Chances are, even the most ardent Louise Brooks devotee will not have heard of Bruz Fletcher (1906 – 1941), an entertainer who Brooks knew and socialized with. Though little known today, Fletcher gained a modest degree of fame as a singer and nightclub act in Hollywood in the late 1930s. Before then, he was a published author, having written two novels* and two staged plays (one of which was based on the life of Jeanne Eagels), as well as a songwriter and musical accompanist who worked with a few of the major stars of the time. In 1929, for example, Fletcher appeared on stage with Esther Ralston, the star of Brooks’ first film, The American Venus. Fletcher wrote her act, his partner Casey Roberts designed her gowns, and together they played to packed houses in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, New York and elsewhere. In her autobiography, Some Day We’ll Laugh, Ralston wrote, “Enthusiastically, we set about engaging Bruz Fletcher … who not only wrote my clever numbers but had a lovely singing voice.” Fletcher also penned songs for Peggy Fears, another friend of Brooks and a fellow performer in the Ziegfeld Follies. Over the years, Fletcher also wrote material and sometimes performed with other silent era stars, including Fifi D’Orsay, Jacqueline Logan, serial queen Ruth Roland, and two of Charlie Chaplin’s ex-wives, Mildred Harris and Lita Grey Chaplin.
An April, 1929 profile of Hollywood’s young talent in Picture-Play Magazine stated: “Apparently there’s nothing … Bruz Fletcher [can’t] play, with the delicate and charming touch which belongs to a born composer. Bruz would have that touch, of course, because the business as well as the joy of his life is composing music. All the Hollywood stars know his genius, and come to him for acts. “Vaudeville Material” is the rather too modest announcement at the top of his official stationery; but there is much other material behind that high, boyish forehead of his. He will do a song for Leatrice Joy one day, one on the next for Mildred Harris, or another artist hurr[ied] for an act. You know how the stars are rushing into vaudeville, or drama, to develop their voices for the talkies…. On a third day he will have an inspiration for a dramatic song, like his already celebrated “Cocaine”; or he will set to music a lyric in the really wonderful Chinese opera which Casey Roberts is arranging, and for which Casey himself is designing magnificent sets”
Brooks plays only a small role in Fletcher’s story, though their connections went beyond mere social encounters or a couple of common acquaintances. For a few weeks in early 1935, Brooks and Fletcher shared a bill at The Patio, a high society nightclub in Palm Beach, Florida. (See the January 28, 1935 Palm Beach Daily News advertisement to the left, as well as the Louise Brooks Ballroom Dance Scrapbook page.) Then, Brooks was part of a dance act, and Fletcher was a singer of “Super Sophisticated Songs.” A few years later, when both were living in Los Angeles, Brooks frequented the Club Bali in Hollywood, where she saw Fletcher perform on more than a few occasions.
There is a short Wikipedia page on Fletcher, but the best overall source of information on this fascinating figure is Tyler Alpern’s groundbreaking book, Bruz Fletcher: Camped, Tramped & a Riotous Vamp (Blurb, 2010). It tells the story of this multi-talented performer, composer, writer, and visual artist who was known as a “singing satirist.” At the heart of Alpern’s book — and Fletcher’s life, was his sexuality. Fletcher was gay, and as out as one could be in the 1930s. For years, he lived with his “close friend” (read longtime partner) Casey Roberts, a set director and three time Academy Award nominee.
