(1888-1981)
Born in Mount Shasta, California, Anita Loos scripted over 200 motion pictures from the silent era to sound, but also wrote novels and plays. Her most successful play, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1926), adapted from her novel by Loos and her husband, John Emerson, is a comedy about Lorelei Lee, a gold-digging flapper in the Jazz Age. With Emerson, Loos also wrote The Whole Town's Talking (1923), The Fall of Eve (1925), and The Social Register (1931). On her own, Loos's Happy Birthday* (1946), a modest success, starred Helen Hayes, and Loos also adapted Colette's novel Gigi* (1951). Her screenplays include classics, from D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916) to San Francisco (1936), Saratoga (1937), and The Women* (1939).
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.