This article contains mentions of child abuse and suicide.
The silent film actor stormed her way through Hollywood rocking an instantly-recognizable sleek, “raven” black bob.
However, behind the bravado, this silent screen icon lived a deeply troubled life.
Let’s take a look back at Brooks' complicated life and study its more hidden details.
And that is what happened."
Louise Brooks gave journalist Kenneth Tynanan unparalleled look into her life, including some of her darkest chapters.
One showed a young Brooks holding the hand of an “old bachelor” named Mr. Feathers.
When I was nine years old, Mr. Feathers molested me sexually."
She then says, “I’ve often wondered what effect Mr. Feathers had on my life.
He must have had a great deal to do with forming my attitude toward sexual pleasure.”
However, one of its co-founders, Ruth St. Denis, harbored a deep jealousy for the young ingenue.
The reporter quotes Brooks as saying, “I intend to be married eventually …
I wish the widespread distribution of those photographs discontinued.”
The producer not only saw star potential in Brooks, but he also saw a future romance.
Though Wanger was already married, he and Brooks soon began an affair.
However, as her star began to rise, her romance with Wanger began to fizzle.
Although Chaplin was twice Brooks' age who was only 18-years-old at the time the two hit it off.
Later in life, Brooks would tell The New Yorker that Chaplin was a “sophisticated lover.”
However, the publication of her ex-lover’s autobiography in 1966 had Brooks quickly changing her tune.
All those babes knocking on his bedroom door.
From the get-go, the pair seemed doomed to fall apart.
They both carried on multiple affairs throughout their short-lived union.
Only two years after their nuptials in 1926, Brooks filed for divorce.
That was certainly what Louise Brooks discovered when she made a name for herself in Hollywood.
It wasn’t just the pressure of fame that came to make Hollywood a living hell for the actor.
In fact, the loss of Lederer might just be the greatest loss of Brooks' life.
The socialite was the niece of Marion Davies, the long-time girlfriend of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
However, Brooks hints that the real reason may have been Lederer’s openly lesbian lifestyle.
Not long after, Lederer leapt from the hospital window, tragically ending her life.
Despite her raucous success in Hollywood, the screen icon was made miserable by studio politics.
As a response, she was blacklisted.
As Brooks writes in her memoir, “No major studio would hire me to make a film.”
It was with Austrian director G.W.
However, Brooks soon found out that Kansas was no longer where she belonged.
“That turned out to be another kind of hell,” Brooks told The New Yorker in 1979.
And I wasn’t exactly enchanted with them."
With Brooks being a verifiable outcast in Kansas, she returned to New York City once again in 1943.
However, it was escorting that became Brooks' most reliable form of income.
However, tragedy struck before this manuscript could reach a publisher’s desk.
It is the first signpost on the road to oblivion."
This poetic section of her memoir illustrates just how far removed from her former life Brooks became.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve never been in love,” she told the outlet.
“And if I had loved a man, could I have been faithful to him?
I doubt it.”
Only six years after this interview, Brooks died in her home, alone.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available.
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Call or text 988 or chat988lifeline.org
