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Actor, born in the USA on the 14th of November, 1906, died on the 8th of August, 1985.
Gay: N/A |
Lesbian: 2 out of 9 |
Trans: N/A |
Queer: N/A |
Brooks married more than once and had many affairs of various sexes, but by all accounts, including her own, she was effectively asexual.
The bobbed-hair Mary Louise Brooks was born in Cherryville, Kansas on the 14th of November, 1906. After Brooks was molested by a local pedophile, she and her mother left for New York. There, she joined the Denishawn Dancers at age 15 followed by the Ziegfeld Follies four years later.
In 1925, she signed with Paramount, beginning her film career with The Street of Forgotten Men and playing opposite established stars like Adolphe Menjou and W. C. Fields. Though popular with the public, the studio was cold to her, in no small part to her off-screen alcoholism.
In 1928, the great German director G. W. Pabst invited her to Europe, where she would star in two of her most remembered roles, first as Lulu in Pandora’s Box and then as Thymiane Henning in Diary of a Lost Girl a year later. While there, Paramount called for her return to record dialogue for The Canary Murder Case, which had been filmed in 1928 as a silent, but they wanted to dub and release as a talkie. She refused, effectively blacklisting her in Hollywood.
On her return, there was no work to be found, and she was left taking small roles in one and two reel low budget comedies and working retail at Saks Fifth Avenue. In the early ‘70s, she began writing, publishing a number of books on her experiences in the film world, culminating with her 1982 autobiography Lulu in Hollywood.
Brooks died peacefully of a sudden heart attack on the 8th of August, 1985 in her home in Rochester, New York.
Aliases
Films
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