Loos, Anita
LOOS, Anita
Writer and Producer. Nationality: American. Born: Corinne Anita Loos in Sissons (now Mount Shasta), California, 26 April 1888. Education: Attended schools in San Francisco and San Diego. Family: Married 1) Frank Pallma, Jr., 1915 (divorced 1915); 2) the director and writer John Emerson, 1920 (died 1956); one adopted daughter. Career: Child actress briefly; 1912—first film as writer, The New York Hat, followed by a large number of films for D.W. Griffith; 1916—collaborator with Emerson, and coproducer with Emerson from 1919; 1925—published the novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (play version, 1926, film version, 1928); other plays include The Whole Town's Talking, The Fall of Eve, The Social Register, Happy Birthday, Gigi, The Amazing Adèle, Chéri, Gogo Love You; 1963—one-woman show, An Evening of Theatrical Reminiscences.Died: In New York City, 18 August 1981.
Films as Writer:
- 1912
The New York Hat (Griffith)
- 1913
The Power of the Camera; The Telephone Girl and the Lady (Griffith—short); A Horse on Bill (Powell); The Hicksville Epicure (Henderson); Highbrow Love (O'Sullivan); Pa Says (Powell); The Widow's Kids (Powell); The Lady in Black; His Hoodoo (Powell); A Fallen Hero (Powell); A Cure for Suffragettes (Kirkwood); The Suicide Pact (Powell); Bink's Vacation (Bink Runs Away); How the Day Was Saved (Powell); The Wedding Gown (Powell); Gentleman or Thief; For Her Father's Sins (O'Brien); A Narrow Escape; The Mother; The Lady and the Mouse (short); The Mistake (short)
- 1914
Hickville's Finest; His Awful Vengeance; The Saving Grace (Cabanne); A Bunch of Flowers; When a Woman Guides; The Road to Plaindale; The Saving Presence; The Meal Ticket; The Suffering of Susan; Nearly a Burglar's Bride; Some Bull's Daughter; The Fatal Dress Suit; The Girl in the Shack; The Stolen Masterpiece (Pollard); A Corner in Hats;The Million Dollar Bride; A Flurry in Art; Billy's Rival (Izzy and His Rival) (Taylor—short); The Last Drink of Whiskey (Dillon); Nell's Eugenic Wedding; The White Slave Catchers; The Deceiver (Dillon); How to Keep a Husband; The Gangsters of New York (short); The Hunchback; A Lesson in Mechanics
- 1915
The Deacon's Whiskers (Dillon); The Tear on the Page; Pennington's Choice (Lund); Sympathy Sal; Mixed Values (Dillon); The Fatal Finger Prints (Dillon); Lord Chumley; The Sisters (short); A Ten-Cent Adventure (short); When the Road Parts (short); Double Trouble; The Lost House
- 1916
The Little Liar (Ingraham); A Corner in Cotton (Balshofer); Intolerance (Griffith); Macbeth (Emerson); Stranded (Ingraham); Wild Girl of the Sierras (Powell); A Calico Vampire; Laundry Liz; The French Milliner; The Wharf Rat (Withey); The Half-Breed (Dwan); American Aristocracy (Ingraham); A Daughter of the Poor
- 1917
Wild and Woolly (Emerson); Down to Earth (Emerson); The Deadly Glass of Beer
- 1927
Stranded (Rosen); Publicity Madness (Ray)
- 1932
Red-Headed Woman (Conway); Blondie of the Follies (Goulding)
- 1933
The Barbarian (Wood); Hold Your Man (Wood); Midnight Mary (Wellman)
- 1934
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (E. Griffith); The Merry Widow (uncredited)
- 1936
Riffraff (Rubin); San Francisco (Van Dyke)
- 1937
Mama Steps Out (Seita); Saratoga (Conway)
- 1939
The Women (Cukor)
- 1940
Susan and God (The Gay Mrs. Trexel) (Cukor)
- 1941
They Met in Bombay (Brown); Blossoms in the Dust (LeRoy); When Ladies Meet (Leonard)
- 1942
I Married an Angel (Van Dyke)
Films as Cowriter with John Emerson:
- 1916
His Picture in the Papers (Emerson); Manhattan Madness (Powell); The Matrimaniac (Powell); The Social Secretary (Emerson)
- 1917
In Again, Out Again (Emerson); Reaching for the Moon (Emerson); The Americano (Emerson)
- 1918
