Welcome to the Louise Brooks Society™, an online archive and pioneering “fan site” — a stop on the information superhighway where individuals can learn about the life and times of this singular silent film star. The Louise Brooks Society (or LBS) website was established in 1995 as a “virtual fan club in cyberspace”. The site’s visitors include fans of the actress, film buffs, and movie industry professionals, as well as students, teachers, writers, artists, celebrities and other interested individuals from all walks of life.* It is hoped that those who visit this site and share an interest in the actress will join in furthering its efforts.
The Louise Brooks Society™ was founded by Thomas Gladysz. This website is written, designed and maintained by Gladysz with the assistance of Christy Pascoe, and is aided by a community of other fans. (See the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS page for a list of the names of the many individuals who have assisted the LBS.) The Louise Brooks Society operates with the written consent of the Estate of Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks Heirs, LC), who “approve and support” its use of the name and likeness of the actress. Content original to this site is © 1995 – 2024 by Thomas Gladysz / Louise Brooks Society. All rights reserved.
The Louise Brooks Society is proud to be a retrosite. In this day and age, accuracy and authenticity matter: The LBS is a clickbait, colorized, and A.I. free zone. For more information about the LBS, check out the Mission Statement below, or the LBS F.A.Q. (This page was last updated in August 2024).
Thomas Gladysz
Director, Louise Brooks Society
MISSION STATEMENT
The Louise Brooks Society is devoted to the appreciation and promotion of the life and films of Louise Brooks. The mission of the society is to honor the actress by 1) stimulating interest in her life, films and writings, as well as her place in 20th century culture; 2) fostering and coordinating research; 3) serving as a repository for relevant material; and 4) advocating for the preservation, restoration, and dissemination of Brooks’ films and other related material.
The LBS website strives to promote interest in the actress by 1) serving as a focal point for related activities; 2) disseminating historically accurate information including authoritative texts and images; and 3) offering individuals a variety of materials to aid in their appreciation of the actress. Above all, the LBS encourages the viewing of Brooks’ surviving films and the fellowship of her admirers. Along with the ongoing development of its website, blog, and social media accounts, the LBS has published new material about the actress in the form of articles, books, online videos, and DVDs. Future activities, such as e-books, podcasts, zoom chats, screenings, and related events, are under consideration. Be sure to follow this website and blog for updates and the latest news.
SHORT HISTORY OF THE LBS
Since first becoming interested in Brooks, I’ve enjoyed meeting and talking with others who shared my enthusiasm for this singular film star. Early on, I searched for some kind of group. I remember going to my local public library and looking through a directory of fan clubs — but found no group dedicated to Brooks. This was in the early 1990s, just as the internet was getting going. With my own growing interest in computing, it occurred to me that I might form my own group, and the idea of starting a Louise Brooks website was born. I realized there would be no better way of reaching other fans and forming a group of like-minded individuals than over the internet. Thus, enabled by the world wide web, the Louise Brooks Society was born.
When I launched my site in 1995, I thought about what to call my site, my group of pages. As I have long noted, the Louise Brooks Society drew its name from (was inspired by) a turn-of-phrase in John Lahr’s New York Times review of Lulu in Hollywood. In this 1982 review, Lahr refers to the famed critic & screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as the “founder of the Louise Brooks Literary Society, ” Lahr did so because Mankiewicz, a sometime member of the Algonquin Round Table, was a kind of mentor to the 18 year old Brooks, to whom he gave reading material, invited to opening nights on Broadway, and in general tried to educate. I liked Lahr’s turn-of-phrase and its suggestion of an educational purpose, and as it reminded me of other groups with which I was familiar — like the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, I decided to name my website the Louise Brooks Society. That was in the summer of 1995.
The phrase “Louise Brooks Literary Society” was an invention of John Lahr. There was no actual “Louise Brooks Literary Society” during Brooks’ lifetime, nor is one mentioned in the definitive biography of the actress by Barry Paris. In 2024, I contacted John Lahr and he confirmed that he, not Mankiewicz, originated the term “Louise Brooks Literary Society”. It was merely a descriptive turn-of-phrase, not a historical reference.
