Louise Brooks - Silent Film Star

 

"Love is a publicity stunt, and making love - after the first curious raptures - is only another petulant way to pass the time waiting for the studio to call."

Mary Louise Brooks was born in Cherryvale, Kansas on November 14, 1906.  Her father, Leonard, was a lawyer who had little time to be a parent, preferring that his wife Myra assume those responsibilities.  An artist herself, she instilled in Louise a love of music and books.

By her late teens, Louise was already a very skilled dancer, having toured with a national company.  She then joined the famed Ziegfeld Follies as a semi-nude dancer in New York City.  Her act caught the attention of a producer at Paramount Pictures, who signed her to a five-year contract.  She made her screen debut in the 1925 silent film The Street of Forgotten Men.

For the next fifteen years, Brooks enjoyed steady work in both America and Europe, becoming an icon of the flapper girl culture.  She starred in a number of silent film classics, including Beggars of Life and Diary of a Lost Girl.  Her most famous film during this time was Pandora's Box (1929), which is often cited as her best work.  Produced and later banned in Germany, the film tells the story of Lulu, an uninhibited and seductive ingenue who brings ruin and shame to those closest to her.  You can watch the film, complete with English subtitles, on YouTube. 

By 1940, her career had run its course, so Louise returned to her native Kansas, where she opened a dance studio.  It didn't last long however, so she returned to the Big Apple, ultimately finding work as a call girl.  Of this time in her life, she would later write "I found that the only well-paying career open to me, as an unsuccessful actress of thirty-six, was that of a call girl...and I began to flirt with the fancies related to little bottles filled with yellow sleeping pills."

Wiser heads prevailed however, and by 1955, she experienced something of a career resurgence, culminating in a Louise Brooks film festival in 1957.  She shied away from interviews, but had special relationships with film historians, and ultimately wrote her memoirs (see Trivia below).

By 1985, her health was in decline, having suffered from emphysema and osteoarthritis of the hip for several years.  She ultimately died of a heart attack on August 8th.  She was 78 years old.  Mary Hart filed a report on her passing for Entertainment Tonight.

Louise Brooks was cremated and her ashes were laid to rest at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester, New York.  Beethoven's Ode to Joy was played during her memorial service while passages from her memoir were read to attendees.

Location: Section #33S, Lot #133F

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Louise Brooks, take a voyage to Amazon.  Its all in books.
  
  
• While there is no Louise Brooks Museum per se, there are a number of exhibits dedicated to her in the United States.  The Cherryvale Historical Museum in her hometown features a permanent exhibit on her life, while the George Eastman Museum in Rochester has an impressive collection of her memorabilia.  Fans are also welcome to visit the Louise Brooks Society online, which has been keeping fans connected since 1995. 
  
  
• The last known interview with Brooks was for the acclaimed 1980 documentary series Hollywood.  Check out this clip on YouTube, wherein she discusses fellow silent film star and close personal friend Clara Bow.
  
  
• In 1991, the British band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released their single Pandora's Box as a tribute to Brooks.  The music video, available on YouTube, incorporates footage from the 1929 film.
  
  
• As a child, Brooks was good friends with fellow Cherryvale resident Vivian Vance, who would later rise to stardom herself as co-star of I Love Lucy.

The Reverend Billy Graham

 

"I am the greatest failure of all men.  I was too much with men and too little with God.  I was too busy with business meetings and even conducting services.  I should have been more with God, and people would've sensed God's presence about me when they were with me."

William Franklin Graham, Jr. was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 7, 1918.  He was the oldest of four children born to a dairy farmer and his wife.  As a young boy, Graham enjoyed reading the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and echoing the hero's famous jungle call.  Graham's father would later declare that it was this famous yell that led his son to becoming a minister.

As a young man, Graham attended several universities, eventually earning a degree in anthropology from Wheaton College.  He would later write that it was during this time in his life that he decided to become a minister, stating he had answered the call while on the 18th green of a Florida golf course. 

