ISSUES | summer 1983

6.3 Cover

6.3 (Summer 1983)

Featuring work by Deb Allerby, Jack Barrack, Ginger Bingham, Jonathan Cohen, Karen Fish, David Groff, Nancy Shields Hardin, John Helton, Jr., Andrew Hudgins, Jerome Kinkowitz, Philip Levine, Robert McNamera, Michael Milburn, R.K. Narayan, Eric Pankey, Ira Sadoff, Gary Soto, Stephen Tapscott, Barry Targan, Jeanie Thompson, and Dan Thrapp.

CONTENT FROM THIS ISSUE

6.3 Cover

Nonfiction

Jun 01 1983

Lulu in Rochester: Self-Portrait of an Anti-Star

In 1928 — at the age of 22 — Louise Brooks gave one of the best performances in the silent cinema as Lulu, an amoral woman of pleasure whose character had fascinated German artists since the 1890s. Director G.W. Pabst had searched for his star all over Europe, and he was ready to sign Marlene Dietrich when he heard that Louise Brooks, a refugee from Cherryvale, Kansas, a former Ziegfield girl and rising Paramount star, was willing to take the role. As Brooks recalls, contemporary critics complained that her performance was an utter blank: “Louise Brooks cannot act. She does not suffer. She does nothing.” But, this was precisely the point.