splash  Like you or I, Louise Brooks was once a high school student. She attended Wichita High School in Wichita, Kansas for only one year — her sophomore year, and never graduated. At the age of 15, Brooks left Wichita for New York City, where she studied at the Denishawn School of Dance for a couple of months until she was asked to join the touring Denishawn Dance Company, America’s leading dance troupe. Brooks didn’t return home, or to school, and likely never graduated, though she just as likely continued her studies in some form while on the road.

 “Sophomore A Girls” Close-Up of Louise Brooks

Back in 2012, I was fortunate enough to obtain a rare copy of Louise Brooks high school yearbook. The above image on the left comes from the 1922 edition of The Wichitan, the high school year book of Wichita High School. This particular image depicts “Sophomore A Girls,” in which Louise Brooks can be seen as the eighth girl from the left in the front row. Brooks (then only 14 or 15 years old – I can’t be sure when this pic was taken) is nicely dressed and holding a purse. Her hands are clasped, and her arms are interlocked with the girls on either side. Perhaps they were friends, or perhaps they were showing sophomore solidarity. On the right is a closeup of the future actress taken from the above image.

As this 1922 yearbook is largely devoted to the senior class, there is only one other image of Brooks found in the annual. Brooks is shown as a member of that year’s student council. (She can be found on the second row from the bottom, in the middle.) According to the yearbook, 48 boys and girls were chosen from the school’s three classes to constitute the Student Council. Their work was carried on by committee, with their big project being the management of the high school bond issue parade. I would guess this image of Brooks was taken near the beginning of the school year, perhaps around the time the student council was formed. Whenever it was taken, the dramatic flair found in Brooks’ hair was subdued by the time the Sophomore class picture was taken outside the school.

Wichitan 1922
The 1922 Wichitan Wichita High Student Council of 1922 Student Council Close-Up of Louise Brooks

 

Speaking of hair, there is also an amusing pictorial feature in the yearbook focusing on students who wore their hair bobbed and those who didn’t. It was a big issue then, just as it was in the 1960’s when students wore their hair long or short. Brooks, curiously, is not included among the “Bobbies,” who were subdivided into “Buster Browns,” “Cherubs,” and “Baby Blondes.” One other interesting and amusing picture found in the yearbook depicts a male student dressed up as Charlie Chaplin — complete with cane, bowler and mustache…. Some three years later, 18 year old Brooks would enter into a summer long affair with the actual actor. There are other novel bits to be gleamed from the yearbook, like the comedic depictions of flappers, and the section in the back with an advertisement for the Palace Theater – “Wichita’s Most Popular Photoplay House.” No doubt, as a teenager, Brooks viewed at least a few silent films there.
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Around the time the 1922 edition of The Wichitan was published, Brooks and an older woman, a chaperone, had left for New York City and the Denishawn Dance Company. This passage in Brooks life is depicted in fictionalized form in a novel by Kansas writer Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone, which was also made into an excellent PBS film.