Ruth Harriet Louise was an American professional photographer, the first woman photographer active in Hollywood; she ran Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's portrait studio from 1925 to 1930.
Career
Louise began working as a portrait photographer in 1922, working out of a music store down the block from the New Brunswick temple at which her father was a rabbi. Most of her photographs from this period are of family members and members of her father's temple congregation. In 1925 she moved to Los Angeles and set up a small photo studio on Hollywood and Vine. Louise's first published Hollywood photo was of Vilma Banky in costume for Dark Angel, and appeared in Photoplay magazine in September 1925. When Louise was hired by MGM as chief portrait photographer, she was twenty-two years old, and the only woman working as a portrait photographer for the Hollywood studios. In a career that lasted only five years, Louise photographed all the stars, contract players, and many of the hopefuls who passed through the studio's front gates, including Greta Garbo, Lon Chaney, John Gilbert, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Anna May Wong, Nina Mae McKinney, and Norma Shearer. It is estimated that she took more than 100,000 photos during her tenure at MGM. Today she is considered an equal with George Hurrell Sr. and other renowned glamour photographers of the era. In addition to paying close attention to costume and setting for studio photographs, Louise also incorporated aspects of modernist movements such as Cubism, futurism, and German expressionism into her studio portraits.
Louise was born in New York City and raised in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She was the daughter of a rabbi, and both her parents immigrated from Europe to America before the turn of the century. She married writer and director Leigh Jason in 1927 at Temple B'nai B'rith, with William Wyler as Jason's best man. Although in 1930 her contract with MGM was not renewed and the position of chief portrait photographer went to George Hurrell, Louise continued working through 1932, and her last recorded photo session was with actress Anna Sten. The same year, she gave birth to a son, Leigh Jr., who died of leukemia when he was six years old. Louise herself died in 1940 of complications from childbirth. Her brother was director Mark Sandrich, who directed some of the great Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers musicals, and she was a cousin of silent-film actress Carmel Myers.
