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 campaign in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Brooks’ name, image and likeness was used to sell all manner of products and consumer goods — not only in the United States, but also elsewhere around the world. Here is one rather unusual example.
In 1950 — twelve years after she last appeared in a film and some five years before she relocated to Rochester, New York — Louise Brooks’ name was evoked in an advertisement for, of all things, want-ads!
“Want-Ad Wonders” was part of a series of ads which ran in numerous American newspapers over the period of some eight years, from 1950 through 1958. Seemingly, they were part of a national campaign intended to encourage local business people to make-use of want-ads. These ads were headlined with click-bait titles like “Want Ads Led to Capture of Lindbergh Baby Kidnapper!”, “Brother, Sister Separated by 32 Years, Reunited by Ads”, “Stranded Tourist Gets Star Sales Man Job Via Want Ad” and “Want Ads Formed Foundation For One of the World’s Largest Sales Forces.”
The advertisement in which Brooks name appeared, “Stage Producers Recruited Many Famed Beauties Via Want Ads”, mentioned Brooks’ brief time with the George White’s Scandals. It states, “George White, noted stage producer, uses newspaper Classified ads to find new talent for his Scandals. ‘That’s the way I’ve gotten all my girls for shows,’ says Mr. White. ‘You may remember some of them — Alice Faye, Dolores Costello, Louise Brooks, Dorothy Sebastian and Betty Compson.” The ad, which was one of the first in the series, ran in a small number of newspapers in the Midwest, West Coast and Florida during the first half of 1950. Among the cities were it ran were Lansing, Michigan, South Bend, Indiana, Akron, Ohio, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Spokane, Washington, and Miami, Florida.
What is so remarkable about the mention of Louise Brooks in this ad (as shown here) is that she was at the depth of her obscurity. As mentioned, she hadn’t appeared in a film in some 12 years. At the time, she was living a rather solitary life in New York City and likely never saw or was made aware of these ads which remembered her.
