A cinephilac blog about an actress, silent film, and the Jazz Age, with occasional posts about related books, music, art, and history written by Thomas Gladysz. Visit the Louise Brooks Society™ at www.pandorasbox.com
The Winter Gift, a play written by Tim Davies and directed by Nerys Rees about the life of
Louise Brooks, is being staged at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. The play runs August 22 through August 27. Tickets and a little more information HERE.
"Berlin, 1928 – a fun-loving
young American actress and a straight-laced German film director come
together to make a classic of the silent screen, Pandora’s Box. New
York, 1955 – a solitary, alcoholic, penniless and forgotten idol of the
silent screen languishes in a slum tenement. She expects visits only
from the rent collector. One day, there is a knock at the door – someone
has found Louise Brooks, and it isn't the rent collector. The Winter
Gift uses original sources to tell the story of Louise Brooks, GW Pabst,
Pandora’s Box... and what happened afterwards."
Bill Berkson, acclaimed poet and and friend to the Louise Brooks Society, passed away early today (June 16th). Berkson was a writer, art critic and curator of considerable accomplishment. He was also a big fan of Louise Brooks.
I had the pleasure and the honor of having put on an event with Berkson some years ago, as well as visiting Bill at his book and art filled San Francisco apartment, where we talked about our favorite silent film star and the time that he and his good friend, the poet Frank O'Hara, attended a 1961 screening of Prix de Beaute in New York City. Afterwords, both Berkson and O'Hara wrote poems inspired by the actress.
O’Hara wrote “F.Y.I. (Prix de Beaute),” which references the actress.
It was first published in a small literary journal. And, it was later collected in The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, to which Berkson wrote the footnote and explained its inspiration.
Berkson ending up writing
“Bubbles,” which was based on the essays Brooks was publishing in film journals in the 1960s. “Bubbles” was likewise
published in a small press magazine and later collected in book form in Lush Life (1984).
In 1997, Berkson allowed me to print the poem as a broadside. It was
one of a small series of poems inspired by / or in homage to the actress
which I’ve desktop published in small autographed editions. A scan of the broadside – which depicts an image of the actress
floating beneath the text of the poem – is shown here.
Here is a link to a piece I wrote about Berkson for the San Francisco Chronicle website back in 2011.
The following is a Italian announcement (here Google translated) from Sergio Bonelli Editore about a Louise Brooks-related exhibit and publication.
"Hollywoodland" is the title of the graphic novel in which the designer Roberto Baldazzini is currently working, a story, scripted by Michele Masiero, whose tables in the works will be part of an exhibition in Vignola, near Modena.
From May 15 to 25 , in the spaces of Salotto di Vignola Muratori (Via Selmi 2), in the province of Modena, you can visit " Hollywoodland ", exhibition dedicated to the project on which Roberto Baldazzini is engaged in this period. The artist is working for our publishing house, displaying a graphic novel set in the Hollywood of the 20s, written by Michele Masiero . Of the story, you can admire inked plates, pencils, studies and pages of script, a tantalizing preview of what will soon be on sale ( click here to visit the Facebook album of the author, devoted to the work in progress of the volume).
The exhibition opening will take place in the presence of the same Baldazzini, Saturday, May 14 , at 17:30 . Later, you can visit the exhibition on Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 12:30 and from 15:30 to 19:00. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday opening will be from 16:30 to 19:00. For information: www.baldazzini.it/hollywoodland/
Sunday, May 22 , in addition, Roberto Baldazzini will be playing the central role " Draw comics ", conducted by Stefano Ascari, which will be held at 21:00 , at the Teatro di Vignola Cantelli (Via Cantelli), an opportunity to meet the ' author and explore its long and diverse career in the drawn image world.
This is the fifth in a series of odd, unusual, and entertaining Louise
Brooks related videos from Vimeo. Here is "Hopeless," the song is by Evangelista and the video is by Stuart Pound. I like it!
According to its page, "The starting point for "Hopeless" is a song of the same title, recorded
by the group "Evangelista". The song is about an impossible love for
Louise Brooks, impossible because she died in 1984. I liked its
energy and humour. I downloaded a section from G.W.Pabst's film
Pandora's Box (1929), together with a number of publicity shots of the
star, and re-worked them to accompany the song."
On May 18th, a new graphic novel about Louise Brooks will be published in France. I haven't yet received a copy, but expect to soon. Nevertheless, from what I've seen, it looks great!
