June 21, 2021
We can thank silent film star, dancer, and flapper Louise Brooks with popularizing the sleek, androgynous bob hairstyle that became an icon of the 1920s. The smooth, black, perfectly sharpened hairdo, shown in this colorized photograph from Brooks’ 1927 film Now We’re in the Air, symbolized Brooks’ defiance and determination to forge her own path in Hollywood.
In Now We’re in the Air, a silent film comedy set in World War I Europe, Louise Brooks played identical twins, Grisette and Griselle. One twin is a German loyalist and the other supports the French. While this film helped showcase Brooks’ talents, it was the films she did a few years later, while living in Europe, that made her and her unique hairstyle international stars.
A Born Entertainer
Louise Brooks was born in Kansas in 1906. She later described her father, Leonard Porter Brooks, as a disinterested and preoccupied lawyer. Her mother, Myra Rude, was the artsy sort. She was a skilled pianist, loved books, and was passionate about music, art, and the theatre. She wasn’t, however, as passionate about raising her children. Although she inspired her children with her creativity, she once said her children should “take care of themselves.” Brooks took up dancing and discovered she was quite good at it. She continued with dance lessons and performances through her teens.
Short Hair
Wearing her hair short was nothing new to Louise Brooks. Throughout her childhood, she wore her hair cute in a pageboy style. As a young teen, she once grew her hair out so she could have long braids like her friends. But her mother encouraged her to not follow the crowd and fashion her hair in such a way that she stood apart from the other dancers when on stage. That is when she began wearing a “Buster Brown” bob with long bangs and chin-length sides. Both the pageboy and the Buster Brown bob fit Brooks’ face and her personality. A little spitfire, Brooks was often wickedly naughty and unladylike, traits that she would carry into adulthood.
On to the Big Apple
At the young age of 15, Louise Brooks accompanied her dance troupe to New York and never looked back. She joined the Ziegfeld Follies and was discovered by a producer with Paramount Pictures who had attended one of the performances. She signed a five-year contract with the movie studio when she was 19 years old and worked as a silent movie star. Brooks’ performances were unique. She eschewed the overly dramatic acting style of the day and preferred a more realistic acting approach. It wasn’t what people were used to seeing, but it caught on. Soon other actors were dumping the melodrama for realism.
An Upgraded Hairdo
As a New York actress and dancer, Louise Brooks was eager to appear modern and metropolitan. She worked to change her midwestern accent and bought a new, fancy wardrobe. But her hair remained in the Buster Brown bob. In 1924, one of her friends pulled her aside and told her she was in desperate need of a new, glamorous hairstyle. Her friend took her to see one of New York City’s top hairdressers and asked him to work his magic. He did just that. First, he cut her bangs even shorter and smoothed them into a straight line above her eyebrows. Then he angled the sides of her bob to form sharp points at her cheeks. Lastly, he layered the back of the bob with a razor so that Brooks’ hair would lay smooth and flat. The result was a chic, modern hairdo that was sexy, exotic, and androgynous.
An Icon of the Flapper Era
When audiences began to see Louise Brooks in her silent films in the mid-1920s, they were drawn to her radical hairstyle. The cropped, Egyptian-inspired style was so unique that fans began to copy her hairstyle. In fact, Louise Brooks was the impetus for thousands of women to cut their own hair in a bob. The Lulu bob, as it became known, was the hottest hairstyle of the Roaring Twenties.
International Stardom
Louise Brooks grew dissatisfied with Paramount Pictures when they refused to follow through on a promised raise. In 1928, Brooks left the U.S. and travelled to Europe. She appeared in several German films, including Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl. These roles catapulted Brooks to international stardom and made her an icon of beauty and style around the world. When she returned to the United States, however, she ran into some legal trouble with her own employer, Paramount Pictures. Since she had broken their contract, the studio reached out to Brooks and requested that she come in to do a voice-over for the last film she made for the studio. At the time, Paramount was making the transition from silent films to “talkies”. When Brooks refused to do the work for Paramount, she found herself blacklisted in Hollywood. At the age of 32, her acting career was officially over. In her short time in the entertainment industry, however, Brooks left an indelible mark. Thanks to her innovative style, every image we see of a 1920s flapper features Brooks’ signature bob hairstyle, seen in this colorized photograph from Now We’re in the Air.