Let's Get a Divorce (Giblyn); Hit-the-Trail Holliday (Neilan); Come On In (Emerson); Good-bye-Bill (Emerson)
- 1919
Oh, You Women! (Emerson); The Isle of Conquest (Jose); Under the Top (Crisp); Getting Mary Married (Dwan) (+ co-pr); A Temperamental Wife (Emerson) (+ co-pr); A Virtuous Vamp (Kirkland) (+ co-pr)
- 1920
In Search of a Sinner (Kirkland) (+ co-pr); The Perfect Woman (Kirkland); The Love Expert (Kirkland); Two Weeks (Franklin); The Branded Woman (Parker)
- 1921
Dangerous Business (Neill); Mama's Affair (Fleming); A Woman's Place (Fleming)
- 1922
Polly of the Follies (Emerson); Red Hot Romance (Fleming) (+ co-pr)
- 1923
Dulcy (Franklin)
- 1924
Three Miles Out (Willat)
- 1925
Learning to Love (Franklin)
- 1928
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (St. Clair)
- 1929
The Fall of Eve (Strayer)
- 1931
The Struggle (Griffith)
- 1934
The Girl from Missouri (Conway)
Films based on Loos's Writings:
- 1926
The Whole Town's Talking (Edward Laemmle)
- 1931
Ex-Bad Boy (Moore)
- 1934
The Social Register (Neilan)
- 1953
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks)
- 1955
Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (Sale)
Publications
By LOOS: fiction—
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, New York, 1925 (play version, with John Emerson, New York, 1926).
But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, New York, 1928.
A Mouse Is Born, New York, 1951.
No Mother to Guide Her, New York, 1961.
By LOOS: other books—
With John Emerson, How to Write Photoplays (includes script The Love Expert), New York, 1920.
With John Emerson, Breaking into the Movies (includes script Red Hot Romance), New York, 1921.
With John Emerson, The Whole Town's Talking (play), New York, 1925.
With Jane Murfin, The Women (script), in Twenty Best Film Plays, edited by John Gassner and Dudley Nichols, New York, 1943.
Happy Birthday (play), New York, 1947.
Gigi (play), New York, 1952.
With D.W. Griffith, Intolerance (script), New York, 1955.
A Girl Like I (autobiography), New York, 1966.
The King's Mare (play), London, 1967.
With Helen Hayes, Twice over Lightly: New York Then and Now, New York, 1972.
Kiss Hollywood Good-by, New York, 1974.
Cast of Thousands, New York, 1977.
The Talmadge Girls: A Memoir, New York, 1978.
San Francisco (script), edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, Carbondale, Illinois, 1979.
Fate Keeps on Happening: Adventures of Lorelei Lee and Other Writings, edited by Ray P. Corsini, New York, 1984.
By LOOS: articles—
Close Up (London), April 1928.
Inter/View (New York), July 1972.
On LOOS: book—
Casey, Gary, Anita Loos: A Biography, New York, 1988.
Douglas, George H., Women of the Twenties, Dallas, 1989.
On LOOS: articles—
Schmidt, Karl, "The Handwriting on the Screen," in Everybody's (New York), May 1917.
Carey, Gary, in The Hollywood Screenwriter, edited by Richard Corliss, New York, 1972.
Cinema (Beverly Hills), no. 35, 1976.
Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.), Summer-Fall 1980.
Grant, Thomas, in American Humorists 1800–1950, edited by Stanley Trachtenberg, Detroit, Michigan, 1982.
Obituary, The Annual Obituary 1981, New York, 1982.
Yeck, Joanne, in American Screenwriters, edited by Robert E. Morsberger, Stephen O. Lesser, and Randall Clark, Detroit, Michigan, 1984.
Goldhurst, W. "Regeneration Through Disaster: San Francisco," in Post Script (Commerce), Winter 1985.
Film Dope (Nottingham), February 1987.
McCreadie, Marsha, "Pioneers (Part Two)," in Films in Review (New York), January-February 1995.
Lutes, Jean Marie, "Authoring Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Mass-market Beauty Culture and the Makeup of Writers (Anita Loos' International Bestseller Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)," in Prospects, vol. 23, Annual 1998.