Stoughton J. Fletcher, known as “Bruz”, was born to one of the wealthiest, prominent, and most troubled families in the state of Indiana. At least some of their difficulties can be traced back to Fletcher’s father, who lost the fortune his family had built over generations, only to end-up as a humble elevator operator. At age eight, Bruz Fletcher ran away from home, attempted suicide as a teen, and at age 34, took his own life in 1941. (Fletcher’s suicide made news across the country, not only in newspapers in California, Indiana, New York and elsewhere, but also in trade publications like Variety and Downbeat.) Once, while home from school for the holidays, both his mother and grandmother drank poison in committing a double suicide. His older sister escaped their difficult family life and lived as a man, joined a Broadway show, and then went to Germany where she made headlines after being jilted at the alter by a count. Later, she was committed to an asylum and arrested for attacking a fraudulent Lady Bathurst before dying at age 24. Notably, Fletcher’s Aunt married the popular writer Booth Tarkington, whose Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Magnificent Ambersons, was thought to be inspired, in part, by the troubled affairs of the Fletcher family. (Notably as well, Orson Welles turned Tarkington’s book into an acclaimed film in 1942.)
Before continuing, let me point out a couple of must visit pages on Tyler Alpern’s website. Both contain a good deal of background information on Bruz Fletcher and his tumultuous life. Those pages can be found HERE and HERE. [If anyone from Netflix or HBO Max is reading these words, let me suggest you turn Alpern’s book and Fletcher’s life into a mini series. It has a little bit of everything….] Additionally, let me point to two pages on the remarkable Queer Musical Heritage website which similarly documents Fletcher’s musical career. Those pages can be found HERE and HERE.
In his tragically short life, Fletcher would twice live a rags-to-riches experience. As an entertainer, he performed in glamorous nightclubs, delighting his many admirers with his own witty, and often risqué songs. He left behind a number of remarkable recordings, as well as two works of fiction that give colorful and candid glimpses into his world — a world populated by society dowagers, misfits, celebrities, addicts, servants, lovers and eccentrics that span a variety of sexuality and mores.
As an entertainer, Fletcher was part and parcel of the Pansy Craze of pre-WWII America. In the mid-to-late 1930s, he was also a fixture on the Hollywood scene. Fletcher’s popularity was such that his name regularly showed up in society and gossip columns of the time. Remarkably, Fletcher was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times and other local papers well more than one hundred times between the years 1935 and 1940. In June of 1936, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported Bruz Fletcher was among the guests at a costume party in Hollywood whose other guests were reported to be Agnes Ayres, Iris Adrian, Beulah Bondi, Queenie Smith, Howard Greer, and others, including Louise Brooks.
Fletcher’s engagement at the Club Bali (8804 Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles), originally booked for just two weeks in 1935, proved so popular that it ran until early 1940. Notably, Fletcher’s act began to draw attention right from the start. The following syndicated bit appeared in a newspaper column in October, 1935. “Movie producers take themselves more seriously than practically any other type of persons alive. One corpulent magnate attended the opening of a Los Angeles night spot at which Bruz Fletcher, composer, introduced a new song he had written, “I Live in the House Where Garbo Used to Live.” There was nothing personal in the song, the lyrics being absolutely innocent, but the producer was from Garbo’s studio, so he proceeded to puff out to almost twice his natural size and summon the manager to his table instantly. ‘That young man is very young and doubtless meant no harm,’ said the official. ‘Probably he doesn’t know before whom he has been singing,’ importantly. ‘Nevertheless, I strongly advise you never to have that song used again.’ And the cafe, fearing the results of less majeste, had the number cut out of Fletcher’s routine.” Does anyone know who the “corpulent magnate” producer might have been?
In September of 1938, Los Angeles Times columnist Hedda Hopper wrote that the entertainer had the longest local nightclub run that anyone could remember — and that was two years before Fletcher’s run would end. As a popular nightclub act, many celebrities and film stars saw Fletcher perform his campy though coded routine. Among those who were reported to have turned out for one of Fletcher’s performances were Humphrey Bogart, Peggy Fears, Lila Lee, Norma Talmadge, Beatrice Lillie, Gypsy Rose Lee, Jimmy Durante, Marsha Hunt, Howard Hughes, and even Ronald Regan. Margaret Hamilton, the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, turned out, as did tin man Jack Haley; one columnist once mentioned that Frank Morgan (the wizard in the Wizard of Oz) attended a performance and even put in a special request. At another show, a rowdy Lupe Velez could be heard laughing clear across the nightclub. Based on other mentions in various columns, Fletcher seemed to have been friendly with actors Alice Brady and Jean Acker (Rudolph Valentino’s ex). Both helped at events which sought to raise money for the singer after his uninsured house burnt to the ground. Another bit, from December of 1938, suggests how in demand he was when the the Los Angeles Times reported, “Bruz entertained at a special party for Paulette Goddard,” Charlie Chaplin’s current wife.