The book, titled Louise, le venin du scorpion, features a scénario by Chantal Van den Heuvel and art by Joël Alessandra. Copies are available for purchase through the publisher's webpage, on amazon.fr, and elsewhere.
The book is described as a "biography of an icon of the Roaring Twenties." This bit of poignant prose serves as a preface:
Louise,
Tu étais la beauté, l'esprit, la grâce incarnés. Et ton jeu était sublime. Pourtant, un seul film, Loulou, aura marqué ta carrière. Hollywood, « l'inhumaine usine à films », t'a très vite blacklistée. Parce que tu en refusais les règles ? Sans doutes... Mais aussi, tu disais de toi-même : « Je suis le poignard de ma propre plaie ».
Pourquoi, Louise ?
And here, courtesy of the the publisher's webpage, are a few pages from this new work. I encourage everyone to order a copy today!
Check this blog in two days for another BIG Louise Brooks graphic novel announcement!
This is the fourth in a series of odd, unusual, and entertaining Louise
Brooks related videos from Vimeo. Here is "Nitrate Dreams," from Colette Saint Yves.
This is the third in a series of odd, unusual, and entertaining Louise
Brooks related videos from Vimeo. Here is "Images of Louise Brooks - Sonchai Körner." According to the Vimeo page, "Sonchai Körner explores the demons of her past which serve as a source
of inspiration for her work with Sven Mundt, telling of the self-doubt
which comes from feeling that her talents are not recognized and the
self-hate triggered by her inability to believe herself good enough."
This is the second in a series of odd, unusual, and entertaining Louise
Brooks related videos from Vimeo. Here is "Kingfishers Catch Fire - Pandora." According to its page, this video for "Pandora" by the London-based band Kingfishers Catch Fire is taken from their "Ballerina EP".
FREE DOWNLOAD here: bit.ly/MW2vjF
How did it come to pass? Your honesty ruined us.
You only told me of that boy 'cause you know I am easily hurt.
So how can I go on pretending you're just someone I know?
And you've surely realised
That with every boy you fuck, to me the more beautiful you are.
Boy, this sucks. I should've known from the start.
This was only meant to be casual, we agreed.
You say you went home with that boy because you're in love with me.
So how can I go on pretending you're just someone I know?
And you've surely realised
That with every boy you fuck, to me the more beautiful you are.
Boy, this sucks - our having not seen it from the start.
Take my hand, a second take from the top.
We made our plans before we realised what this was.
And you've surely realised
That with every boy you fuck, to me the more beautiful you are.
Boy, this sucks - our having not seen it from the start.
Take my hand, a second take from the top.
We made our plans before we realised what this was,
That we're in love, Pandora.
Video: Excerpts from Pandora's Box by G.W.Pabst (1929). More info at:
This is the first in a series of odd, unusual, and entertaining Louise Brooks related videos from Vimeo. Here is "I’m a part of this movie, but it doesn’t move me" from Roxane Billamboz.
Attention fans of Louise Brooks and fans of contemporary music: Here is an album taster from the Louise Rutkowski recording Diary of a Lost Girl (released February 21, 2014). The artist is an acknowledged fan of the actress.
Here is another musical video tribute to Louise Brooks, titled "Louise Brooks: Beauty in the Breakdown." I am not sure who the artist is.
The description read:Uploaded on Apr 11, 2009
Louise
Brooks. Brooksie. Lulu. A tribute to the actress, icon, writer,
timeless beauty, free spirit, dancer, ahead of her time, and all around
fabulous Louise, with clips from Pandora's Box, Diary of a Lost Girl and
the documentary Looking for Lulu.
Here is something rather nifty, a photo composition entitled "Lulu in Hollywood." It is by Hal Wilson.
Wilson stated, "I guess you could say I make “Photo
Compositions”. In the wee hours of the morning I'll be clipping images
from vintage pictures (primarily from the Library of Congress). I take
the parts that I like and move them around. A flapper-girl happily
sitting in a treehouse-speakeasy might find herself transported into an
oyster boat off Virginia. Poor dear.
I became intrigued with Louise Brooks while
researching techniques of classic Hollywood photography. From all the
movie stars in the heavens (Garbo, Gable, Bogart or Bacall) it is Louise
Brooks who appears on the front cover of John Kobal's Hollywood Glamour Portraits. I have a little crush on Lulu."
How many of the individuals in the above composition can you name?
I don't understand the point of it all . . . but here ya go, another faux interview: "Louise Brooks Silent Film Star on 3min Late Night talk Show." Published on March 24, 2016, and featuring Sarah Quiroz and North Roberts, who "welcomes dead silent film era star Louise Brooks to the studio."