* * *
At the early age of 16, Anita Loos began her career in films by scripting over 100 scenarios for D.W. Griffith's Biograph Company. She is credited with writing the subtitles for Intolerance (1916), and is regarded as one of the first screenwriters to employ intertitles to silent films. Although she wrote serious plots for silent films (Wild Girl of the Sierras and Stranded), her early success came as a satirist of everyday events. Indeed, her original use of intertitles provided her with the opportunity to let loose with her wise-cracks that teased the picture. She was also proficient in slapstick comedy and wrote a number of half-reels featuring the Keystone Kops.
It was Loos, with her husband the director John Emerson (who assumed much of the credit for her creative endeavors) who first realized that Douglas Fairbanks's acrobatics were an extension of his effervescent personality. Loos, Emerson, and Fairbanks worked as a unit in Griffith's company and parlayed Fairbanks's natural athletic ability into swashbuckling adventure roles. Never missing a chance for satire, Loos (the "O'Henrietta of the Screen") parodied not only the nouveau riche American industrialist but also Fairbanks's own star persona in American Aristocracy. The scenario for the film is typical of Loos's humor: Fairbanks foils a buccaneer who is sending powder to Mexico in the guise of malted milk and as the result of his adventurous exploits wins the heart of a hatpin king's daughter. In pursuit of the villain, Fairbanks vaults a dozen walls and fences. He readies himself to leap at a window ten feet above the ground when he suddenly decides to take the easy way out and opens a basement window, climbing in the building like an ordinary mortal. Loos wrote other humorous films which firmly established Fairbanks as a major leading man of the American screen. Americans' love of publicity was ridiculed in His Picture in the Papers and pacificsm was satirized in In Again, Out Again.
Loos left the Griffith studio in 1925 and moved east with her husband. During her brief "retirement" from the film colony, she wrote the durable story of Lorelei Lee, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The story was quite successful as a novel, broadway musical, and film. Loos and Herman J. Mankiewicz cowrote the intertitles for the original silent film version directed by Mal St. Clair in 1928. Howard Hawks's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) was an adaptation of the stage play and featured Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei and Jane Russell as her dark-haired girlfriend. Through the perils of Lorelei, the amoral and dim-witted young blond from Little Rock, Loos poked fun at male-female relationships. The blonde's flirtations and the gullible millionaires who surrounded her provided Loos with rich material gleefully to expose the merchandising of sexuality.
Loos returned to Hollywood and worked for MGM during the Irving Thalberg reign. She took over the writing duties from F. Scott Fitzgerald on the Harlow vehicle Red-Headed Woman. She also wrote Hold Your Man starring Harlow and Clark Gable. Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy were featured in the Loos script for San Francisco. This large-scale Hollywood soap opera evolved around San Francisco at the time of the great earthquake. Loos and the veteran MGM scriptwriter Jane Murfin adapted Clare Booth Luce's venomous comedy The Women to the screen; it featured an all-woman cast including Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, and Joan Crawford.
—Doreen Bartoni
Anita Loos
Anita Loos
Anita Loos (1893-1981) is most famous for her satirical short story collection Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady, which became a film phenomenon starring Marilyn Monroe. She was an amazingly prolific writer who turned out more than 150 works including film scripts, short stories, novels, plays, and autobiographical books. "She had the wit of Dorothy Parker, the resourcefulness of Robinson Crusoe, and the endurance of the Sphinx," raved Diane MacIntyre in The Silents Majority.
Anita Loos was born April 26, 1893 (some say 1888), in Sisson, California, the daughter of Richard Beers Loos, a theater producer, and Minnie Ellen (Smith), a graduate of Mills Seminary for Young Ladies of Quality. As a young child, Loos appeared in her father's productions along with her sister Gladys, who died in childhood. Loos later noted in her autobiographical work Cast of Thousands that "child actresses at the turn of the century were just as larcenous as they are today." Her brother, Clifford, became a doctor who helped create Blue Cross.
