Lulu in Hollywood

_Lulu in Hollywood_ is a collection of essays by the silent film actress Louise Brooks. First published in 1982, the book brings together seven previously published autobiographical essays, namely “Kansas to New York”, “On Location with Billy Wellman”, “Marion Davies’ Niece”, “Humphrey and Bogey”, “The Other Face of W. C. Fields”, “Gish and Garbo” and “Pabst and Lulu”.

Each of the pieces collected in _Lulu in Hollywood_ were published in magazines and film journals beginning in the late 1950s. The copyright page states that portions of the book appeared in different form in _Film Culture_, _London Magazine_, _Image_, and _Sight and Sound_. The first edition includes an introduction by _New Yorker_ editor William Shawn, an afterword, "A Witness Speaks," by film historian Lotte H. Eisner, as well as a condensed filmography and illustrations.

## Publication history

_Lulu in Hollywood_ was first published by Alfred A. Knopf in hardback in May, 1982. The following year, Knopf issued the book in softcover. Limelight Editions reprinted the book in paperback in 1989. _Lulu in Hollywood_ was also published in England, and in translation in France (as _Louise Brooks_, and later as _Loulou a Hollywood_), Germany (_Lulu in Berlin und Hollywood_), Italy (_Lulu a Hollywood_), The Netherlands (_Loulou in Hollywood_), and Spain (_Lulu en Hollywood_). A Japanese edition of _Lulu in Hollywood_, published in 1984, is radically different in its design and selection of text. The Japanese edition, titled _Ruizu Burukkusu to "Ruru"_ (_Louise Brooks to "Lulu"_) contains Brooks’ essays, “Gish and Garbo” and “Pabst and Lulu”, along with the filmography and images contained in _Lulu in Hollywood_.

In the late 1990s, _Lulu in Hollywood_ went out-of-print in the United States. In the year 2000, aided in part by a grass-roots campaign led by the Louise Brooks Society, _Lulu in Hollywood_ was republished in an expanded edition by the University of Minnesota Press. The University of Minnesota edition was given a new look, with redesigned front and back covers. It was expanded to include an eighth essay by Brooks, "Why I Will Never Write My Memoirs,” while Shawn's introduction was replaced by Kenneth Tynan's 1979 _New Yorker_ profile, “The Girl in the Black Helmet”. The University of Minnesota edition was later published in Russia as _Лулу в Голливуде_.

## Reception

_Lulu in Hollywood_ was widely reviewed following its initial publication. Writing in _Esquire_ magazine, James Wolcott described _Lulu in Hollywood_ as "A tart, fleet, gossipy book, a whip-flicking display of wit and spite," adding "In _Lulu in Hollywood_, Brooks writes about her contemporaries with a darting precision and down-to-earth compassion that make the mythologizing of most movie commentators sound like so much hot wheeze. . . . Louise Brooks emerges not as a white goddess wreathed in incense, but as a sassy companion, wisecracking, knowledgeable, completely free of cant and coy sentiment."

Writing in _Sight and Sound_, the English critic John Russell Taylor stated, "Louise Brooks is a woman of ideas. Her writings — and this, for an actor, is really extraordinary — are about something more than just herself. She has ideas about Hollywood, she has ideas about life, and she does not necessarily confuse the two. . . . If Brooks has an Achilles heel, it is her own intelligence: she tends to attribute to others as much self-awareness and analytical power as she has herself."

Other largely positive reviews were written by William K. Everson, Herman G. Weinberg, Stanley Kaufman,  David Thomson, John Lahr, Michael Dirda, and John Updike.

One of the few negative reviews the book received was authored by Auberon Waugh, son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. The younger Waugh wrote in the London _Daily Mail_ that Brooks had been "hanging around" since the end of her film career in 1938. "It sounds rather a miserable life, and she sounds rather a miserable woman" Waugh noted, adding "Her book may not teach us much about the cinema, but it provides a gloomy little object lesson in sexual morals: Don't let your daughter on the stage." One other especially negative review was written by Lawrence J. Quirk, nephew of _Photoplay_ magazine editor James R. Quirk. Its title, "Lulu in Hollywood: A Weird Case of Media Super-Hype, Whitewash and Cover-Up Galore," speaks to the tone of his review.

"Appendix: Errata in _Lulu in Hollywood_" was published in the 1989 biography of the actress by Barry Paris. It point to nearly a dozen errors in _Lulu in Hollywood_. The appendix states: "The major and minor errors in _Lulu in Hollywood_ cited here have been identified by Kevin Brownlow, William K. Everson, Jane Sherman Lehac, George Pratt, Lawrence Quirk, Anthony Slide, Alexander Walker, and the author, among others."

## Legacy

_Lulu in Hollywood_ continues to be read and cited. In 2012, Janet Maslin wrote in the _New York Times_, "These eight essays are selective, nostalgic, poison-tipped and fearlessly smart. They're sharp about Hollywood's definitions of success and failure, about how actors are manipulated by their employers and pigeonholed by the press.... Brooks still shimmers as a rare loner who traveled down that road, her life in ruins -- and then came back. This book is as idiosyncratic and magnetic as its author."

In 2023, the _Hollywood Reporter_ published an article listing the 100 best film books of all time". _Lulu in Hollywood_ ranked number 44.

## Other websites

- University of Minnesota Press webpage
- Louise Brooks Society webpage