Tone poem: from 2013, "Louise Brooks et l'amour" by Roland Jaccard, a French author responsible for the first ever book about the actress, Louise Brooks: Portrait of an Anti-Star.
Another novel which features the iconic image of a dreaming Louise Brooks sitting in a chair with books scattered on the floor about her is William Boyd's The New Confessions. First published in 1987, the edition pictured here was issued by Penguin in the UK in 2010.
According to the publisher, "In this extraordinary novel, William Boyd presents the autobiography of
John James Todd, whose uncanny and exhilarating life as one of the most
unappreciated geniuses of the twentieth century is equal parts Laurence
Stern, Charles Dickens, Robertson Davies, and Saul Bellow, and a hundred
percent William Boyd.
From his birth in 1899, Todd was doomed.
Emerging from his angst-filled childhood, he rushes into the throes of
the twentieth century on the Western Front during the Great War, and
quickly changes his role on the battlefield from cannon fodder to
cameraman. When he becomes a prisoner of war, he discovers Rousseau's Confessions,
and dedicates his life to bringing the memoir to the silver screen.
Plagued by bad luck and blind ambition, Todd becomes a celebrated London
upstart, a Weimar luminary, and finally a disgruntled director of
cowboy movies and the eleventh member of the Hollywood Ten. Ambitious
and entertaining, Boyd has invented a most irresistible hero."
I haven't yet read this book, but according to a friend as well as various reviewers, a Louise Brooks-like character also figures in the story. Have you read this book?
William Boyd is the author of ten novels, including A Good Man in
Africa, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An
Ice-Cream War, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and shortlisted
for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach, winner of the James Tait Black
Memorial Prize; Any Human Heart, winner of the Prix Jean Monnet; and
Restless, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year.
Brooks’ appearance on the cover of this popular
2003 edition of The Invention of Morel was inspired
by this webpage, which dates to the late 1990s.
Before
publication, the publisher contacted the
LBS regarding the actress and
the use of an image.
After publication, a stream of articles noting
the connection between the novel and
the film star began to
appear.
Back in 1997 or so, I ran across a tantalizing review of Adolfo Bioy Casares’ memoirs, Memorias: Infancia, adolescencia y como se hace un escrito. In a short write-up,
a scholar mentioned the Argentine author’s affection for Louise Brooks.
This excited me, as I had been aware of Bioy Casares and his work
through his friendship with Jorge Luis Borges, a favorite author. Always
on the look-out for references to Brooks, my favorite film star, I set
to find out more; I couldn’t imagine how these two interests could be
linked.
What I found, remarkably, is that Louise Brooks stands at the heart
of one of the most important works of 20th century literature. The Invention of Morel
is not only an oblique homage to the actress, a small town girl, but also a means to
preserve, in writing, the memory of a writer’s desire for an elusive
star.
Today, Adolpho Bioy Casares
(1914 – 1999) is considered one of the great authors of the 20th
century. In fact, he is thought by some to be a near equal of his great
friend and sometime collaborator Jorge Luis Borges. Bioy Casares authored short stories as well as novels, including A Plan for Escape (1945), The Dream of Heroes (1954), Diary of the War of the Pig (1969), and Asleep in the Sun (1978), each of which have been translated and published in English. Bioy Casares also collaborated with Borges on the seminal Anthology of Fantastic Literature,
as well as a series of satirical sketches and detective stories written
under the pseudonym H. Bustos Domecq. Late in his career, Bioy won
several important awards including the Gran Premio de Honor of SADE
(awarded in 1975 by the Argentine Society of Writers), the French Legion
of Honor (awarded in 1981), and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (awarded
in 1991).
Bioy Casares is best known for his 1940 novella, La invención de Morel (The Invention of Morel).
It has been described variously, as both a stoic love story and a
metaphysical mystery. It tells of a man who, evading justice, escapes to
a mysterious island. A group of travelers arrive, and the fugitive’s
fear of being discovered means he must keep his distance from one of the
travelers, a woman named Faustine, with whom he falls in love. The
fugitive desires to tell her his feelings, but an anomalous phenomenon
makes their meeting impossible. Struggling to understand why everything
seems to repeat, the fugitive realizes that the people he sees on the
island are nothing more than recordings made with a special machine
invented by a scientific genius named Morel; this machine is able to
project not only three-dimensional images, but also voices and scents,
making everything indistinguishable from reality. In fact, the fugitive
is the only real person on the island.
