Anita Loos

Anita Loos (April 26, 1889 – August 18, 1981) was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She wrote film scripts from 1912, and became arguably the first-ever staff scriptwriter, when D.W. Griffith put her on the payroll at Triangle Film Corporation. She went on to write many of the Douglas Fairbanks films, as well as the stage adaptation of Colette’s Gigi. 2Biography 3Early life Anita Loos was born Corinne Anita Loos in Sisson, California (today Mount Shasta), to Richard Beers Loos and Minnie Ellen Smith. Loos had two siblings: Gladys and Clifford (Harry Clifford), a physician and co-founder of the Ross-Loos Medical Group. On pronouncing her name, Loos is reported to have said, "The family has always used the correct French pronunciation which is lohse. However, I myself pronounce my name as if it were spelled luce, since most people pronounce it that way and it was too much trouble to correct them." Loos' father, R. Beers Loos, founded a tabloid for which her mother, Minerva "Minnie" Smith did most of the work of a newspaper publisher. In 1892, when Loos was four years old, the family moved to San Francisco, where Beers Loos bought the newspaper The Dramatic Event, a veiled version of the UK's Police Gazette, with money Minerva borrowed from her father. While living in San Francisco, Loos followed her dissolute alcoholic father as they explored the city's underbelly. Together they would sit on the pier, fishing and making friends with the locals, feeding into Loos' lifelong fascination with lowlifes and loose wome