Although Loos rejected a career as an actress, having performed in plays as well as silent movies, show business drew her in. While appearing in a San Diego play, viewing a short movie inspired Loos to give film writing a whirl. In 1913 she dashed a scenario off to the address she found on a film can, signing her letter "A. Loos" to seem older and male, and several weeks later received an acceptance letter from Thomas Dougherty of the American Biograph Company. Along with the acceptance for The New York Hat came the promise of $25 payment. The subsequent film was directed by film pioneer D. W. Griffith and starred Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore.
From 1912 to 1916, Loos cranked out more than 100 more film scenarios, mainly for the Biograph Studio, beginning at $25 each. "By 1916, Loos's price had gone up to $500 a picture," reported Marsha McCreadie in The Women Who Write the Movies: from Frances Marion to Nora Ephron. "In that year, she was given her first movie credit for Macbeth, by William Shakespeare and Anita Loos. In typically cheeky fashion, she is reported to have said 'If I had asked, [they] would have given me top billing.' "
Already popular as the author of light comedy and romantic melodramas, Loos, McCreadie wrote, began to build a reputation as a satirist, penning "wisecracking titles" to accompany Douglas Fairbanks' silent films. It was during this time that she met John Emerson, an actor and playwright 20 years her senior who was then working as a director.
Married
In 1919, Loos married Emerson at Joe Schenck's estate in Great Neck, Long Island. "All the movie bigshots in the New York area were present," Loos wrote in Cast of Thousands. "I had set my sights on a man of brains, to whom I could look up," she lamented. "But what a terrible let down it would be to find out that I was smarter than he was."
Loos found her marriage disappointing from the start. "Instead of living happily ever after," she wrote, "John and I set about wrecking each other's lives. Our marriage was both tragic and comic, together with a thousand combinations of the two." The couple collaborated on a number of film projects and two books, Breaking Into the Movies, published in 1919, and How to Write Photoplays, 1921. Later Loos would claim that Emerson took all of the money and most of the credit for projects, even though his contribution usually consisted of observing from bed as Loos worked.
Despite Loos' unhappiness and Emerson's alleged philandering, the couple remained married until Emerson's death March 8, 1956. "Sometimes I get enquiries (sic) concerning my marriage to a man who treated me with complete lack of consideration, tried to take credit for my work and appropriated all my earnings," Loos wrote in Cast of Thousands. "The main reason is that my husband liberated me; granted me full freedom to choose my own companions."
Early in their marriage, the couple grew rich from the booming stock market. Together they traveled to Europe to pursue their dreams of "happily ever after." However, as the marriage soured, so did the U.S. economy. Loos and Emerson went broke in the 1929 stock market crash, and Emerson "was more than grateful to send me back to the easy money of Hollywood, where the golden era of movies was in full swing," Loos wrote. "Although the United States was in the depths of a depression, folks were scrimping on the bare necessities of life in a search for diversion."
Back to Hollywood
Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lured Loos back to Hollywood by asking her to craft a script based on a popular novel, Red Headed Woman. Loos jumped at the chance, especially since she would earn $3,500 a week. When she arrived in Hollywood, she learned that several other writers had made failed attempts at writing the script, including her friend F. Scott Fitzgerald. Loos wound up having the magic touch. Her script became a hit film that launched the career of Jean Harlow.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Loos enjoyed a productive and profitable relationship with MGM, for whom she wrote scripts for films including Susan and God, which starred Joan Crawford, The Girl from Missouri, San Francisco,and The Women, based on the play by Clare Booth Luce. In Cast of Thousands, she fondly recalled lunches at a café near the studio, where she would spend hours with other MGM writers, plus actors including Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, and Jean Harlow. "We called our hangout the 'Trap' and took the same delight in going there that kids do in playing hooky," she wrote.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Loos' own career caught fire with the publication of her book of short stories Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which chronicles the story of Lorelei Lee, a gold-digging blonde traveling through Europe. The inspiration came from a fellow train passenger when Loos traveled from New York to Hollywood with a group of film directors and writers. "Accompanying us on that jaunt was a Broadway cutie who was being imported to Hollywood for a screen test," Loos noted in Cast of Thousands. Over the course of the train trip, Loos grew more and more irritated by the behavior of the men, who jumped at the woman's every move. Comparing herself favorably to the actress, Loos could only conclude that the men were enchanted by her "quite unnatural" haircolor. "Why did she so far outdistance me in feminine allure?" Loos lamented. "Could her power, like that of Samson, have something to do with her hair?"
