Brooks was born in Cherryvale, Kansas,[19] the daughter of Leonard Porter Brooks,[20] a lawyer, who was usually preoccupied with his legal practice,[21] and Myra Rude,[20] an artistic mother who said that any "squalling brats she produced could take care of themselves".[22] Rude was a talented pianist who played the latest Debussy and Ravel for her children, inspiring them with a love of books and music.[23]
Brooks described the hometown of her childhood as a typical Midwestern community where the inhabitants "prayed in the parlor and practiced incest in the barn."[24] When Louise was nine years old, a neighborhood man sexually abused her.[25] Beyond the physical trauma at the time, the event continued to have damaging psychological effects on her personal life as an adult and on her career. That early abuse caused her later to acknowledge that she was incapable of real love, explaining that this man: "must have had a great deal to do with forming my attitude toward sexual pleasure ... For me, nice, soft, easy men were never enough—there had to be an element of domination."[26] When Brooks at last told her mother of the incident, many years later, her mother suggested that it must have been Louise's fault for "leading him on".[27] In 1919, Brooks and her family moved to Independence, Kansas, before relocating to Wichita in 1920.[28][29]
Brooks began her entertainment career as a dancer, joining the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts modern dance company in Los Angeles at the age of 15 in 1922.[4][30] The company included founders Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, as well as a young Martha Graham.[31] As a member of the globe-trotting troupe, Brooks spent a season abroad in London and in Paris.[30] In her second season with the Denishawn company, she advanced to a starring role in one work opposite Shawn. But one day, a long-simmering personal conflict between Brooks and St. Denis boiled over, and St. Denis abruptly fired Brooks from the troupe in the spring of 1924, telling her in front of the other members: "I am dismissing you from the company because you want life handed to you on a silver salver."[32] These words made a strong impression on Brooks; when she drew up an outline for a planned autobiographical novel in 1949, "The Silver Salver" was the title she gave the tenth and final chapter.[33] Brooks was 17 years old at the time of her dismissal.[34] Thanks to her friend Barbara Bennett, the sister of Constance and Joan Bennett, Brooks almost immediately found employment as a chorus girl in George White's Scandals,[6] followed by an appearance as a semi-nude[5] dancer in the 1925 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies at the Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street.[5][6][30]
As a result of her work in the Follies, Brooks came to the attention of Walter Wanger, a producer at Paramount Pictures.[5] An infatuated Wanger signed her to a five-year contract with the studio in 1925.[7] Soon after, Brooks met movie star Charlie Chaplin at a cocktail party given by Wanger.[5] Chaplin was in town for the premiere of his film The Gold Rush (1925) at the Strand Theatre on Broadway.[5] Chaplin and Brooks had a two-month affair[a] that summer while Chaplin was married to Lita Grey.[10][11][35] When their affair ended, Chaplin sent her a check; she declined to write him a thank-you note.[36]
Test footage from The American Venus, 1926
