Louise Brooks

1906-1985

Louise Brooks started as a dancer with Ziegield Follies, and then became a movie star. She popularized the bob hairstyle among flapper culture. After limited success and multiple relationships, her career in Hollywood stalled, so she packed up and moved to Europe, where the freer artistic environment allowed her more success. She returned to the US in 1929.

When her career finally crashed, it crashed hard, and she worked during the Great Depression as a call girl.

Finally, beginning around 1955, film critics acquired a new appreciation of her work, and she reinvented herself as a well-regarded film essayist.

How lesbian/bisexual was she? She refused the labels, but she freely admitted to relationships with both men and women, including a two-month affair with Charlie Chaplin and a one-night stand with Greta Garbo, whom she described as a "charming and tender lover", but she had a "clear preference for men".

Note on the Illustration: As it turns out, I didn't need to manufacture an AI nude of her (right) since there are already plenty of authentic nudes of her out there. (below)

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