LOUISE BROOKS SPEAKING OF THE LIFE SHE LEAD IN 1948 and 1953 AS A KEPT WOMAN

Kenneth Tynan writing in the introduction of the book "Lulu in Hollywood".  This is what LOUISE BROOKS told him, printed on page xxxiv.

"Between 1948 and 1953, I suppose you could call me a kept woman," she said.  "Three decent rich men looked after me.  But then I was always a kept woman.  Even when I was making a thousand dollars a week, I would always be paid for by George Marshall or someone like that.  But I never had anything to show for it - no cash, no trinkets, nothing.  I didn't even like jewelry - can you imagine?  Pabst once called me a born whore, but if he was right I was a failure, with no pile of money and no comfortable mansion.  I just wasn't equipped to spoil millionaires in a practical, farsighted way.  I could live in the present, but otherwise everything has always been a hundred percent wrong about me.  Anyway, the three decent men took care of me.  One of them owned a sheet-metal manufacturing  company, and the result of that affair is that I am now the owner of the only handmade aluminum waste basket in the world.  He designed it, and it's in the living room, my solitary trophy.  Then a time came, early in 1953, when me three men independently decided that they wanted to marry me.  I had to escape, because I wasn't in love with them.  As a matter of fact, I've never been in love.  And if I had loved a man, could I have been faithful to him?  Could he have trusted me beyond a closed door? I doubt it.  It was clever of Pabst to know even before he met me that I posses the tramp essence of Lulu."


Book
Lulu In Hollywood
by Louise Brooks, with Introduction by Kenneth Tynan.
C 1974 and 1982 by Louise Brooks
University of Minnesota Press

LOUISE BROOKS TO KENNETH TYNAN ON BEING MOLESTED AS A GIRL

To Kenneth Tynan in the Introduction of  of LULU IN HOLLYWOOD - essays by LOUISE BROOKS.

"Having paused to light a cigarette, which provoked a mild coughing spasm, Brooks resumed her story.  "I almost forgot a strange incident that happened in 1952.  Out of the blue, I got a letter from a woman who had been a Cherryvale neighbor of ours.  She enclosed some snapshots.  One of them showed a nice-looking neighbor of ours.  She enclosed some snapshots.  One of them showed a nice looking gay haired man of about fifty, holding the hand of a little girl - me.  On the back she'd written, 'This is Mr. Feathers, an old bachelor who loved kids.  He was always taking you to the picture show and buying you toys and candy.'  That picture brought back something I'd blacked out of my mind for - what? - thirty-seven years.  When I was nine years old,. Mr. Feathers molested me sexually.  Which forged another link between me and Lulu: when she had her first lover, she was very young, and Schigolch, the man in questions, was middle -aged.  I've often wondered what effect Mr. Feathers had on my life.  He must have had a great deal to do with forming my attitude towards sexual pleasure.  For me, nice, soft, easy men were never enough - there had to be an element of domination - and I'm sure that's all tied up with Mr. Feathers.  The pleasure of kissing and being kissed comes from somewhere entirely different, psychologically as well as physically.  Incidentally, I told my mother about Mr. Feathers, and - would you believe it? (Peal of laughter.) She blamed me!  She said I must have led him on.  It's always the same, isn't it?"  And Brooks ran on in this vein, discussing her sex life openly and jauntily, unbuckling one more notch of the Bible Belt with every sentence she uttered."

Excerpted from LULU IN HOLLYWOOD - essays by Louise Brooks