The first media mention of the LBS, from way back in 1996.
The Louise Brooks Society website was launched in August, 1995. That makes it an internet pioneer.** One of its very first media mentions and earliest print reference dates to May 23, 1996, when it was named a USA Today “Hot Site” and mentioned in the newspaper’s syndicated “Net: New and notable” column. See the clipping to the right, which notes the site’s early URL.
The earliest Wayback Machine capture of the site at its current domain, www.pandorasbox.com, dates to April 11, 1997, while the earliest homepage captured by the Wayback Machine featuring a © symbol dates to June 27, 1998. Some of its earliest efforts at reaching other fans was through posting messages on various bulletin board systems (BBS), listserv’s and newsgroups (Usenet), as well as on AOL and Prodigy, back when those platforms were popular. The earliest archived Google newsgroup post mentioning the Louise Brooks Society, from October 27, 1995, announces the website. Another, a query from the LBS asking about a screening of Pandora’s Box in Poland, dates to January 29, 1996. Another, from December 31, 1996, announces the site’s move to its domain at pandorasbox.com, where it has resided since.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, LBS director Thomas Gladysz regularly posted news and announcements to relevant newsgroups, such as alt.movies.silent and rec.arts.movies.past.films and alt.fan.louise-brooks. (Newsgroups, for those not familiar, were a form of proto-social media.) In 2004, he started his own newsgroup, LouiseBrooksSociety. These posts and others are now part of the Google groups / Usenet Archive. Complimentary to these efforts was another LBS group begun on Yahoo, News of Lulu (founded October 1, 2000, though now defunct).
Since its founding, the LBS has grown to become one of the largest websites devoted to any film star — silent or sound. It now stands at nearly 225 distinct pages, or URLs. The Encyclopedia of Associations, a standard reference work found in many libraries, contains an entry on the Louise Brooks Society in editions of the book published in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2017. Over the years, the LBS has been praised by the likes of Leonard Maltin on his Moviecrazy website, and by the late Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize winning film critic. Before his passing, Ebert said he made use of this site while researching an essay on Pandora’s Box.
The LBS has received media attention from its earliest days. The first feature story on the LBS, “Fan Site Sparks BioPic” by acclaimed journalist Steve Silberman, appeared on the Wired magazine website way back in 1998. Other pieces mentioning the LBS have appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Examiner, Wichita Eagle, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Grand Rapids Press and elsewhere. In 2000, syndicated film critic and friend to Louise Brooks, Jack Garner, wrote an article for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle which described the Louise Brooks Society as “A fine example of a fan page, a thoughtful, artful site devoted to the life and times of a fabled silent movie legend.” That’s high praise coming from someone close to the actress. Elsewhere around the world, the LBS has been mentioned in the Guardian, London Times, Le Temps, Stuttgarter Zeitung, and Melbourne Age. “The renewed interest in her,” The South China Morning Post noted in 1999, was “fueled by the cyberspace Louise Brooks Society.” A comprehensive checklist of LBS media, much of it linked to its cite source, can be found HERE.
LBS SCRAPBOOK || ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS || IN the NEWS || PUBLICATIONS || WHAT’S NEW || SOCIAL MEDIA || CONTACT
What follows are highlights from the near 30 year history of the Louise Brooks Society. My apologizes if this page runs long, but over the last year or so the credibility of the LBS has been attacked, and smeared, time and again by another so-called “fan”. This page serves as a historical record of the intention of the Louise Brooks Society to honor the actress and celebrate her achievements. Its efforts, it should be noted, have received the approval and support of the Estate of Louise Brooks, as well as that of Brooks’ biographer Barry Paris and other film scholars. In 2017, Pamela Hutchinson, author of the book Pandora’s Box (British Film Institute), stated “Nobody knows more about Louise Brooks than Thomas Gladysz. Having founded the Louise Brooks Society in 1995, he has spent more than two decades researching her life and work, curating memorabilia and writing about this most fascinating of silent era actresses.”
