An account of Louise Brooks 1940s Wichita interlude

This post is the third in a series highlighting newly available material uncovered as more issues of the various Wichita newspapers have come online. As mentioned, I have been systematically plowing through them, gleaming bits of new information, some of which I have been adding to my extensive three part chronology on the Louise Brooks Society website beginning at Louise Brooks: Day by Day 1906-1939. This material focuses on the early 1940s, when Louise Brooks returned to Wichita after giving up o Hollywood. For more on this period in Brooks' life, see Louise Brooks: Day by Day 1940-1985.

In early 1940, Louise Brooks was a resident of Los Angeles. She was living in a modest apartment, and trying to eek out a living. She and her business partner Barrett O'Shea ran a dance studio, which at best was only moderately successful. She and O'Shea also did occasional exhibition dancing, as when on April 20 they danced at the Arrowhead Spring Hotel in nearby San Bernadino. Things came crashing down when in June Los Angeles newspapers reported that Brooks and other "Hollywood folk" had been the victim of a con-man / swindler. Brooks lost $2,000, then a considerable amount of money.

With little seemingly to keep her (Brooks' acting career had come to a halt), the one time silent film actress left Hollywood and returned home to Wichita in August. By September, the Wichita papers were carrying stories about the Brooks new career, as a dancer and dance instructor. 

To Brooks, who had toured the United States as a Denishawn dancer and had been celebrated as an actress and screen beauty around the world, Wichita must have seemed a comedown. But still, she carried on. She also had to earn a living. 

The Wichita newspapers reported that Brooks and a new partner, Hal McCoy, had opened a dance studio. They also reported on their various engagements. On September 23, 1940, Brooks and Hal McCoy dance at the Crestview Country Club in Wichita, Kansas during a program sponsored by the College Hill Business association. On October 21, Brooks and Hal McCoy dance at the Young Republican meeting at the state's Central Republican headquarters. Hundreds turned out according to local press reports. The event celebrated National Young Voters for Wilkie Day, which was being observed throughout the nation. A broadcast speech by Wendell Wilkie was heard. On October 27, the Wichita Eagle reports that Brooks was enlisted by the Wichita Country Club to instruct locals on new dances including the Conga and Rumba, with the first such instruction taking place October 29.

On November 7, local newspapers report that Brooks is among the local talent participating in a benefit musical for crippled children for Wesley Hospital. On November 14 (her 34th birthday), Brooks speaks about and demonstrates new dances (the tango, rhumba, conga, etc...) at the Wichita Little Theater as part of its workshop program. And on November 24, a classified advertisement for Brooks' self-published booklet, The Fundamental of Good Ballroom Dancing, begins running in the Wichita Eagle. The ad runs nearly every day for a month.

All this activity likely didn't add up to much. We can't be sure how many dance engagements the Brooks - McCoy team had, but it wasn't likely very many. In January of 1941, Brooks ran an advertisement for what today may be called a life coach. The advertisement in the Wichita Eagle promotes private Tuesday morning classes in which Brooks offers "a rare opportunity to reap the benefits of her career among the most fascinating women of the theatre, screen, and society. Learn the way to grace and dominant sureness...." The depression was still on, and Brooks, likely in need of money, was trading on her onetime fame.

Brooks continued on continuing on. The second world war had begun in Europe. On March 28, Brooks participates in a benefit for Greek war relief at the Miller theater in Wichita. Brooks originated a comedy jitterbug number performed by locals Jim Kefner and Jack Walker. Advertisements for the event credit the Louise Brooks Dancing School. And on April 29, Brooks demonstrated ballroom and South American dances at Jubilesta, a fundraiser for the local P.T.A. and student council of the Wichita high school East. According to press reports, Brooks directed a student conga chain. Funds raised by the event went toward the purchase of a movie screen for the school.

For Brooks, the sky fell in again on May 21, 1941. According to Wichita press reports, Brooks was involved in an automobile accident when the car she is traveling in overturned after encountering an oil slick on South Hillside, just outside Wichita city limits. The car was badly damaged, and Brooks was treated at St. Francis Hospital. "Hospital attendants said that she suffered a three -inch laceration on the scalp and numerous bruises. Miss Brooks said attending physicians shaved a portion of her head to stitch the wound. 'I hate to lose my hair worse than to suffer the hurts,' Miss Brooks said." 

Reporting by then old news in her nationally syndicated gossip column, Dorothy Kilgallen wrote in June: "Louise Brooks, the silent screen star, suffered severe burns recently. Had all her hair singed off." In November, Kilgallen again gave a shout-out to Brooks, writing the actress was "stranded in Wichita, Kan. and s-o-s-ing friends for any kind of job."

Evidently, Brooks attempt to establish a career as a dancer & dance instructor in Wichita had fizzled. In August of 1942, Brooks was hired as a sales girl at Garfields, a department store in Wichita. Brooks works the accessories counter. By the middle of September, Brooks employment at Garfields had come to an end. That Fall, there was also a press report that Brooks helped students at Wichita University stage a skit for their forthcoming Spring Celebration. Brooks was once again at loose ends. 

In January of 1943, wealthy New York investment banker Albert Archer calls Brooks in Wichita, and she asks him to wire her the money to get to New York. Some four days later, Brooks departs Wichita by train, with a stop in Chicago. On January 15, she arrived in New York City. Her Wichita interlude had come to an end.