Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks' most famous role was Lulu in the movie Pandora’s Box. The 1929 film was notable for its frank treatment of modern sexual mores, including one of the first screen portrayals of a lesbian.

Brooks was known mostly for her Buster Brown-Page Boy bobbed hair style, which she'd worn since childhood. Thousands of women were attracted to that style and adopted it as their own.

                                                 Publicity photo, c. 1930

She retired from the screen in 1938.

After retiring, Brooks begum writing about film, which became her second career. Her first major writing project was an autobiographical novel called Naked on My Goat. After working on the novel for a number of years, she destroyed the manuscript by throwing it into an incinerator.

Despite marrying twice, she never had children, referring to herself as "Barren Brooks".

She admitted to some lesbian dalliances, including a one-night stand with Greta Garbo. Despite all this, Brooks considered herself neither lesbian nor bisexual.

Brooks was found dead of a heart attack on August 8, 1985, after suffering from arthritis and emphysema for many years. She was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

In 1991 the British new wave group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released a single named "Pandora's Box" as a tribute to Brooks.