The notes Loos scribbled during that trip later evolved into a biting satire starring a magnetic flapper. The piece was published in serial form in Harper's Bazaar, sparking a huge leap in sales, and in 1925 as a book, garnering Loos fan letters from fellow authors William Faulkner, Aldous Huxley, and Edith Wharton, among others.
The blazing success of Loos' book had one unusual side-effect. While Gentlemen Prefer Blondes earned Loos widespread acclaim, Loos' husband, John Emerson, began to suffer from a mysterious throat ailment. Loos suspected cancer. However, as she wrote in Kiss Hollywood Goodbye, she soon learned otherwise. "Dr. Jelliffe went on to inform me the specific reason for [Emerson's] loss of voice," she wrote. "The poor man, suffering agonies over the success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, had invented a disease as a means of attracting attention. Dr. Jelliffe proceeded to quote from H.L. Mencken that a husband may survive the fact of a wife having more money than he, but if she earns more, it can destroy his very essence."
The book, which was eventually translated into 14 languages, enjoyed a long life in many forms. The first stage version, produced in 1926, ran on Broadway for 201 performances, and a 1949 musical, which ran for 740 performances, made a sensation out of actress Carol Channing. The film also introduced the popular song "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend." Loos also wrote a 1974 version of the stage show, entitled Lorelei.
The first film version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released in 1928, starring Ruth Taylor as Lorelei Lee. The film was silent except for one sequence. "Little Ruth," Loos wrote in Kiss Hollywood Goodbye, took her role so seriously that as soon as the film was finished she married a millionaire named Mr. Zukor and never worked again." A talking version of the film, released in 1953, starred Marilyn Monroe. Loos followed Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, which follows the tumultuous love life of Lorelei's best friend, Dorothy.
Colette and Other Associations
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Loos began an association with French writer Colette that would result in two successful plays and launch the career of yet another actress. Loos was hired to adapt Colette's book Gigi for the Broadway stage, another job that had been unsuccessfully attempted by other writers before Loos came along. The two writers got along famously, and Colette herself chose the actress she wanted to play Gigi when she spotted a striking woman among the extras of a movie being filmed in Monte Carlo. Audrey Hepburn premiered Gigi at New York City's Fulton Theater in 1951. Loos later penned a script based on Colette's Cheri.
In the 1940s, Loos was asked by her friend, actress Helen Hayes, to write a script that would help her break out of a string of overly serious roles. In response, Loos penned the play Happy Birthday, starring a librarian whose entire life is blown open after a few drinks at the local bar. The play premiered on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theater on Halloween 1946 and ran for 564 performances. Later Loos collaborated with Hayes on a book about New York City. Twice Over Lightly: New York Then and Now was published in 1972.
In her final books, Loos revisited her years in Hollywood with several autobiographical works. A Girl Like I, was published by Viking in 1966; Kiss Hollywood Goodbye, in 1974, also from Viking; and Cast of Thousands, was published by Grosset and Dunlap in 1977. Cast of Thousands is a coffee-table-sized book filled with photographs from Loos' personal life and Hollywood career, accompanied by a steam-of-consciousness narrative and sharp-tongued dishing about her many noteworthy friendships with giants of the century including Aldous and Maria Huxley, Charlie Chaplin, H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and H. L. Mencken. While Loos delights in name-dropping, she is less willing to discuss her own personal life, devoting scant attention to her relationships with adopted daughter "Miss Moore," her long-time housekeeper Gladys, and bandleader Peter Duchin, whom she cared for after his mother died in childbirth. Loos died of a heart attack August 18, 1981, in New York City.
Books
Contemporary Authors, Gale, 1999.
Loos, Anita, Cast of Thousands, Grosset and Dunlap, 1977.
Loos, Anita, Kiss Hollywood Goodbye, Viking, 1974.
McCreadie, Marsha, The Women Who Write the Movies: from Frances Marion to Nora Ephron, Birch Lane Press, 1994.
Periodicals
People Weekly, December 12, 1988, p. 54.
Online
Britannica Online: Women In American Historyhttp://women.eb.com, (December 10, 2000.)
