Image. Whatever lack of inner orderngrounded Brooks’s career in Hollywoodnis not apparent in her writing, which isnclean, terse, and to the point. Most noteworthynare the pieces on Bogart and onnPabst. The actor is presented as an unsuccessful,npretty young man of the theatern(“Humphrey”) who, partly through hisnown efforts, pardy through Hollywood’s,nand partly through the independentnmushrooming of the Bogart legend,nbecame “Bogey,” the tough, taciturnnloner that we still admire today. In thenpiece on Pabst, Brooks reveals at least asnmuch of herself as she does of the greatnGerman director. It is obvious that withnPandora’s Box, Pabst forged an actressnfrom the still-raw material of Brooks. Henalso created an archetype: Lulu, the embodimentnof an atavistic sexuality thatnthoroughly but heedlessly destroysneveryone including herself. “Your life isnexactly like Lulu’s,” Pabst once toldnBrooks, “and you will end the same way.”nTo see how right—and how wrong—nPabst was, it is helpful to supplementnLulu in Hollywood’•Niih a piece by KennethnTynan published in The NewnYorker m 1979 entitled “The Girl in thenBlack Helmet.” Reading it, one is overcomenby a sadness that only waste and thentrashing of the beautiful can inspire.nWhen Tynan finally met Brooks, afterndecades of marveling at her extraordinarynpresence on film, he saw a birdlike, aipplednold woman. Brooks was invited bynthe director of the International Museumnof Photography, founded by GeorgenEastman (of Eastman Kodak), to Rochester,nNew York, where she now lives:npenurious, bedridden, and alone. Yetnthis was the actress of whom HenrinLanglois, founder of the CinemathiquenFrangaise, once said, “There is no Garbo!nThere is no Dietrich! There is only LouisenBrooks!” Her career compassed a merendozen years and two dozen movies, ofnwhich only a handful were noteworthy.nYet Ado Kyrou, a French critic, couldnassert, “Louise Brooks is the only womannwho had the ability to transfigure nonmatter what film into a masterpiece….nLouise is the perfect apparition, then22inChronicles of CuUttrendream woman, the being without whomnthe cinema would be a poor thing.”nThe underlying accusation oiLulu innHollywood’•& that the moguls, businessmen,nproducers, investors, directors, actors,nall those in fact who made up thenHollywood film factory, were to blamenfor the failure of the careers of LouisenBrooks and others like her to come tonfruition. The Hollywood system, thennand now, it is implied, is never able toncope with independent spirit or artisticnintegrity, and sees nothing, in fact, exceptnthe so-called bottom line. However,nit is too simplistic to point the accusatorynfinger at Hollywood alone. Like so manynother beautifiil and talented actresses.nBrooks achieved greatness and simultaneouslyndestroyed her life. The Tynannpiece throws into focus many elements ofnLouise Brooks’s private life which are notntouched in Lidu in Hollywood. Her life isnless tragic, less melodramatic than thosenof Monroe or Harlow or Frances Farmer,nbut no less poignant when potentialitynand actuality are compared. Pabst instinctivelynrecognized his Lulu in Brooks.nBut while Lulu had victims. Brooks hasnonly one: herself. And unlike Lulu’s, hernlife ultimately became self-conscious,nself-aware, and articulate.nIf Lulu in Hollywood pKscnts Hollywoodnthe myth, then Hawks on Hawksnpresents Hollywood the reality.nThe key to success in the movie business,nas perceived through the career ofnHoward Hawks, is simple: hard work.nnnHawks, a Midwesterner like Brooks, andnof the same generation, began in thenproperty department at Famous Players-nLasky Studio during vacations from CornellnUniversity. His architectural andnengineering studies came in handynthere, and his sets attracted the attentionnof Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.nPickford made Hawks her property man,nthen assistant director, and then substitutendirector of The Little Princess inn1917 when the director became drunk.nHis training came through making onereelnpictures, a thorough grounding inncomedy technique. He produced anhandful of movies in the early 20’s, thennmade a successful transition to thentalkies. Hawks was more than simply andirector; he was always actively involvednin writing scripts, and he collaboratednwith some of the best writers of thenday: Hecht, Mac Arthur, Hemingway,nChandler, and Faulkner. His mostnfamous movies featured classic performancesnfrom Hollywood’s finest: PaulnMuni in Scarface; Katharine Hepburnnand Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby;nCarole Lombard and John Barrymore innTwentieth Century; Cary Grant andnRosalind Russell in His Girl Friday; GarynCooper in Sergeant York; HumphreynBogart and Lauren Bacall in The BignSleep; Marilyn Monroe in GentlemennPrefer Blondes; John Wayne in RionBravo. As this list indicates, Hawks was atnease with everything from screwball comedynto gangster epics, from serious dramanto Westerns.n