The directory «Plots»

Loos Anita
(1888—1981)

The screenwriter and author Anita Loos was and is a fascinating personality which was able to follow her way in by men controlled Hollywood. She had an important role of the early silent movie era.

Before she seized the occupation of an author she made first experiences as a child actress at the theater. Her career as a screenwriter already began in 1912 when she wrote the story "The New York Hat" and on the occacion met actress Mary Pickford. The book was successful adapted for the screen by D.W. Griffith with Pickford in the main part.

Anita Loos wrote subsequently more scripts for this famous director and became with it an icon herself. To their common movies belong "The Musketeers of Pig Alley", "My Baby", "The Telephone Girl and the Lady" and "The Mistake". For "Intolerance" she wrote the inserted captions.

When Douglas Fairbanks joinged the Griffith company in 1915 they assigned Anita Loos to set up the new star with appropriate scripts. Anita Loos knew how to write pefect stories around the with energy bursting actor and Douglas Fairbanks soon became one of the greatest stars at all. Anna Loos wrote for him the movies "The Half Breed" (1916), "Manhattan Madness" (1916), "American Aristocracy" (1916), "The Matrimaniac" (1916), "The Americano" (1916), "His Picture in the Papers" (1916), "In Again, Out Again" (1917), "Down to Earth" (1917), "Reaching the Moon" (1917) and "Wild and Wooly" (1917).

Also other stars owed some wonderful movies to Anita Loos' writing skills, among them the Talmadge sisters for who she wrote successfully comedies, so the movies "The Social Secretary" (1916), "The Isle of Conquest" (1919) und "The Branded Woman" (1920) for Norma Talmadge and the movies "The Matrimaniac" (1916), "A Temperamental Wife" (1919), "A Virtuous Vamp" (1919), "Two Weeks" (1920), "In Search of a Sinner" (1920), "The Love Expert" (1920), "Dangerous Business" (1920), "The Perfect Woman" (1920), "Mama's Affair" (1921), "Woman's Place" (1921), "Polly of the Follies" (1922), "Dulcy" (1923) and "Learning to Love" (1925) for Constance Talmadge.

Anita Loos wrote her probably most famous book called "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Blondinen bevorzugt" in 1926, which was filmed in 1928 for the first time and got the state of cult with the remake with Marilyn Monroe. Her following book "But Gentleman Marry Brunettes" (28) was also very successful.

Anita Loos continued her career as a screenwriter successfully in the 1930's, she wrote among others the script for D.W. Griffiths last movie "The Struggle" (1931) as well as the productions "Red-Headed Woman" (1932), "Blondie of the Follies" (1932), "San Francisco" (1936), "Saratoga" (1937) and "The Women" (1939).

To her last scripts belong "Susan and God" (1940), "Blossoms In the Dust" (1941) and "I Married an Angel" (1942). Anita Loos survived many of the great stars and she kept the experiences and memories of that time by writing autobiographies and talking about the golden years of Hollywood in TV interviews.

Guinea, 2007, «Gentlemen prefer blondes»