The daughter of a rabbi and the sister of a film director, Ruth Harriet Louise was only 22 years old when MGM hired her to run their portrait studio.  She was the first and, at the time, only woman to work as a portrait photographer for a Hollywood studio.  Louise took over 100,000 pictures over the course of her five-year career.  Before retiring to get married, Louise took pictures of every major star and contract player to work at MGM.

Anna May Wong

Anna Sten

Buster Keaton

Dorothy Janis

Greta Garbo

Joan Crawford

John Gilbert

Lon Chaney