Vintage Bride Wearing Pearls

Photo of vintage bride wearing a pearl necklace. One tradition says wearing pearls on your wedding day will ensure your marriage is happy and you won’t shed tears during it via

Louise Brooks by Eugene Robert Richee (1920s)

Eugene Robert Richee (b. 1896) began his career in the silent movie era. He got his job at Paramount in the late teens through his friend Clarence Sinclair Bull.

He started shooting stars while Donald Biddle Keyes was taking portraits in the gallery.  When Keyes left Paramount, Richee took over, and for two decades he photographed the studio’s stars including Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, Claudette Colbert, Fredrick March, the Marx Brothers and Carole Lombard.  Lombard so admired his work with Dietrich that she started posing in some of the same ways to get that ‘glamour mysterious’ look.

From 1925 to 1935 Richee took many photographs of Louise Brooks.  Perhaps Richee’s most famous work is a 1928 portrait of Louise Brooks wearing a long string of pearls. Few photos capture better the zeitgeist of the Roaring ’20s. Simplicity is the hallmark of this photograph, along with masterful composition. Brooks stands, face in profile and wearing a long-sleeved black dress, against a black background, her face hands and pearls along illuminated. Her bob, with its razor-sharp line across the white skin of her jaw, was widely copied and became one of the last century’s most potent fashion statements.

Brook’s career had intermittent highs and lows, but she was one of Hollywood’s great portrait subjects and was never better served than by Richee (source).

Louise Brooks by Eugene Robert Richee, 1928 via

Louise Brooks by Eugene Robert Richee, 1928 via

Louise Brooks portrait by Eugene Robert Richee via

Portrait of Louise Brooks by Eugene Robert Richee, 1920s via

Portrait of Louise Brooks for The Canary Murder Case directed by Malcolm St. Clair and Frank Tuttle. Photo by Eugene Robert Richee, 1929 via

Portrait of Louise Brooks for The Canary Murder Case directed by Malcolm St. Clair and Frank Tuttle. Photo by Eugene Robert Richee, 1929 via