The Invention of Morel has been adopted by reading groups
and in college classrooms.
One recent review noted, “Though it was published in 1940, the book’s
continuing relevance was recently proven when it was featured on Lost — a cameo many viewers perceive as a key to that TV show’s plot. Just know that Morel
is a poetic evocation of the experience of love, an inquiry into how we
know one another, and a still-relevant examination of how technology
has changed our relationship with reality.”
The Invention of Morel mixes realism and metaphysical fantasy
with elements of science fiction and the Gothic to create what is widely
considered the first work of “magical realism.” It prefigured the boom
in Latin American literature, and proved to be Bioy Casares’
breakthrough effort when it won the First Municipal Prize for Literature
of the City of Buenos Aires in 1941. Despite it being his seventh book,
Bioy Casares considered The Invention of Morel to mark the beginning of his career as a writer.
Borges wrote a prologue to the The Invention of Morel in which he placed the book alongside Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Franz Kafka’s The Trial
as examples of works with “admirable plots.” Borges also termed it a
work of “reasoned imagination,” linking it to the philosophical romances
of H. G. Wells, notably through its title, which alludes to The Island of Doctor Moreau.
In his prologue, Borges also stated “I have discussed with the author
the details of his plot; I have reread it; it seems to me neither
imprecise nor hyperbolic to classify it as perfect.” The Mexican Nobel
Prize winning poet Octavio Paz echoed Borges’ assessment, “The Invention of Morel
may be described, without exaggeration, as a perfect novel.” Other well
known Latin American writers also expressed their admiration for the
book, among them the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García
Márquez, the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, the Cuban writer Alejo
Carpentier, and Uruguayan novelist Juan Carlos Onetti.
The first edition of La invención de Morel featured cover art
and interior illustrations by Norah Borges de Torre, sister of Jorge.
Call me crazy, but I think it significant that Faustine is depicted with
short bobbed hair not unlike the trademark style worn by Louise Brooks.
In
his memoirs, Bioy Casares wrote of his disillusionment over the decline
of the screen career of one of his favorite actresses, Louise Brooks.
After Memorias was published, the book and the passage on Brooks was called to the attention the Argentinian magazine Film.
In their July, 1995 issue, Fernando Martin Peña and Sergio Wolf
published an interview with Bioy Casares in which he expanded upon some
of the points he made in his memoirs. What follows is an excerpt (in
translation) from the 1995 interview.
QUESTION: You said that the inspiration for La invención de Morel came to you, at least partially, from the vanishing of Louise Brooks from the movies. What happened with you and Louise Brooks?
ADOLFO BIOY CASARES: I was deeply
in love with her. I didn’t have any luck, because she disappeared
quickly. She went to Europe, she made a film with Pabst, and then I
didn’t like her so much as when she was in Hollywood. And then, she
vanished too early from the movies.
QUESTION: Could she be seen as one of the characters in La invención de Morel?
ADOLFO BIOY CASARES: Yes, she would be Faustine.
QUESTION: It’s funny, because everybody falls in love with Louise Brooks through her German films.
ADOLFO BIOY CASARES: Well, I didn’t.
Bioy Casares loved film, and once wrote, “I want to wait for the end
of the world on the seat of a movie theater.” Bioy Casares also loved
the stars of his youth, and named names. In the above mentioned
interview, Bioy Casares goes on to say that when he was young he went to
the movies all the time, and also had a liking for Marion Davies and
Anna May Wong. He also liked Garbo, though only in the light-hearted Ninotchka. Bioy Casares didn’t care for horror films, though he mentions in the interview that Borges was a big fan of The Bride of Frankenstein.
I wonder if Bioy Casares would have liked that film more had director
James Whale cast Brooks, his first choice, in the role of the bride,
instead of Elsa Lanchester.
Here is the passage from Bioy Casares memoirs in which he discusses Brooks and his love of early film.
Progresivamente me aficioné a las
películas, me convertí en espectador asiduo y ahora pienso que la sala
de un cinematógrafo es el lugar que yo elegiría para esperar el fin del
mundo.
Me enamoré, simultánea o sucesivamente,
de las actrices de cine Louise Brooks, Marie Prévost, Dorothy Mackay,
Marion Davis, Evelyn Brent y Anna May Wong.
