She was the ultimate femme fatale. Her sexuality was so strong and overpowering that her lovers were willing to kill or die for her. She drove men insane with passion and jealousy. Louise Brooks was one of cinema's most mysterious stars; she was the darling of two continents and then walked away from fame. Louise Brooks was strikingly beautiful, extremely intelligent and hell-bent on self-destruction. While Clara Bow, Joan Crawford and Gloria Swanson each embodied freewheeling flappers of the roaring twenties, it was Brooks who stood alone as a more mature screen goddess. Her boyish bob-hair cut and porcelain skin were haunting, striking and erotic. Unlike the jazz babies, here was an American girl with the European sophistication of Garbo and Dietrich. List of films Today! on TCM Pandora's Box (1928) Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) Overland Stage Raiders (1938) Louise Brooks by Paris, Barry Lulu In Hollywood by Brooks, Louise Louise Brooks was born in Kansas, but gained notice as a showgirl on Broadway in George White's Scandals and the Ziegfeld Follies. The audiences loved her playful pirouettes and her admirers included Charles Chaplin, with whom she shared torrid nights, and W.C. Fields who she matched drink for drink in the dressing room. Brooks made a brief appearance on screen in The Show Off (1926), but it was Howard Hawks-the man who would later create Lauren Bacall's insolent screen persona in To Have and Have Not (1944)-who first cast her in a featured role in A Girl in Every Port (1928). This film was essentially a love affair between two sailors and Louise played the nymphet dressed in revealing tights who stood between them. But Louise's fast living and easy loving alienated her from the Hollywood mainstream. An invitation from director G.W. Pabst arrived from Europe, and she set off for Germany. German expressionist cinema of the 1920s was best known for madmen, murderers and monsters like Dr. Caligari and The Golem. Louise Brooks added a new type of fiend; more realistic but just as dangerous. On the cusp of the silent era, Pabst and Brooks produced two masterpieces. In Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box, 1929), Brooks played Lulu, an overwhelming force of femininity. The film was charged with danger and erotic suggestion. Once again Louise played a character caught between two men, this time a father and son. Lulu is a siren and she leaves a path of death and destruction in her wake. Brooks stunned audiences with forbidden passion, and in the end is a victim of her own allure. Pabst masterfully directed realistic films of people trapped in extreme situations. In his first film, Die Freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street, 1925), he dove headlong into the sordid world of prostitution and corruption in Germany, post-World War I. In Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl, 1929), Pabst and Brooks created the sadistic world of a woman's reformatory. In this film, Louise plays a girl impregnated by her boss's son and sent away. Once again, the sexual frankness and demented psychological dimensions overpowered audiences. Just as sound was changing motion pictures, Louise Brooks walked away from stardom. Brooks had redefined screen acting and brought a psychological dimension to her characters. Her sultry pout expressed fear, anger and sadness all at once. Her warm smile articulated love, beauty, laughter and desire. But Louise Brooks chose solitude over celebrity. Sixty years later, she reemerged in the public's eye with a critically acclaimed autobiography, Lulu in Hollywood (1982). Her films were rediscovered and a new audience, more comfortable with her sexual frankness, hailed her a forgotten icon. The life, death and resurrection of Lulu made Louise Brooks a cult favorite once again. Louise Brooks was a glamorous outsider in Hollywood. She was the Lost Girl of the Roaring Twenties. 29 Saturday 8:00 AM    Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998) Exclusive interviews, rare footage and family photos trace Louise Brooks from Kansas farm girl to silent screen seductress to renowned film historian. Includes interviews with Louise Brooks, Franz Lederer, Davis Diamond. D: Hugh M. Neely C 60m. CC 9:00 AM    Pandora's Box (1928) A young innocent's sexuality destroys all who come near her. Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz Lederer. D: G.W. Pabst. BW 110m.