Like the celebrities of today, Louise Brooks’ name and image was used in a number of advertisements and advertising campaigns. Beginning in 1926 with the “Louise Brooks Evening Gown” and running through the LUX soap campaigns of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Brooks’ name, image and likeness was used to sell all manner of products and services — not only in the United States, but also elsewhere around the world. Here is one rare example from Australia.
On February 23, 1927, Evelyn Brent — or rather Louise Brooks, appeared in this advertisement for Australiasain Films Ltd., which ran in the popular Australian entertainment magazine, Everyones. (Read more about the magazine HERE.) Formed in 1913, Australasian Films was an Australian film distribution and production company that dominated cinema in Australia in the late 1910s and 1920s. This particular ad, which boasted of the company’s use of Simplex cameras, was a sort of movie-tie in, as it references the recently released 1926 film, Love Em and Leave Em. (American films were released months, and sometimes years, after their American release.) Though the advertisement mentions Love Em and Leave Em star Evelyn Brent, it pictures Brent’s co-star Louise Brooks.
The block of text below the actress reads, “Love ’em and leave ’em — Never! says Evelyn, She gazes enviously at their beautiful lines and curves and gives birth to a sign as she realizes that lines of Grace and Distinction are not a matter of sex. Simplex grace the greatest theatres throughout the world, and will repeat their successes in the New Super Cinemas, ‘The State,’ Sydney, capacity 3500; ‘Tivoli,’ Brisbane, capacity 3000, and the several other theatres of distinction detailed in trade journals of last week.”
