HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANITA LOOS
(April 26, 1888 - Aug. 18, 1981)

The screenwriter, playwright, and novelist was born in Sissons (now Mount Shasta), California. She was largely self-taught and read a large array of library books. When she was a teenager, she married the son of a band leader in order to escape parental authority and left him approximately 24 hours later!  In 1919 she married director John Emerson who suffered a long mental illness for 18 years until his death in 1956.

After appearances in a number of stock company productions, she became

disenchanted with acting as a profession and found writing infinitely more interesting. Enchanted by short films she determined to write plots.  In her autobiography,  A Girl Like I, she wrote: "My sole preparation for a career was to buy a fountain pen and a large yellow pad."  Between 1912 and 1015 she wrote more than a hundred scripts, only four of which were rejected by Biograph.

When she met D. W. Griffith and his scenario editor in Hollywood they stared unbelievingly at this young woman who was four feet, eleven inches, weighed about ninety pounds and looked like a child.  While at the studio she wrote longer scripts for Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, Constance Talmadge and Mary Pickford. She also pioneered the art of subtitling for Macbeth, for which she shared credit with Shakespeare. And her captions for Intolerance (1916) are considered classics of the genre.  When she moved to New York, she wrote two Broadway comedies, The Whole Town's Talking (1923) and The Fall of Eve (1925).  Her friends included intellectuals such as H. L. Mencken and the drama critic George Jean Nathan.  She achieved international fame with her novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, published in  85 editions and translated into fourteen languages including Chinese.  She rewrote the book as a popular play in 1926. It became the basis for two films, one silent and the other starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell (1953); and two musical comedies, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1949 and Lorelei in 1974, both starring Carol Channing.  After achieving some prosperity writing scripts at MGM for Irving Thalberg including Red-Headed Woman for Jean Harlow and the film adaptation of Clare Boothe Luce's The Women, she produced memorable stage plays such as Happy Birthday starring Helen Hayes and  her adaptation of Colette's Gigi which brought Audrey Hepburn to stardom in 1951.

        As a playwright, screenwriter, and international celebrity, Anita Loos proved that a woman could thrive in the manic world of Hollywood and New York show business. Her refusal to take anything very seriously kept her from being overawed and her self-described "fascination over all things great or small" (Cast of Thousands) kept her work from becoming stale or predictable. Her crisp, witty dialogue made a genuine contribution to both sound films and stage plays.

Resource: Notable Women in American Theatre, 1989 ed. by Laurilyn J. Harris