The Unlikely Louise Brooks, number 2 in an occasional series

This post is the second in an occasional series focusing on unusual finds, unusual material, and unusual connections all related to Louise Brooks - even if only tangentially. I run across these sorts of things regularly... and this a way to share them with my few readers. My first post in this series can be found HERE.

"Remarkable Remarks" was published in Billboard magazine in September, 1925. It featured brief quotes from celebrated Broadway personalities of the time. Included among them in this selection is relative newcomer Louise Brooks, at the beginning of her career as a film actress! (Brooks had recently left the Ziegfeld Follies and was now entering films; she had already completed work on The Street of Forgotten Men - in an uncredited bit part, and was now starting work on The American Venus - her first role with a on-screen credit.)

Louise Brooks is quoted as saying, "True art instincts lead one up the right alley." To me, alley, with its lesser connotations, is a fascinating word choice. Had Brooks used the word boulevard, that would suggest "true art instincts," or pure, or beautiful, or righteous intentions would lead to unqualified success, since boulevards connote greatness of grandeur. But, Brooks said "alley," which suggests a somewhat lesser destination -- a pessimistic outlook, as in now matter how good or true you are, you will likely end up in a mere alley. Brooks' quote reminds me of something Oscar Wilde once said, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

Louise Brooks is in interesting company.

Leo Carillo was an American actor, vaudevillian, political cartoonist, and conservationist. He was best known for playing Pancho in the television series The Cisco Kid (1950–1956) and in several films.  Carrillo worked as a newspaper cartoonist for the San Francisco Examiner, then turned to acting on Broadway. 

Berta Donn was a stage and film actress whose first credits date back to the 1910s.

George Arliss (born 1868) was an English actor, author, playwright, and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award – which he won for his performance as Victorian-era British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli in Disraeli (1929) – as well as the earliest-born actor to win the honour. He specialized in successful biopics, such as Disraeli, Voltaire (1933), and Cardinal Richelieu (1935), as well as light comedies, which included The Millionaire (1931) and A Successful Calamity (1932).

Arthur Hopkins was a well-known Broadway theater director and producer in the early twentieth century. Between 1912 and 1948, he produced and staged more than 80 plays – an average of more than two per year – occasionally writing and directing as well. His repertoire included plays by playwrights in American Expressionist theater, including Elmer Rice, Sophie Treadwell, and Eugene O'Neill.

This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2022. Further use prohibited.

 

Louise Brooks, circa 1925