According to newspaper accounts from the time, Brooks herself saw Fletcher perform on at least five different occasions in 1937 and 1938. On two of those occasions, Brooks went with a date, and on two other occasions, she accompanied Travis Banton, the well known costume designer. Banton, who was gay, worked on many films for Paramount, including Brooks’ stunning costumes in The Canary Murder Case. The five times Brooks was known to have taken in Fletcher’s act include:
May 30, 1937
Los Angeles Times columnist Read Kendall writes, “Addison Randall took Louise Brooks out to hear Bruz Fletcher sing at the Club Bali.”
February 27, 1938
Los Angeles Times reports “Louise Brooks was on Travis Banton’s arm when they went to hear Bruz Fletcher at the Club Bali.”
April 19, 1938
Syndicated columnist Erskine Johnson notes that Brooks and Travis Banton put in an appearance at Bruz Fletcher’s Club Bali.
April 23, 1938
Brooks and date Howard Shoup put in an appearance at Bruz Fletcher’s Club Bali.
May 23, 1938
Los Angeles Times columnist Read Kendall reports “Just few minutes after Addison Randall walked into Bruz Fletcher’s Club Bali with Louise Stanley, his former girlfriend, Louise Brooks put in an appearance with Howard Shoup but none appeared embarrassed.”
What was all the fuss about? And why did so many celebrities as well as the just plain curious turn out to see Fletcher at the Club Bali? No doubt, voyeurism played a part, as straights went to see how the other side lived. However, curiosity or voyeurism doesn’t explain Fletcher’s popularity, or his longevity – those things can and do wear thin…. By all accounts, Fletcher was an engaging entertainer. His longevity as a nightclub act testifies to as much, as does the fact that he sang on radio station KMTR a number of times in 1938. And so do his still enjoyable recordings, which were issued as 78 rpm discs on the independent Liberty Music Shop label. As already mentioned, two pages on the Queer Musical Heritage website document Fletcher’s “indy” musical career. Those pages can be found HERE and HERE.
Fletcher’s recordings, while never bestsellers, got around. His best-known release was probably “Lei From Hawaii” (“I’ve wanted a lei for so long. I can’t get one here, they’re entirely too dear, but Hawaiians get lei-d fora song”). In August of 1937, syndicated columnist Harriet Parsons pointed out that “Monte Wooley and Bob Benchley [are] mailing Bruz Fletcher’s record, ‘Bring Me a Lei from Hawaii‘, to all their pals”. It’s known that actor Monty Wooley was gay, but writer and humorist Robert Benchley was not. In fact, he was a famous womanizer who may have enjoyed suggestive and witty humor. And anyways, in-the-know readers may well understand what was meant by a “lei”. Even someone like Ernest Hemingway was aware of and owned Fletcher’s recordings. One of Fletcher’s record sets can be found among Hemingway’s belongings at his residence-museum in Cuba.
