Happy Birthday, Lulu!

Louise Brooks by Eugene Richee (1927)

Louise Brooks was born on November 14, 1906 in Cherryvale, Kansas, and became one of the most iconic images of the Jazz Age. She dazzled theatregoers in New York when she performed with the Ziegfeld Follies and the George White Scandals and was the first person to dance the Charleston in London. When she turned to motion pictures, she stole every scene she was in. Her two films that she made in Germany in 1929 with G. W. Pabst, Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, are considered masterpieces of the silent era. And her hairstyle, a black bob that Kenneth Tynan referred to as a "black helmet," is one of the most famous hairstyles of the 20th century, copied by women everywhere, including myself. I've long looked up to her as a role model, someone whose "I don't give a damn attitude" I wish I could adopt more often. So Happy Birthday, Lulu! You're the cat's pajamas.