ADVOCACY: In 1998, inspired by the popularity of the LBS website, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) commissioned the Emmy nominated documentary Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu. The part played by the LBS in bringing the documentary to television was acknowledged by TCM as well as by the director of the documentary. According to a Wired article, “Fan Site Sparks Biopic“, a TCM spokesman was quoted as saying “the level of interest in the Louise Brooks Society, the most in-depth Web site devoted to the once nearly forgotten star, convinced the network to go ahead with the documentary and a mini-festival of Brooks’ work.” Another article, “Lovely Lulu Lives Again” in the San Francisco Chronicle, quoted other individuals involved with the documentary, stating “Hugh Munro Neeley, director of Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu, credits Gladysz’s site with helping to sell the idea for the documentary to Turner executives.” The Fresno Bee newspaper put it this way, “Internet users have embraced the actress… Her career and her life off the set have become a source of interest unparalleled by many other film stars. And those bits and bytes of information were a catalyst for this TV special.”
In 2000, following a grass-roots campaign organized by Thomas Gladysz and the Louise Brooks Society, the LBS helped bring both the Barry Paris biography of the actress and Brooks’ own book, Lulu in Hollywood, back into print through the University of Minnesota Press. The LBS is acknowledged in each edition. (see image below) As a “thank you” for its efforts, the University of Minnesota Press went to the expense of sending Barry Paris to San Francisco for a Louise Brooks Society sponsored author talk and book signing. The event was a great success, many books were sold… and happily for fans everywhere, both titles have remained in print since. Gladysz is currently involved in preparing a new edition of Lulu in Hollywood which is set for release in 2025.
In 2006, the Louise Brooks Society participated in the Louise Brooks’ CENTENARY by organizing, sponsoring and participating in a handful of events, and in spreading the word about others. Additionally, and more recently, the Louise Brooks Society has contributed to the preservation of two of Brooks’ films, Now We’re in the Air (preserved in 2017), and The Street of Forgotten Men (restored in 2022). Thomas Gladysz and the LBS is acknowledged in the credits on contemporary prints of each film. In recognition of his efforts, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival awarded Gladysz a special Now We’re in the Air giphoscope. (Click the link to watch a Youtube video of this limited edition giphoscope in action!)
These two essential books were brought back into print through the assistance of the LBS. An acknowledgement can be found in both on their copyright page.
SCHOLARSHIP / RESEARCH: The wealth of information found on the LBS website stands as one of its proudest achievements. Much of it, including the filmography (the most detailed ever assembled on the actress), annotated chronology, and extensive bibliographies are the result of thousands of hours of research, some of it conducted in libraries and archives scattered across the United States and Europe. Ongoing research conducted by the LBS has lead to a handful of significant discoveries — including the comprehensive documentation of her childhood performances; little known articles, interviews, and images; the undocumented exhibition history of Pandora’s Box in the United States, etc…. Also uncovered were rare audio recording of Brooks’ radio appearances in the 1960s! (For a small sample of these recordings, check out this video on the LBS YouTube channel, “Through the Black Velvet Curtain: Louise Brooks and Rudolph Valentino.”)
In 2018, the Irish Times took note of this site’s scholarship, commenting “An online tribute site, the Louise Brooks Society, contains an extraordinary day-by-day chronology of her life.” Notably, the LBS is listed on various academic and film history websites, and cited in a handful of books including Geheimnisvolle Tiefe G.W. Pabst (Austrian Film Archive, 1998), German Expressionist Films (Pocket Essentials, 2002), Photoplay Editions (McFarland, 2002), Sirens & Sinners: A Visual History of Weimar Film 1918-1933 (Thames & Hudson, 2013), and CHASE! A Tribute to the Keystone Cop (BearManor Media, 2020), among others. The LBS is a scholarly fan site. To see which pages have been added or updated, see the WHAT’S NEW page.
