![]() Brooks made an immediate impact in the handful of American films she featured in and appeared destined for stardom. At 19 she quit - despite being offered the opportunity of a featured role in the Follies - to take up movies. Martha Graham was a fellow student, but Brooks was fired from the company at 17 due to her ‘superior attitude.’ From there she bounced successfully to Broadway, and danced in the chorus line of George White’s Scandals and the Ziegfield Follies. She was born in Cherryvale, Kansas in 1906, and moved to New York at 15 to study dance with the pioneering Denishawn Dance Company. ![]() She died in 1985 at the age of 78 but doubtless would have shunned most of the events and celebrations that have been planned in her honor anyway. Mary Louise Brooks would have been 100 years old on 14 November 2006. Never a huge star in her youth, Brooks fought off success at every turn, and yet, almost in spite of herself, her fame – perhaps ‘notoriety’ might be a better word – has outlasted that of all but a few of her contemporaries. ![]() Brooks has become one of the greatest and most enduring icons in cinema history remarkable for someone whose contribution to the medium itself was, relatively speaking, slight. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then little wonder an entire library has evolved around Louise Brooks. ![]()
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