Were Louise Brooks and Bruz Fletcher friends? Was Louise Brooks a fan? These are, ultimately, unanswerable questions. While its known that Louise Brooks had gay, lesbian and bisexual friends, we don’t really know what she might have thought of Fletcher, either as a gay person or as an artist & entertainer. However, their “friendship” (namely, their continuing to know one another over the course of three-plus years, either as performers sharing a stage, as someone you know and see at a party, or as a repeat nightclub goer), all suggest she liked Fletcher. [As a side note, I first came across Bruz Fletcher sometime around 2009 or 2010, when I was looking for songs for RadioLulu, the now defunct streaming platform of the Louise Brooks Society. I had come across Fletcher’s name in connection with Brooks and Fletcher having shared a bill in Florida, and thought to include one or two Fletcher songs on the LBS station, as I did with other musicians Brooks worked with — like George Gershwin, Lucienne Boyer, or Emil Coleman. It’s been a while, but sometime around then, as well, I got in touch with Tyler Alpern, and it was he who first provided me with additional information and a couple of tracks. Thank you Tyler!]
The best source of information on Bruz Fletcher is Tyler Alpern’s 2010 book, Bruz Fletcher: Camped, Tramped & a Riotous Vamp (Blurb). That same year, Alpern compiled a CD of Fletcher’s hard-to-find recordings called Drunk with Love (Saxony Records). That 20 song, 58 minute disc is out of print, though it can be streamed through Spotify. (Used copies sometimes turn-up on eBay and elsewhere.) One of the more risqué recordings is “My Doctor“, which must be heard to be believed. And you haven’t lived till you’ve heard “Nympho-Dipso-Ego Maniac” and “She’s My Most Intimate Friend” and “The Hellish Mrs. Haskell,” or Fletcher’s signature song, “Drunk with Love,” which was adopted by Frances Faye and became a standard in gay bars for decades to come. These vintage recordings from the 1930s take double entendre where it had seldom gone before.
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| Tyler Alpern’s biography | Tyler Alpern’s CD – front | Tyler Alpern’s CD – back |
* Fletcher, like other writers of the time, made use of the title-phrase of Brooks’ first film, The Street of Forgotten Men. In one of his novels, a character named Peter Martin visits the New York City area. “He found a hotel in Brooklyn where for fifty cents you could get a room, leave your door open and have most anything happen… He learned about the street of forgotten men.”
Adjunct to this Louise Brooks Society webpage is a post on the LBS blog which gathers some of the clippings which I came across while researching and writing about Louise Brooks and Bruz Fletcher. That LBS blog post can be found HERE.
FURTHER READING / LISTENING / EXPLORING:
Alpern, Tyler. Bruz Fletcher: Camped Tramped & a Riotous Vamp. Blurb.com 2010.
— the only book to date on the one and only Bruz Fletcher (purchase on blurb)
Bellissimo, Jake. “Hidden in Plain Sight: Queer Songwriters and The Pansy Craze.” 2018.
— college thesis
Chauncey, George. Gay New York: Gender Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940. Basic Books, 2019.
— contains useful background information (purchase on amazon)
Faderman, Lillian and Stuart Timmons. Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians. University of California Press, 2009.
— this notable book includes a section on the silent era and later Hollywood; Louise Brooks is mentioned, as is Fletcher (purchase on amazon)
Hamel, Jenny. “The Pansy Craze: When gay nightlife in Los Angeles really kicked off.” KCRW.com, May. 11, 2018.
— a very informative news article with a remarkable five minute radio story
Mann, William J. Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1910-1969. Viking, 2001.
— contains useful background information, and a couple of passing references to Fletcher (purchase used on amazon)
Timmons, Stuart. “Bruz Fletcher livened up the 1930’s.” The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, Nov.-Dec. 2006.
— 2,000 word article accessible through some library databases, or iit can be found at the bottom of this page
Thompson, Donald Eugene and R. E Banta. Indiana Authors and Their Books 1917-1966. Wabash College, 1974.
— contains an entry on Fletcher
Williamson, Alice M. “Hollywood’s Fourth Dimension.” Picture-Play Magazine, April, 1929
— feature story about the young talent of Hollywood which largely centers on Fletcher
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| Courier News (New Jersey), Feb. 14, 1941 | Daily Reporter (Indiana), Feb. 11, 1941 | Palladium-Item (Indiana), Feb. 11, 1941 | Honolulu Advertiser, Feb. 20, 1941 |