Gossip made the news. The feature photo shown below, which more directly references their affair, was syndicated across the country. (Despite Chaplin's denials, in later years he recalled his affair with Brooks, vividly describing Brooks' breasts as being like "little pears.")

As is also known, Chaplin liked younger women. His brief affair with Louise Brooks - which had taken place some 18 years earlier - wasn't forgotten when the Federal Bureau of Investigation was interviewing individuals in 1943 as word was beginning to break about his affair with aspiring actress Joan Berry. (Chaplin was 52 years old, and Berry was 22 years old at the time.) A three page section from a FBI file of the time includes a surprising mention of Brooks - with her name highlighted in green.

The passage from the above document which references Brooks reads: "With reference to the individual mentioned in VON ULM's book as 'MAISIE" xxxxxxxx advised he thought it was Louise Brooks. He said she was very young at the time and later married EDDIE SOUTHERLAND (sic), who is a Director in pictures at the present time." Does anyone have an informed guess as to whom the person "advising" the FBI might be? Whoever it is, they are likely wrong about conflating Maisie with Brooks.

I have a copy of Gerith von Ulm's 1940 book, Charlie Chaplin: The Birth of Tragedy, and read the passage which mention "Maisie." First of all, the book isn't very good, and I don't think Maisie is Brooks, but rather Marion Davies (if I were to guess). Von Ulm states in a footnote regarding Maisie, "This is not her name, but because this star has retired into private life, she enjoys a 'legal right to privacy' which is not the writer's wish to invade." For those wishing to check things out, the relevant passages about "Maisie" (which is a garbled almost-anagram of Marion Davies) begin at the bottom of page 203 of Von Ulm's book.

Back to the FBI document, and my shock at having come across Brooks' name in Chaplin's FBI file: I find it surprising that Louise Brooks was mentioned at all in 1943, as she was long forgotten and living in near obscurity at the time. Brooks had been out of films since 1938, and had returned home to Wichita, Kansas in 1940, where she lived in her parents house until January of 1943, when she relocated to New York City in the hopes of finding work in radio. Compared to her heyday in the late 1920's, Brooks was rarely ever mentioned in the press anymore. (I have come across only about a half-dozen mentions of Brooks in 1943, with most of those coming from columnist Dorothy Kilgallen.) The fact that she was mentioned in this FBI document leads me to believe that whoever it was that mentioned her must have known her and known of her affair with Chaplin. Does anyone have an informed guess as to whom the person "advising" the FBI might be? Inquiring minds want to know.