The Silents Majorityhttp://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms, (December 10, 2000.) □
Loos, Anita
LOOS, Anita
Born 26 April 1893, Sissons (now Mt. Shasta), California; died 1981
Daughter of Richard B. and Minnie Ellen Loos; married Frank Pallma, Jr., 1915 (annulled); John Emerson, 1919
When Anita Loos was four, her family moved from Sissons (now Mt. Shasta), California, to San Francisco's Barbary Coast, where her ne'er-do-well father engaged in a series of journalistic and theatrical schemes. Loos became a child actress and the family's chief mainstay for many years. After a period in Los Angeles, where her father managed an early movie house, the family settled in San Diego. By this time a youthful correspondent for the New York Morning Telegraph, Loos hit upon the idea of writing movie scenarios for the Biograph Company. The New York Hat (1912) was her first filmed scenario, and by 1915 she had sold D. W. Griffith over 100 scripts.
Eager to leave her family behind, Loos married in 1915. After one night she deserted her young husband and set out for Hollywood where Biograph quickly offered her a contract. (The marriage was later annulled.) It was Loos who wrote the title cards for Griffith's epic, Intolerance (1916). Her wisecracking verbal humor seemed ill-suited to the silent screen, however, until the chance success of an early Douglas Fairbanks film proved audiences were willing to read comic subtitles. For the next few years, Loos worked closely with Fairbanks, with Constance Talmadge, and with the suave director John Emerson, whom she married in 1919. In collaboration with Emerson she wrote two books about the motion picture industry, How to Write Photoplays (1920) and Breaking into the Movies (1921), along with several Broadway plays.
Living in New York, Loos became a friend of H. L. Mencken. As a spoof of his taste for dimwitted blondes, she wrote a comic diary which first appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1925. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), featuring the irrepressible Lorelei Lee, was a runaway international success, gaining Loos such celebrated admirers as Winston Churchill, George Santayana, Mussolini, and James Joyce.
As one of the first women who dared hike her hemlines and bob her hair, Loos came to epitomize the flappers of the 1920s. But despite her earning power, she was not in all respects an independent modern woman. As a self-described pushover for rogues, she remained loyal to her husband even while he dated other women and tried to take credit for Loos' achievements. When she returned to Hollywood as a highly paid screenwriter under Irving Thalberg at MGM, she protected Emerson's fragile ego by finding him a sinecure at the studio. Seemingly proud of her financial ineptitude, she turned her entire income over to "Mr. E," who put everything into his own name in a move that could have left her penniless upon his death. Emerson was ultimately diagnosed as a manic-depressive, and spent the last 18 years of his life in a sanitarium. In her autobiographical Kiss Hollywood Good-By (1974), Loos chronicles her strictly platonic relationships with several attractive men, among them "the love of her life," the gambler and con-man Wilson Mizner.
Loos' Broadway successes include several musical versions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, two romantic comedies adapted from the works of Colette, and Happy Birthday (1947), written for her good friend Helen Hayes. Hayes, who had recently starred as Queen Victoria and Harriet Beecher Stowe, was "fed up with being noble," and Loos obliged with a comic portrait of a drab librarian who blossoms in a barroom. With Hayes she has published Twice Over Lightly (1972), an exuberant tour of New York City, her adopted home.
In three play versions, a sequel, and such later works as A Mouse Is Born (1951), Loos tried to repeat her triumph with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but she never again so artfully captured Lorelei's blend of innocence and avarice, nor her highly original gift of gab. Though Loos' later novels seem sadly dated, her gossipy Hollywood memoirs, A Girl Like I (1972) and Kiss Hollywood Good-By, are delightful souvenirs of a bygone age.
Other Works:
The Whole Town's Talking (with J. Emerson, 1925). But—Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1928). Gigi (dramatization of the story by Colette, 1951; revised, 1956). Chéri (dramatization of the novel by Colette, 1959). No Mother to Guide Her (1961). The King's Mare (1967). Cast of Thousands (1977).
Bibliography:
Reference works:
CA (1969). CB (Feb. 1974). Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States (1995). TCA, TCAS
Other references:
Atlantic (Oct. 1966). Film Comment (Winter 1970-71). NR (10 Aug. 1974). NY (28 Dec. 1946). NYT (27 Dec. 1925). NYTBR (18 Aug. 1974). SR (24 Sept. 1966).
—BEVERLY GRAY BIENSTOCK