[0] checkbox [#] position [cover] cover [title] title Lulu in Hollywood [author] author Brooks, Louise [isbn] isbn 0816637318 [isbn13] isbn13 9780816637317 [asin] asin [num pages] num pages 168 pp [avg rating] avg rating 3.94 [num ratings] num ratings 1,049 [date pub] date pub 1982 [date pub (ed.)] date pub edition Jul 05, 2000 [rating] Madeline's rating 4 of 5 stars [my rating] my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves [review] review After reading Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone and being disappointed by its noticeable lack of Louise Brooks, I wanted to find a nonfiction account of After reading Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone and being disappointed by its noticeable lack of Louise Brooks, I wanted to find a nonfiction account of the silent film star's life. Luckily, in addition to the numerous biographies available, Brooks also wrote her own account of her career. It's not as comprehensive as I wanted it to be - the book is more of an essay collection than a straight memoir - but is otherwise a completely fascinating look into the early days of Hollywood. Louise Brooks had a unique career trajectory. She got her start as a dancer with the Denishawn company when she was fifteen, and by nineteen had started her film career. In the heyday of silent film, she was one of the biggest stars in the world, but her career faded immediately with the advent of talkies, when she refused to give in to the studios' demanding contracts and was blackballed. She went on to do several films with the German director Pabst, and then disappeared into semi-obscurity. Her film career was over, but she continued to be an active participant, writing articles for movie magazines. Her career was short, but she was one of the witnesses to the birth of movies as a new medium, and Lulu in Hollywood is her account of what she saw in that time. The best aspect of this book is Brooks' writing, which is clear and thoughtful, describing her memories in 1920's Hollywood with no overt sentimentality. Also it's just fun - this was before Standards and Practices took over Hollywood in the 1930's, and the stars of Brooks' time were free to be as wild as they wanted. Actresses, in particular, developed their own particular brand of hustle, which Brooks outlines here: "For a time, Barbara [Bennett] was kept by William Rhinelander Stewart, who gave her a square-cut emerald from Cartier. One night, when we were swimming off Caleb Bragg's houseboat, she watched it slip from her finger into Long Island Sound. She kept this hilarious accident secret from Stewart by buying a fake-emerald ring from Denis Smith, whose jewelry business was unknown to innocent lovers. They would have been staggered to learn how many of their gifts were converted into imitations and cash. Truly, ours was a heartless racket." The little glimpses Brooks gives us into the wild life of a 1920's starlet are fascinating, and made me want to read an entire book just about teen movie stars partying in the Jazz Age (which, really, is what The Chaperone should have been). And at the same time, she's exploring how Hollywood developed into what it is today. It's easy to forget that in Brooks' time, movies were still a new medium, and everyone involved in the business was sort of making it up as they went along, and not really thinking about the future of the industry. To this day, there are hundreds of silent films that just don't exist anymore, because no one thought to preserve them. Writes Brooks: "The tragedy of film history is that it is fabricated, falsified, by the very people who make film history. It is understandable that in the early years of film production, when nobody believed there was going to be any film history, most film magazines and books printed trash, aimed only at fulfilling the public's wish to share a fairy tale existence with its movie idols. But since about 1950 film has been established as an art, and its history recognized as a serious matter. Yet film celebrities continue to cast themselves as stock types - nice or naughty girls, good or bad boys - whom their chroniclers spray with a shower of anecdotes." A fun, fascinating look at one person's incredible career, and the beginning of Hollywood as we know it. One star taken off, only because I wish it had been longer. ...more [notes] notes Notes are private! [recommender] recommender none [comments] comments 0 [votes] votes 20 [read count] # times read 1 [date started] date started not set [date read] date read Apr 2015 [date added] date added Apr 27, 2015 [date purchased] date purchased [owned] owned [purchase location] purchase location [condition] condition [29] actions view (with text) [format] 
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