De estos amores imposibles, el que tuve
por Louise Brooks fue el más v ivo, el mas desdichado. ¡Me disgustaba
tanto creer que nunca la conoscería! Peor aún, que nunca volvería a
verla. Esto, precisamente, fue lo que sucedió. Despuesde tres o cuatros
películas, en que la vi embeselado, Louise Brooks desapareció de las
pantallas de Buenos Aires. Sentí esa desaparición, primero, como un
desgarriamento; después, como una derrota personal. Debía admitir que si
Louise Brooks hubiera gustado al público, no hubiera desaparecido. La
verdad (o lo que yo sentía) es que no sólo pasó inadvertida por el gran
público, sino también por las personas que yo conocía. Si concedían que
era linda – más bien ‘bonitilla’ – , lamentaban que fuera mala actriz;
si encontraban que era una actriz inteligente, lamentaban que no fuera
más bella. Como ante la derrota de Firpo, comprobé que la realidad y yo
no estábamos de acuerdo.
Muchos años despés, en París, vi una película (creo que de Jessua) en que el héroe, como yo (cuando estaba por escribir Corazón de payaso,
uno de mis primeros intentos literarios), inconteniblemente echaba todo
a la broma y, de ese modo, se hacía odiar por la mujer querida. El
personaje tenía otro parecido conmigo: admiraba a Louise Brooks. Desde
entonces, en mi país y en otros, encuentro continuas pruebas de esa
admiración, y también pruebas que la actriz la merecía. En el New Yorker y en los Cahiers du cinéma leí articulos sobre ella, admirativos e inteligentes. Leí, asimismo, Lulú en Hollywood, un divertido libro de recuerdos, escrito por Louise Brooks.
En el 73 o en el 75, mi amigo Edgardo
Cozarinsky me cito una tarde en un cafe de la Place de L’Alma, en Paris,
para que conociera a una muchacha que haria el papel de Louise Brooks
en un filme en preparacion. Yo era el experto que debia decirle si la
muchacha era aceptable o no para el papel. Le dije que si, no solamente
para ayudar a la posible actriz. Es claro que si me huberian hecho la
pregunta en tiempos de mi angustiosa pasion, quiza la respuesta hubiera
sido distinta. Para me, entonces, nadie se parecia a Louise Brooks.
With the help of the web and an Argentine friend, I have attempted a
translation of the above passage and have come up with something
inelegant, but still interesting. If you are able to provide a better
translation, please contact the Louise Brooks Society.
Over time, I fell in love with movies, I
became a regular viewer and now I think I want to wait for the end of
the world on the seat of a movie theater..
I fell in love, simultaneously or
successively, with the film actresses Louise Brooks, Marie Prevost,
Dorothy Mackaill, Marion Davies, Evelyn Brent and Anna May Wong.
Of these impossible loves, I was most
passionate about Louise Brooks, and it made me miserable. I hated that I
could never know her! Worse, one never saw her again. This is exactly
what happened. After three or four movies, I was spellbound, and Louise
Brooks disappeared from the screens of Buenos Aires. I felt that
disappearance, first, as a tearful break; then as a personal loss. Had
she been better liked by the public, I feel Louise Brooks would not have
disappeared. The truth (or what I felt) is that she was little known to
the public, and also to people I knew. Granted she was cute – rather
‘pretty’ – though others complained she was a bad actress; if they found
her a clever actress, they regretted that she was not more beautiful.
Just like before the defeat of Firpo [the Argentine boxer who lost to
Jack Dempsey], I proved that reality and me disagreed.
Many years later in Paris, I saw a movie (I think by [Alain] Jessua) in which the hero, like me (when I was wrote Heart of a Clown,
one of my first literary attempts), took everything as a joke and
consequently was hated by the woman he loved. That character, like me,
admired Louise Brooks. Lately, here in Argentina and elsewhere, there is
a renewed assessment and growing admiration for the actress, which is
deserved. I read admiring and intelligent articles about her in the New Yorker and the Cahiers du Cinéma. I also read Lulu in Hollywood, a diverting memoir, written by Louise Brooks.
In 73 or 75, my friend Edgardo Cozarinsky
asked me one afternoon in a cafe in the Place de l’Alma in Paris if I
know a girl who would play Louise Brooks in a film which was in
preparation. I was the expert who was to say if the girl was acceptable
or not for the role. I said yes, not only to help the possible actress.
Clearly, if I had been asked the question during my anguished passion,
perhaps the answer would have been different. To me, no one seemed to be
Louise Brooks.
