Did she or didn't she? Louise Brooks last Denishawn performance?

I have been researching Louise Brooks' time as a Denishawn dancer for more than a decade. And over that time, I have managed to collect material on each of her hundreds of Denishawn appearances -- from the first on Monday, October 2, 1922 at the Temple Theatre in Lewistown, Pennsylvania to her last on Saturday, May 3 at the Palace Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey.

Brooks' two seasons with Denishawn is laid out in the form of a timeline on two pages on the Louise Brooks Society website, Denishawn Dance Company Tour 1922 - 1923 and Denishawn Dance Company Tour 1923 - 1924. This information is drawn, in part, from The Professional Appearances of Ruth St. Denis & Ted Shawn: A Chronology and an Index of Dances 1906 - 1932, by Christena L. Schlundt. This rare but exceptionally useful book was published by the New York Public Library in 1962.

Louise Brooks as a Denishawn dancer, circa 1924.

What I have done over the last decade is to "reverse engineer" Schlundt's timeline. I have done this through literally hundreds of inter-library loan requests, searching through on-line databases, as well as trips to libraries and archives in the Midwest and on the East coast. In doing so, I have collected a filing cabinet full of newspaper articles, images, advertisements and programs. All together, they paint a portrait of Brooks' two full seasons with Denishawn, then the leading modern dance troupe in America.

According to Schlundt, the last three Denishawn performances during which Brooks was a member of the company took place at the beginning of May. The season ended. And sometime shortly thereafter, Brooks was dismissed from the company for having an attitude. According to Schulndt and what I have been able to find, the last three performances were

Thursday, May 1, 1924 in the evening at the Rivoli Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey

Friday, May 2, 1924 in the evening at the Savoy Theatre in Asbury Park, New Jersey 

Saturday, May 3, 1924 in the evening at the Palace Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey 

Recently, however, I came across an advertisement for a performance which postdates what is thought to be Brooks' last appearance with Denishawn.

This advertisement appeared on May 4, 1924 in the Zanesville Times Signal.

I found this advertisement in the May 4, 1924 edition of the Zanesville Times Signal, a small town Ohio newspaper. Perhaps the ad represents an event scheduled at the last minute, one that wasn't represented on their documented tour itinerary. This supposition is supported by the fact that there are no anticipatory articles or advertisements in the Zanesville newspapers prior to this engagement.

Nor, curiously, are their any follow-up pieces, like a review. Denishawn was a very popular troupe, drawing large, sometimes sell-out crowds wherever they played. As such, they also received a pretty fair amount of press coverage, whether articles announcing their coming to town or reviews which followed their performances.

What is also curious is that two of the other advertisements on the newspaper page on which the above advertisement appears reference March events. Might the above ad been run by mistake? The Denishawn Dance Company had appeared earlier in Zanesville on Wednesday, March 26 at the Weller Theatre. A June article in the same newspaper mentions what a hit they had been earlier in the year (not saying exactly when), and notes that the company would return in October for yet another engagement. Apparently, the citizenry of Zanesville really liked the Denishawn Dancers.

I am flummoxed. Either I have found an undocumented Denishawn performance, or the Zanesville Times Signal layout department really screwed up. There aren't any on-line records I can think to check. Nor are there any reference works here at LBS headquarters which shed any light on this minor mystery.

The Weller theater in Zanesville, Ohio.

If you can provide any information on this mystery, whether to confirm or rule out an appearance by Denishawn in Zanesville, Ohio on May 4, 1924, please contact the Louise Brooks Society.

I’m a part of this movie, but it doesn’t move me

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.

I'm a part of this movie, but it doesn't move me from Roxane Billamboz on Vimeo.

The Actor's Church - The Little Church Around the Corner

Louise Brooks' first film was an uncredited bit in The Street of Forgotten Men, directed by Herbert Brenon. Production took place during May, 1925. Brooks played a moll to Bridgeport Whitey. She appears in only one scene, in a barroom where a fight breaks out, near the end of the movie.

The Street of Forgotten Men was shot at Paramount’s Astoria Studios on Long Island (located at 3412 36th Street in the Astoria neighborhood in Queens). Additional location shooting was done elsewhere on Long Island, as well as on the streets of Manhattan, including on Fifth Avenue and importantly at the landmark Little Church Around the Corner, where a key scene, a wedding between characters played by Neil Hamilton and Mary Brian, takes place.

The Little Church Around the Corner, properly known as the Church of the Transfiguration, is an Episcopal parish church located at 1 East 29th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan.