PUBLICATIONS: In 2010, the LBS published the “Louise Brooks edition” of Margarete Bohme’s The Diary of a Lost Girl, the controversial 1905 book which served as the basis for the 1929 film. Notably, it was the book’s first English-language publication in more than 100 years. This annotated edition was praised by Leonard Maltin and others, and was the subject of an article on Deutsche Welle. UK academic Elizabeth Boa, a renowned scholar of German literature, described the book as “well documented and beautifully presented.” Other publications of the Louise Brooks Society include Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film (2017, with a foreword by William Wellman, Jr., son of the Oscar winning director), Now We’re in the Air: A Companion to the Once Lost Film (2017, with a foreword by film preservationist Robert Byrne), Louise Brooks, the Persistent Star (2018), and The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond (2023, with forewords by Robert Byrne and Academy Award honoree Kevin Brownlow). Each of these works were the result of considerable research — and each feature new information and little seen images. More information about LBS publications can be found HERE.
As an acknowledged authority on the life and films of Louise Brooks, Gladysz has written numerous articles (for the likes of the Huffington Post, Pop Matters, and Film International), and contributed material to various scholarly and general interest books; among them are his entry on Louise Brooks in the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains (University of Nebraska Press, 2004). Gladysz has written program notes for screenings of Brooks’ films shown around the United States — these venues include the University of Wisconsin Cinematheque, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has also provided an audio commentary to two DVD/Blu-ray releases from KINO Lorber, Diary of a Lost Girl (2010), and Beggars of Life (2017). Both commentaries were singled out for praise in reviews of the DVDs. Recently, Gladysz has written the liner notes to a DVD of never before released Brooks films due out sometime in late 2024 or early 2025.
To date, five books have been published by the Louise Brooks Society. More are in the works.
LBS BLOG: The Louise Brooks Society started blogging in 2002, first on LiveJournal and then on Blogger beginning in 2009. Between the two forums, there are more than 3500 posts, most all of which now reside on the LBS blog at louisebrookssociety.blogspot.com. The LBS blog has been visited / read more than 2 million times, and is a longtime member of related affiliations, including the CMBA (Classic Movie Blog Association), CMH (Classic Movie Hub), and LAMB (Large Association of Movie Blogs). Notably, in 2012, the esteemed critic Greil Marcus singled out an LBS post in one of his columns. In 2018, the CMBA profiled the LBS, and in 2023, the CMH named the LBS one of the 5 best early film blogs. The LBS blog is also featured on the authoritative WeimarCinema.org website, and mentioned on the Columbia University Press website.The LBS blog can be found HERE.
The same year that the LBS began blogging, it also jumped on the internet music bandwagon and launched its own “radio station” called RadioLulu. It streamed Louise Brooks-inspired, silent film themed music of the 1920s, 1930s, and today. The station playlist ran more than 8 hours – with most of its music dating from the Jazz Age. The station streamed on Live365.com from 2002 to 2016, when Live365 ceased operations. (Read a Huffington Post article about the demise of the LBS sponsored station.) After that, RadioLulu moved over to TuneIN, where it ran a couple three more years before shutting down. Someday, fingers crossed, some of the old playlists will be turned into a series of thematic podcasts.
EXHIBITS & EVENTS: In 2005, 2006, 2010, and 2011 the LBS mounted Louise Brooks and silent film-related exhibits at the San Francisco Public Library. Each exhibit was accompanied by a well attended public program which featured a lecture, screening, and related presentation. Over the years, as well, the LBS has also sponsored a handful of events, including talks with Louise Brooks biographer Barry Paris, film historian Peter Cowie (Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever), and silent era screenwriter Frederica Sagor Mass (author of Rolled Stockings), among others. These and other events took place at various bookstores, libraries, and theaters around the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2006, the Louise Brooks Society participated in the Brooks’ CENTENARY by organizing, sponsoring and participating in a handful of related events.