In the passage above, Bioy Casares seems to suggest that he tried to write a short story called, “Heart of a Clown,” featuring a character like himself similarly in love with Brooks. However, I am told it is not so. Reportedly, Bioy Casares tried
to write such a story to impress someone when he was young, but only
got as far as an idea and a title. . . . I don’t know what became of the
proposed film featuring a Brooks-like character mentioned in the last
paragraph. Bioy Casares’ friend, Edgardo Cozarinsky, is no doubt a
kindred soul. In 1994 he completed the documentary, Citizen Langlois, about the famous film archivist and key figure in Brooks’ life.
Boiy Casares’ book was made into a French movie called L’invention de Morel (1967), and an Italian movie called L’invenzione di Morel
(1974). Faustine was played by Anna Karina in the latter. Sometime in
the late 1980s or early 1990’s, the Quay Brothers also hoped to turn
Boiy Casares’ book into a film, but were unsuccessful in their pursuit
of the rights.
It is thought, by some, that Bioy Casares’ book inspired Alain Resnais’ sur-real film Last Year At Marienbad
(1961), which was adopted for the screen by the French novelist Alain
Robbe-Grillet. The case for lineage is loosely made by Thomas Beltzer in
his essay, “Last Year at Marienbad: An Intertextual Meditation.” Beltzer’s argument largely hinges on information found on a later-day dust jacket for Boiy Casares’ A Plan for Escape. Beltzer’s case is called into question (though not entirely refuted) by Dan DeWeese in his essay, “The Invention of Marienbad.” Both pieces are worth reading.
What is known is that Bioy Casares’ The Invention of Morel echoes through the television series Lost
(2004 – 2010). The popular and critically acclaimed show follows the
survivors of a passenger jet crash on a mysterious tropical island
somewhere in the South Pacific. Like The Invention of Morel, the
show contains science fiction and supernatural elements while messing
with perceived reality. During season four, one of the show’s main
characters is seen reading the 2003 NYRB edition of The Invention of Morel (shown below).
Things get meta: Sawyer reads The Invention of Morel on an episode
of the TV series Lost.
Thanks to Argentians Diego Curubeto and Erica Füsstinn for supplying and translating some of the information found on this page.
“Interview with the Brothers Quay.” Electric Sheep. March 4, 2007.
— Quay Brothers discuss their 2005 film The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes and it’s relationship to The Invention of Morel
“The Invention of Morel,” in The Facts on File Companion to the World Novel: 1900 to the Present, by Michael Sollars. Facts on File, 2008.
— analysis of the Bioy Casares novel
“The Invention of Marienbad,” by Dan DeWeese. Propeller Magazine, February, 2014.
— calls into question the linking of The Invention of Morel and Last Year at Marienbad
“Time and the Image: The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes,” by Arturo Silva. Bright Lights Film Journal, January 28, 2016.
— analysis of the Quay Brothers’ The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, with a look at it’s relationship to The Invention of Morel
I just acquired a copy of a 1971 book, Hollywood Panorama, by Bob Harman. And, remarkably, it contains a caricature of Louise Brooks! That's rather early in her story of rediscovery. It is a few years before the Kenneth Tynan article in the New Yorker, and more than a decade before Lulu in Hollywood was published.
Harman's book features some 1,000 different stars, with Louise Brooks twice depicted among them in both black & white and in color. Nutshell biographies in the back of the book describe Brooks as "A vivid vamp of the twenties -- distinguished by her cold and classic beauty." Here is the page featuring Brooks in color. She can be found in the lower left corner. (In a way, her depiction evokes Al Hirschfield and anticipates David Levine.)
I wasn't able to find much information online about the artist, but according to an informative and illustrated blog by the cartoonist and illustrator Drew Friedman, "The late artist Bob Harman took ten years to create Bob Harman's Hollywood Panorama a 5x9 foot full color montage of 1001 caricatures of vintage film stars set against a background of famous movie sets and Hollywood landmarks. It was published in book form in 1971 by Dutton. Many of the caricatures created for Hollywood Panorama were also reprinted in B&W in the book The MGM years", also from 1971." Here is the 1971 newspaper article which led me to track down this book.
Harman also contributed caricatures to various magazines, including the cover for an issue of Focus on Film, a magazine to which Brooks once contributed.
Harman's Hollywood Panorama was not his only book, and not the only one of his books which included Brooks. His 1991 book, Enchanted Faces, which was self-published and which I just ordered a copy, also contains a rather fine portrait of Brooks. Here Thelma and Louise face one another. The image below is from Drew Freidman's blog.
Harman also drew paper dolls, and published another book, this one from 1990. I ordered a copy of it as well. Hopefully, as it focuses on the stars of the silent screen, it may have some images of interest. I like his style.