From Wikipedia: "Actors were among the social outcasts whom Houghton befriended. In 1870, William T. Sabine, the rector of the nearby Church of the Atonement, which is no longer extant, refused to conduct funeral services for an actor named George Holland, suggesting, "I believe there is a little church around the corner where they do that sort of thing." Joseph Jefferson, a fellow actor who was trying to arrange Holland's burial, exclaimed, "If that be so, God bless the little church around the corner!" and the church began a longstanding association with the theater.

P. G. Wodehouse, when living in Greenwich Village as a young writer of novels and lyrics for musicals, married his wife Ethel at the Little Church in September 1914. Subsequently, Wodehouse would set most of his fictionalized weddings at the church; and the hit musical Sally that he wrote with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton ended with the company singing, in tribute to the Bohemian congregation: "Dear little, dear little Church 'Round the Corner / Where so many lives have begun, / Where folks without money see nothing that's funny / In two living cheaper than one."

In 1923, the Episcopal Actors' Guild held its first meeting at Transfiguration. Such theatrical greats as Basil Rathbone, Tallulah Bankhead, Peggy Wood, Joan Fontaine, Rex Harrison, Barnard Hughes, and Charlton Heston have served as officers or council members of the guild. The Little Church's association with the theatre continued in the 1970s, when it hosted the Joseph Jefferson Theatre Company, which gave starts to actors such as Armand Assante, Tom Hulce, and Rhea Perlman.

As well as being a guild officer, Sir Rex Harrison was memorialized at the church upon his death in 1990. Maggie Smith, Brendan Gill, and Harrison's sons, Carey and Noel, spoke at the service."

The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society

The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society. In fact, the LBS is followed by more than 2,700 fans and other interested individuals. Are you one of them? Be sure and check out the LBS Twitter profile, and check out the more than 4,700 LBS tweets so far!

 

Louise Brooks ✪

@LB_Society

Louise Brooks Society - all about the silent film & Jazz Age icon who played Lulu in Pandora's Box. Visit our website, blog & online radio station!

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TCM airs two Louise Brooks films today

As part of its special "From Caligari to Hitler" series, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is set to air two Louise Brooks films later today. Pandora's Box (1929) is set for 8:00 pm, followed by Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) at 10:30 pm. Check your local listings for local times.  More information can be found HERE.

To learn more about these films, visit the Louise Brooks Society film pages devoted to either Pandora's Box or Diary of a Lost Girl.

Louise Rutkowski, Diary of a Lost Girl, album taster

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.

Louise Brooks - More Visions of Beauty, from 1940

Two years after Louise Brooks retired from film (and she was largely forgotten by the American public), her name was still evoked as an example of beauty. This two page article dates from 1940.

In the kitchen with Louise Brooks' friends - part 2

Celebrity newspaper columns devoted to recipes as well as celebrity cookbooks were commonplace during the silent film era. The Louise Brooks Society archive contains a few recipes and menus attributed to Louise Brooks. Here is part two of a two part series devoted to recipes from Louise Brooks' friends and colleagues.

First up is Chester Conklin, a bushy mustached silent era comedian who appeared i the 1926 Brooks film, A Social Celebrity. Here, he contributes his recipe for a Yorkshire Tart.

And here is another silent era comedian, the great Charlie Chaplin, with whom Brooks had an intimate friendship in the summer of 1925. Here's Chaplin's recipe for an apple roll.

In the kitchen with Louise Brooks' friends - part 1

Celebrity newspaper columns devoted to recipes as well as celebrity cookbooks were commonplace during the silent film era. The Louise Brooks Society archive contains a few recipes and menus attributed to Louise Brooks. Here is part one of a two part series devoted to recipes from Louise Brooks' friends and colleagues.

First up is Ruth St. Denis, who along with Ted Shawn headed the Denishawn Dance Company during the two seasons the teenage Brooks toured with the famed troupe. It is known that the company ate together on occassion, once even at Brooks' parent's house in Wichita, Kansas. I wonder if Ruthie ever made Chicken Creole for her company?

And next is Blanche Ring, an American singer and actress in Broadway theatre productions, musicals, and motion pictures. She acted in the 1926 Brooks' film It's the Old Army Game, which was directed by her nephew Eddie Sutherland, who shortly after married Louise Brooks.

At one time, Blanche Ring was married to Charles Winninger, who acted in the 1931 Brooks' film, God's Gift to Women. Her sister Frances Ring was married to Thomas Meighan, the popular silent film actor who starred in 1927 Brooks' film, The City Gone Wild.

Be sure and check back tomorrow for recipes from Charlie Chaplin and Chester Conklin.