As the Director of the LBS, Thomas Gladysz has introduced Brooks’ films at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, San Francisco Public Library, Detroit Institute of Arts, and Action Cinema in Paris, France. In 2019, Gladysz gave the keynote address at the annual Rudolph Valentino Memorial at the Hollywood Forever cemetery, speaking on the relationship between the two iconic stars. Gladysz has also given talks on the actress at Books Inc. and the Balboa Theater in San Francisco, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) film club in Sacramento, Folsom Public Library in Folsom, California, and Village Voice bookstore in Paris, France. His book signings have taken place at the Egyptian Theater / AFI Cinematheque in Hollywood, the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Washington, and Castro Theater in San Francisco. Images from these and other LBS events can be found in the LBS SCRAPBOOK or on the LBS Flickr account.
A Louise Brooks Society exhibit at the San Francisco Public Library
PROMOTION: Through its website, long-running blog, and various SOCIAL MEDIA accounts, the LBS has sought to promote not only its own efforts, but also those of others. To that end, it has promoted related books, articles, DVDs, screenings, events, and related “fan-art”.
The LBS was an early adopter of social media, even before the term existed. Early on, the LBS had its own Google newsgroup, Yahoo Group, Tribe.net page, and MySpace account. The LBS joined Twitter in January 2009, tweeted thousands of times, and gained thousands of followers. The LBS Facebook page launched in 2010. It too gained thousands of followers, and was “liked” thousands of times. The LBS Instagram account dated to 2015, and it also proved popular with more than 5300 followers. Unfortunately, the LBS Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts were taken down due to the bogus claims of an individual who alleged the LBS infringed upon their intellectual property — as if they own “Louise Brooks.” The LBS has also had its LinkedIn, Patreon, YouTube, Tumblr and LinkTree accounts challenged. The LBS has taken legal action against this harassment, and has begun to rebuild it social media presence.
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The LBS is honored by the enthusiasm and generosity of Brooks’ many fans in the development of this website. A community of individuals from around the globe have not only shared rare material such as images and articles, they have as well visited distant archives, performed research, acquired and translated articles, written texts, and sent all manner of information and material. The LBS is pleased to ACKNOWLEDGE their efforts and / or contributions; the LBS also appreciates the many emails and letters sent from across the United States and the world.
Thank you for reading this page, and thank you for your interest in Louise Brooks and the Louise Brooks Society. We would love to hear from you. Please visit our CONTACT page to send a message.
Thomas Gladysz
Director, Louise Brooks Society
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Gladysz (left) & Pascoe (right) with Brooks |
Thomas Gladysz at “LBS Headquarters” with some of his collection |
Pascoe (left) & Gladysz (right) with Laura Moriarty, |
* The site’s many visitors hail from dozens of countries on six continents. To date, well more than 3,500,000 people have visited this site! Logs show individuals have come from across North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific — all of which suggest Louise Brooks is a truly international star. The LBS was once visited by an individual stationed in Antarctica, which I think is pretty cool. No pun intended. The visitor even sent an email greeting saying hello!
** Begun nearly 30 years ago, the Louise Brooks Society is a pioneering website. It was the first Louise Brooks website, and one of the earliest websites devoted to an individual film star. Mosaic, the first web browser, recognized the efforts of the LBS by including it on its “What’s New” page on April 10, 1996. The LBS has been similarly honored by Mozilla / Netscape, another early browser. Here are some of the other designations (or old-school web bling) awarded this site ever so long ago.
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For the record: The very first internet honor the LBS received was a four-slate rating from the North Carolina Institute of Film Arts. Since then, the LBS has received other acclaim including a spot on Yahoo’s “Desert Island List” in November, 1996. The LBS is proud to have once been named a “recommended site” by the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as by the long running, authoritative SilentEra website. The LBS was included in the Art & Music Pavilion of the Internet 1996 World Exposition, a “world’s fair for the information age”. And ever so long ago, the LBS was also named a “Hollywood Site of the Week” and a “Celebrity Site of the Day”. The latter noted, “This site is the largest and most comprehensive website devoted to any silent film star.”
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| With Paul McGann, a Louise Brooks fan and the 8th Doctor Who |
Robert Byrne presents Gladysz with a Now We’re in the Air giphoscope |
Introducing Pandora’s Box at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival |
With author, film historian and Academy Award honoree Kevin Brownlow |