‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ Is 100! See Why the Novel’s Author, Anita Loos, Was One of Classic Hollywood’s Most Trailblazing Women
The source material behind the classic Marilyn Monroe movie is as fresh as ever a century later
Few classic Hollywood films are more beloved than Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Of course, much of the enduring appeal comes from Marilyn Monroe’s inimitable charisma, but the film’s hilarious dialogue cannot be overlooked. Much of that dialogue comes from the 1925 novel of the same name, written by Anita Loos—that’s right, the 1953 comedy is a literary adaptation, and Loos is a behind-the-scenes name you should absolutely know.
Loos was a gifted and prolific writer lauded for her wit and her enduring impact on the film industry. In honor of the 100th anniversary of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, we’re taking a look at why Loos was one of Golden Age Hollywood’s most fascinating women—and how she proved to be way ahead of her time.
Anita Loos was one of the first female screenwriters
While Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is undoubtedly Loos’ most famous work, she already had many credits to her name by the time she wrote the book. Loos began her career in the early 20th century, when the film industry as we know it was still new.
Loos wanted to be a writer from childhood, and as a young woman, she began selling her screenplays for short films to studios in 1912. That year, the silent film director D.W. Griffith produced one of her earliest screenplays, The New York Hat, and two of the era’s most popular actors, Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore, starred in it.
Loos churned out screenplays by the dozens during the silent era (looking back at her career in a 1972 conversation with Interview magazine, she said, “I wrote 200 movies that were produced before sound came in”) and while some of the shorts of this time are now sadly lost to history, she helped to define the narrative structure and humor of silent films and described herself as “possibly the movies’ first staff writer.”
How Anita Loos helped launch Jean Harlow and Audrey Hepburn to stardom
Early in her career, Loos wrote many films for the actor Douglas Fairbanks, helping to establish his reputation as early Hollywood’s go-to swashbuckler. Later on, her racy 1932 screenplay for Red-Headed Woman made Jean Harlow a household name.
In the ’40s, Loos branched out to writing stage plays, and her 1951 Broadway adaptation of the novel Gigi gave none other than Audrey Hepburn her breakout moment. She also wrote scripts for films starring Joan Crawford (The Women, 1939) , Clark Gable (Saratoga, 1937), Spencer Tracy (San Francisco, 1936) and other classic A-listers and made uncredited contributions to the screenplays of films including Another Thin Man (1939), Babes in Arms (1939) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945).
‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’: Anita Loos’ literary sensation
In 1925, Loos wrote her first novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The book was a bestseller and earned praise from literary icons like F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, James Joyce and Edith Wharton. While the film may be more widely recognized than the book today, Loos’ original text perfectly captured the rebellious spirit of flappers in the ’20s, and had a surprisingly modern and feminist approach to its gold-digging protagonist.
The success of the book led Loos to adapt it into a 1928 silent film (which starred Ruth Taylor and is sadly now lost and unavailable to watch anywhere) and a 1949 Broadway musical (starring Carol Channing). While Loos wasn’t directly involved in writing the screenplay for the 1953 film, it stuck close to her source material, and she said, “Marilyn was absolutely perfect in the part.”
Loos wrote a sequel to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes cleverly titled But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes in 1927. The impact of Loos’ novel can still be felt today, as her depiction of a fabulously ditsy yet savvy young women has shaped countless rom-com heroines in its wake. Loos was well aware of her impact, and quipped to Interview, “everybody started copying it.”
Loos lived a long life, passing away in 1981 at age 93, and continued writing novels, memoirs and magazine articles into her later years. Like her signature characters, she was known for her glamour and sharp humor, and she continues to inspire over a century after she first made her mark in Hollywood.
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