Over the years, there were two other film events I set up with contemporaries of Louise Brooks. One was with Diana Serra Carey, the child star known as Baby Peggy. Born in 1918, Carey started in films at the age of three and rocketed to international fame during the silent era. Her film career, however, had largely ended by the time Brooks' was beginning in 1926. Later in life, she went on to write a handful of insightful books, including the delightful
What Ever Happened to Baby Peggy: The Autobiography of Hollywood's Pioneer Child Star as well as a biography of her contemporary, Jackie Coogan. I also had the opportunity to host Gloria Stuart (born 1910), for her autobiography,
Gloria Stuart: I Just Kept Hoping. As an ingénue, Stuart made a splash in films in the early 1930’s and later found renewed fame for her role as the 101 year old Rose in
Titanic. After each event, I asked both Carey and Stuart if either had known Louise Brooks. It’s something I always ask. I am a nerd that way. As I recall, neither had met the actress with whom I am so "obsessed," but each remembers knowing
of her back then. For me, that is perspective I find interesting.
Brooks' contemporaries, or near contemporaries, are few and far between these days. And so, for the events program (and in pursuit of my "secret agenda"), I mostly booked talks with biographers, historians and scholars who have written about early film. I love movie history. And as any one who reads this blog knows, I also love reading biographies. Booking film-related authors into the events program was one way to meet people who shared my passions.
Most every one of the film writers I set-up events with has authored other books. Here, I'll mention those titles for which they appeared at a Booksmith event. Some of those I hosted include David Stenn (author of
Clara Bow: Runnin Wild), Suzanne Lloyd (Harold Lloyd’s granddaughter and the co-author of
Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian), Robert S. Birchard (author of
Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood), Matthew Kennedy (author of
Joan Blondell), Jeanine Basinger (author of
The Star Machine), Steven Bach (author of
Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl), Carol Hoffmann (author of
The Barrymores), and Arthur Lennig (author of
Stroheim). I will never forget the time when my wife and I took Lennig out to dinner after his event and he told us stories of meeting Bela Lugosi when he was just a boy. Of course, Lennig went on to write (and rewrite)
The Count, the great biography of the actor who played Dracula. It is another favorite book.
There were also events with the prolific author John Baxter, the distinguished photo historian Mark Vieira (author of
Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood), John Wranovics (author of
Chaplin and Agee: The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer, and the Lost Screenplay), Mark Cotta Vaz (author of
Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong), and Emily Leider (author of
Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino). A special thanks goes to Leider, who has long championed my efforts as a bookseller and who introduced me to Kevin Brownlow over brunch at her house in San Francisco! Thank you Emily.
I also hosted a couple of events with “my doppelganger,” Mick LaSalle (the
San Francisco Chronicle film critic and author of two fine books on pre-code film,
Complicated Women and
Dangerous Men). I call him my doppelganger because we look a little alike, and have even been mistaken for each other on a few occasions. When we first met, LaSalle was decidedly (and notoriously in some quarters) not swayed by Brooks' reputation. But, as he told me a year or so ago, his opinion of the actress is changing. Over the years and on a handful of other occasions, I also had the honor of hosting the internationally renowned, British-born film writer David Thomson. He is a splendid fellow, very knowledgeable, and a great raconteur. And, he has written a handful of laudatory pieces on Louise Brooks. I hosted him for
The Biographical Dictionary of Film and
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, as well as
The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, his book on Nicole Kidman, and most recently for
“Have You Seen?:” A Personal Introduction to 1000 Films.
As mentioned earlier, film-related writers made up only a small part of the over-all events program. Mostly, I arranged readings with novelists, poets, artists, musicians, and other literary and non-fiction writers. However, that didn't stop me from pursuing my "secret agenda" - and a Louise Brooks connection. As documented in
Louise Brooks in Contemporary Fiction, more than a handful of contemporary writers are more than a little interested in the life and films of the actress. For example, Robert Olen Butler, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, is a fan of Louise Brooks. I have hosted him a number of times, and he told me so.
