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University of California Press

Anita Loos Rediscovered

Film Treatments and Fiction by Anita Loos, Creator of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
by Anita Loos (Author), Cari Beauchamp (Editor), Mary Anita Loos (Editor), Cari Beauchamp (Contribution by), Mary Anita Loos (Contribution by)
Hardcover Paperback
Price: $29.95 / £25.00
Publication Date: Mar 2025
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 322
ISBN: 9780520419285
Trim Size: 6 x 9
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About the Book

Anita Loos (1888-1981) was one of Hollywood's most respected and prolific screenwriters, as well as an acclaimed novelist and playwright. This unique collection of previously unpublished film treatments, short stories, and one-act plays spans fifty years of her creative writing and showcases the breadth and depth of her talent. Beginning in 1912 with the stories she submitted from her San Diego home (some made into films by D. W. Griffith), through her collaboration with Colette on the play Gigi, Anita Loos wrote almost every day for the screen, stage, books, or magazines. Film scripts include San Francisco, The Women, and Red-Headed Woman. The list of stars for whom she created unforgettable roles includes Mary Pickford, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Audrey Hepburn, and Carol Channing.

This collection has been selected by Anita's niece and close friend, the best-selling author Mary Anita Loos, together with the acclaimed film historian Cari Beauchamp. Their essays are laced throughout the volume, introducing each section and giving previously untold insights and behind-the-scenes stories about Anita—her life, her friendships, and her times.

About the Author

Anita Loos (1888-1981) was a prolific actress, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Author of the international bestseller Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, adapted into the classic film starring Marilyn Monroe, she was the first woman to work as a staff screenwriter in Hollywood.
 
Cari Beauchamp (1949-2023) was author and editor of many books on early Hollywood, including the classic Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood. Emmy-nominated for her documentary film work, she was twice named an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scholar.
 
Mary Anita Loos (1910-2004) was an actress, screenwriter, and novelist, and the niece of Anita Loos. She wrote or cowrote screenplays for many Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s, including for the film Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, based on her aunt’s novel of the same name.

Table of Contents

Plates follow page
Foreword
Mary Anita Loos
Introduction
Cari Beauchamp

ANITA LOOS AND HER STORIES FROM SAN DIEGO, 1888–1915
The School of Acting
The Highbrow
Plagiarism
The Man Who Looked Up
By Way of France
Jane Wins Out
A Ride with Billy

HOLLYWOOD SUCCESSS AND INTERNATIONAL FAME, 1915–1930
The Heart That Has Truly Loved
Play for Mr. Fairbanks
All Men Are Equal
Where Does Annie Belong?
The Moving Pictures of Blinkville
My First Memories of Aunt Anita
Mary Anita Loos

RETURN TO HOLLYWOOD, 1931–1944
Winkie Boy
Suggestion for Keaton Story
Evelina
Women in Uniform
Aunt Anita’s Romances and Friendships
Mary Anita Loos

NEW YORK AT LAST, 1944–1981
It Pays to Advertise
One More Heroine
Mr. Sherard
Travels with Aunt Anita
Mary Anita Loos

Anita Loos’s Memorial Service, August 27, 1981
Notes
Works by Anita Loos
Acknowledgments
Index

Reviews

“Collection of film treatments, short stories and one-act plays by the Hollywood screenwriter.”
— The Bookseller
“An intriguing selection of previously unpublished film treatments, one-act plays, and short stories written over the course of [Anita Loos’s] career. . . . The material is colorful and well-integrated.”
— New York Sun
“Editors Beauchamp and Loos have done tremendous work, both in making their selections and in conducting the numerous interviews that have filled out their understanding of Anita Loos and her time. Beauchamp’s comments are enlightening but never intrusive, useful for helping readers to develop their own conclusions about Loos’s life and work. Mary Anita Loos’s memoirs about her aunt are loving but honest. She provides a picture of Anita Loos that helps related the writer’s life to her work.”
— Journal Of Film & Video
“Long before Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones became the prototype for the hapless-career-girl heroine, Anita Loos regaled readers with her fabulous, far more entertaining, and unselfconscious cosmopolitan dames. This collection of Loos’s film treatments and stories, as well as biographical pieces, is an insightful chronicle of her career.”
— Film Comment
"I adored Anita, as did the entire fashion and literary world. She was four feet nine inches of lithe, slender, dramatic chic."—Carol Channing

"This book celebrates a character as memorable as any Anita Loos created in her writing. She was an indomitable, wise-cracking prodigy who not only helped create Hollywood, but managed to survive it."—John Sayles

"If we can't have the wonderful Anita Loos-smart, witty, literate and fun- writing today's Hollywood movies, at least we can get reacquainted with her and her work through this delightful book. Filled with previously unpublished material, it shows that while gentlemen may have preferred blondes, everyone else in town wisely preferred the irresistible Ms. Loos."—Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times

"This is a wonderful book about a talented, fascinating, and groundbreaking woman. Her life epitomizes a certain era in show business and describes a Hollywood in which few women were allowed to rise to the top. Anita Loos did and we were all the beneficiaries. I loved the book!"—Peter Duchin

"Not only is it valuable to have these delightful Anita Loos pieces, but the biographical chapters are fascinating too."—Kevin Brownlow, author of David Lean: A Biography