Graham's career was the stuff of legends.  During a period of racial strife in the 1950s, he often preached for integration, even convening a joint crusade with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1957. Through his travels and his broadcast ministry, he is estimated to have preached the word to more than 210 million people worldwide and three presidents called him friend.  He is considered among the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th Century. 

By 2018, Graham's health was in decline.  He ultimately died of natural causes on February 21st at the age of 99.  He received tributes from around the world, with President Trump declaring him "an ambassador for Christ."  He became only the fourth private citizen to lie in honor at the Capitol rotunda in Washington, DC.  

Reverend Graham was laid to rest on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in his hometown of Charlotte.  His pine coffin was handcrafted by convicted murderers at Louisiana State Penitentiary. While you're there, be sure to visit Bessie, the talking animatronic cow who welcomes the faithful to the site.

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about the Reverend Billy Graham, take a voyage to Amazon.  Its all in books.
  
  
• In the early 1950s, Graham founded World Wide Pictures, a production company that produces short, inspirational films for churches.  You can see many of them today on the company's YouTube channel.
  
  
• Graham was the first televangelist to speak behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, sharing his message of peace with the Soviet Union and countries throughout Eastern Europe.
  
  
• Graham founded the magazine Christianity Today.  Pick up a copy now!
  
  
• Graham was the first non-musician to be inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
  
  
• While you're in Charlotte, be sure to visit Graham's birth marker, located at 4601 Park Road.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Gilda Radner

 

"Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.  Delicious ambiguity."

Gilda Susan Radner was born in Detroit on June 28, 1946. In her autobiography, she stated that she was named after Rita Hayworth's character in the film Gilda, which premiered three months earlier.

Through her father, Radner developed a love of the theatre, as he would often take her to New York for shows on the Broadway stage.  Back in their native Detroit, he managed the famed Seville Hotel, where countless artists stayed while performing in the Motor City.

In 1969, Radner dropped out of college and moved to Toronto.  It was here that she made her theatrical debut, in a production of Godspell, opposite future box office stars Eugene Levy, Victor Garber, and Martin Short.  From there, she joined Toronto's famed Second City comedy troupe, working with future greats like John Candy, Catherine O'Hara, and Dan Aykroyd.

Of course, Radner is most famous as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live, which she began in 1975.  Over the next five years, she introduced a slew of classic characters, including the hard-of-hearing Emily Litella and advice specialist Roseanne Roseannadanna, roles that would land her an Emmy Award in 1978.  She left the show in 1980 and appeared in a string of mostly forgettable box office comedies.

In 1985, Radner was on location with her husband, actor Gene Wilder, her co-star in one of the aforementioned films, the 1986 bomb Haunted Honeymoon.  It was during production when Radner first started to notice that something was wrong.  She complained of severe fatigue and leg pain, but doctors were stumped.  She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  She'd spend the next four years as the public face of the disease, but, with Gene at her side, she ultimately passed away on June 28, 1946.  She was just 42 years old.

Gilda Radner was laid to rest in Long Ridge Union Cemetery in Stamford, Connecticut.

Location: Center of the cemetery
Inscription: Comedienne - Ballerina

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Gilda Radner, take a voyage to Amazon.  Its all in books.
  
  
• Despite the inscription on her headstone, this blogger can find no evidence that Radner was into ballet.
  
  
• Following her death, Radner was recognized with a series of awards, including a 1990 Grammy for the narration of her memoirs.  She was also inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.  Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the same hospital where she passed, now has the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center.
  
  
• According to Penny Marshall, Radner was considered for the role of Shirley Feeney on Laverne and Shirley, the role that ultimately went to Cindy Williams.
  
  
• In 1991, Gener Wilder co-founded Gilda's Club, a national non-profit organization that offers support to people living with cancer.  In 2009, it was rechristened as the Cancer Support Community, but still offers many of the same services.  Check out their website for more information.
  
  
• Two years after Radner's passing, Gene Wilder took his fourth wife, a speech pathologist he'd worked with on the film See No Evil, Hear No Evil, which could never be made today.  They remained married until his death in 2016, which could explain why he was not buried with Radner.  He was cremated and his ashes were scattered.