Louise from A to Z: I for Ibsen, Independence, It's the Old Army Game, It Pays to Advertise, Irish men and I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles

Ibsen was the name that Louise recorded in one of her journals (in her list of favorite things- vaguely Proustian)  as being her favorite playwright.  Perhaps this is because of the aforementioned Hedda Gabler connection.

Independence, Kansas is where Louise lived for a short time in between living in Cherryvale and Wichita.  It was, incidentally, as she told Tom Graves in a phone interview years ago, her favorite place in the Midwest that she lived.

Louise Brooks in It's the Old Army Game (1926), being paid close attention to by a local fireman at Pretty Willie's shop.

It's the Old Army Game was a film from 1926 that Louise starred in alongside WC Fields, her old Ziegfeld Follies compatriot.  She is recorded in an early interview with Photoplay as having said that she refused to do it, yet she is delightfully captured in the role of a sassy desk clerk at a small town pharmacy. The movie was filmed in Florida in a town that had apparently escaped prohibition laws and, as Louise put it, "if ever there was a company that needed no help in the consumption of liquor, it was ours."  The studio would later wire them and tell them that all of the footage was slanted and to sober up and come home.

Louise Brooks in It Pays to Advertise (1931)

It Pays to Advertise was a film released in 1931 in which Louise had a small but very funny part.  Click here for a link to a clip showing her part in the film and check out this link to the Louise Brooks Society Blog for a very detailed depiction of it's history and production. And be sure to "get a look at 'dem gams."

When asked about which men were best and worst in the boudoir, Louise claimed that Irish men turned out to be the worst.

The cover of a copy of The Fundamentals of Good Ballroom Dancing pamphlet.

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles was a song that Louise recommended for use in learning to dance.  Such recommendations were listed in the back of her educational pamphlet, The Fundamentals of Good Ballroom Dancing, which was published in 1940 in Kansas.