Louise Brooks and Bruz Fletcher

This past week, I was working on a page about Louise Brooks and Bruz Fletcher for the Louise Brooks Society website. In case you don't know his name, and I suspect most won't, Fletcher was a nightclub entertainer in the 1930s. He was also gay. I have written about Bruz Fletcher in the past, both on examiner.com in 2010 and here on the LBS blog. He is a fascinating figure.

Brooks plays only a small role in Fletcher's story, though their connection goes beyond social encounters or a few common acquaintances. Brooks and Fletcher once shared a bill in 1935, when Brooks was one-half of the dance team of Brooks and Dario, and Fletcher was a singer of "Super Sophisticated Songs" of his own composition. The two also encountered each other socially, at least once. In 1936, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported Brooks attended a Hollywood costume party at the home a local socialite at which Fletcher was also reported to have been present. And in 1937 and 1938, Brooks went to see Fletcher perform at least five times at the Club Bali in Los Angeles. She may have, and probably did see him other times as well, but on these five occasions, the Los Angeles Times reported her to be among those in the crowd at this small, trendy nightclub.

All this is prelude to saying.... In researching and writing my webpage, I came across a number of clippings which I would have liked to include as illustrations except that they took me a little too far off topic. And so, I thought to include them here, as adjunct documentation.

This piece is a detailed summation of Fletcher's life published at the time of his death.

 

 

Fletcher was at best a "minor celebrity," and even though he got his name mentioned in gossip and society columns hundreds of times,  the only feature article I came across which discusses him (and his partner Casey Roberts, a three time Academy Award nominee) was a 1929 piece in Picture-Play Magazine which focused on new, young talent in Hollywood. Here is page two of Alice M. Williamson's two-page article "Hollywood's Fourth Dimension." (Fletcher is discussed on both pages, but I included page two here because it pictures Fletcher and his partner! To read a larger scan of the entire article, click on the link at the bottom of my LBS webpage.)

As I mention on my LBS page, Fletcher enjoyed a remarkable, near five year run at the Club Bali in Hollywood. Originally booked for just two weeks in 1935, he proved so popular that he ran until early 1940. In 1938, Los Angeles Times columnist Hedda Hopper wrote that the entertainer had the longest local nightclub run that anyone could remember -- and that was two years before Fletcher's run ended.

 

Of course, with such a long run, Fletcher got his name in the local papers hundreds of times.  Here are a couple of obscure examples. The first is a bit from a student newspaper, the UCLA Daily Bruin. And the second, by Morton Thompson, appeared in the Hollywood Citizen News. The latter is revealing, if I understand the subtext.

Besides being a singer / songwriter and musical accompanist, Fletcher was also an author. He penned two published novels and two staged plays one of which was based on the life of Jeanne Eagels). I came across a few reviews of Fletcher's books and plays (he received both good and bad reviews), as well these two other inconsequential listings, which as a former bookseller and book reviewer, I find interesting. The first is from Variety and dates from 1932. It is a list of recommended or suggested reading from local Hollywood bookstores, and it includes one of Fletcher's novels. As does the second listing, which was published in Hollywood Filmograph, and notes that another of Fletcher's novels would make a good movie.

I will end this blog by posting a screenshot I captured from a documentary on Ernest Hemingway (a favorite writer). The documentary focused on Hemingway's life in Florida and Cuba, and it included some scenes taken within the writer's one-time Cuban home (now a museum). I love these sort of scenes, especially if they include shots of the subject's bookshelves or record collection. This Hemingway documentary did, and so I stopped the scene and took a look. And guess what I found, a record set of Bruz Fletcher's 78rpm recordings -- the second set from the right.

Speaking of making a good movie, if anyone from Netflix or HBO Max is reading these words, let me suggest you turn Fletcher's life into a mini series. It has a little bit of everything....

 

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