On various occasions at Booksmith events, I've also chatted with other authors about Louise Brooks. Again, I'm a nerd that way. One of the most memorable such events was with Don Bachardy, the world renowned artist who for decades was Christopher Isherwood's life partner. Isherwood, of course, authored
The Berlin Stories, which eventually became the musical and film,
Cabaret (which bears its own Brooks connection). For his Booksmith event, I interviewed Bachardy before an assembled crowd of a few dozen and asked him about his then new book of drawings and diary entries,
Stars in My Eyes (University of Wisconsin press, 2000). That books features the written and drawn record of Bachardy's (and Isherwood) weekend with Louise Brooks. Check it out if you want to know more.
Some of the other writers I've chatted-up include the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (a member of the LBS), novelist and
Lulu on the Bridge filmmaker Paul Auster (author of
The Book of Illusions), horror and fantasy author Clive Barker, novelist and screenwriter Jerry Stahl (author of
I, Fatty), novelist and social critic Theodore Roszak (his novel
Flicker is a must read), and the acclaimed poets Bill Berkson and Mary Jo Bang (author of
Louise in Love). Nearly each of these writers have included Louise Brooks in their work - either as a character, a reference, or an allusion. And each did events at The Booksmith.
Berkson - one of the so-called New York School poets - told me of the time he and Frank O'Hara went to see
Prix de Beaute in New York City in 1961. Each later wrote a poem inspired by the actress. (Another New York School poet, John Ashberry, once told me at The Booksmith of the time he met Louise Brooks in a hotel in Paris.)
Because I love literary ephemera, for the Mary Jo Bang reading (as with the Barry Paris and Bill Berkson events), I printed a limited edition autographed broadside celebrating the occasion. Depicted below is the triptych of Mary Jo Bang broadsides, as well as an autographed Mary Jo Bang trading card. The Booksmith used to produce such cards for each of its author events.
The group of authors I helped bring to the SFSFF includes my late friend Emil Petaja (author of
Photoplay Edition), Frank Thompson (author of
Lost Films), Cari Beauchamp (author of
Without Lying Down), Anthony Slide (author of
Silent Players), William Mann (author of
Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines), Allan R. Ellenberger (author of
Ramon Novarro: A Biography of the Silent Film Idol) and others.
And thanks to Gavin Lambert (author of
Nazimova, who I telephoned out of the blue one day), Richard Dyer MacCann (author of
The First Film Makers), and Eve Golden (author of
Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara) who each generously autographed bookplates so their readers and fans could get a special signed book at the festival. I've always enjoyed brings books and readers together. For me, that's what it was all about. Making connections. (Back in 2007, journalist Michael T. Toole interviewed me for the TCM website about my participation in the Festival. That interview can be found
here.)
Over the years, I have had the pleasure of working with not only distinguished authors but also with a swell bunch of editors, publicists, and event organizers. I would be remiss in not thanking my wife, Christy Pascoe, who helped with and attended so many of these happenings. And Jim Barter, my erstwhile co-worker at The Booksmith. And Gary Meyer, owner of the Balboa Theater. And Leila Salisbury, formerly with the University Press of Kentucky and now with the University Press of Mississippi. And Kathryn Zuckerman, outstanding Knopf publicist. And a huge thanks to Stephen Salmons, Melissa Chittick and Stacey Wisnia of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. All of you helped make all of this happen.
So where to from here? I hope to spend some time working on both the Louise Brooks Society
website and
RadioLulu (each long overdue!) as well as some Louise Brooks projects I’ve long had in mind. As I have been telling people lately, after having advanced the cause of so many other authors’ work, it’s time to take a couple of months off and work on my own book or two or three.
There is a song I love. It’s “Closing Time,” by a now defunct late 1990’s group Semisonic. (That band evolved out of Trip Shakespeare, who recorded a song and CD called
Lulu. And at the Booksmith, I once hosted an author event with Semisonic’s drummer, Jacob Slichter. . . . ) Well anyways, the song’s lyrics conclude like this: “Closing time - every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end...” For the time being, that’s my motto.