Anita Loos: A biography - Hardcover

Carey, Gary

3.92

50 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747502943 ISBN 13: 9780747502944

Publisher: Bloomsbury Books, 1988

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Despite her image as a "flapper", Anita Loos was a hardworking, rather shy woman who sought recognition as a writer. This is the view presented by this biography which recounts her life at the film studios, hired by D.W.Griffith, writing scripts for Fairbanks and Pickford, Harlow and William Randolph Hearst. Anita Loos' novel "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" made her a celebrity in 1925, but her output of screenplays, stories and articles was enormous. Her career spanned 70 years and she was a central figure in Hollywood until her death in 1981. The author, by drawing on her previously unpublished diaries, letters and scrapbooks, examines her friendships with the famous names of her day - The Gish sisters, Aldous Huxley, Chaplin, Cecil Beaton and Helen Hayes. He explores the long, mostly unhappy marriage with John Emerson, a producer who was much less successful than his wife. Carey is also the author of biographies of Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Louis B.Mayer.

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From Publishers Weekly:

" Macbeth by William Shakespeare and Anita Loos"so read her first screen credit, and such was the film industry of the day that Loos, quips Carey, would have been given top billing if she had asked. The scriptwriter/playwright/book author (1888-1981), best remembered for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , is here portrayed in a lackluster recreation tedious with minutiae, written by the biographer of Marlon Brando and other screen stars. Not even the roster of celebrities appearing in cameo rolesDouglas Fairbanks, Carol Channing, Cecil Beaton, Alice B. Toklas et al.adds anything approaching the zip that was the hallmark of Loos's own work. The woman herself, however, one is suprised to find here, was, despite the cut-ups she partied with, a bit of a puritan and docile, delighted by rebels but herself straight-laced. After a brief first marriage in 1915, for instance, she married director John Emerson in 1920 and remained his wife in deed as well as law even though he spent the last 20 years of his lifehe died in 1956in a sanatorium in California while Loos took up residence in Manhattan. To touch her joie, one would do better to track down her memoirs, A Girl Like I and Kiss Hollywood Good-bye , both unfortunately out of print. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Known primarily as the author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Anita Loos was a hardworking and prolific author of plays, screenplays, novels, and articles whose career spanned 70 years. In this fast-paced and energetic biography, Carey recounts many amusing incidents in her life, often involving notables such as H.L. Mencken, Helen Hayes, and Carol Channing, but he never obscures the fact that Loos was a driven woman who wrote constantly until her death at 93 despite a jealous and lesser talented husband who was prone to psychosomatic illness whenever he thought her too successful. This combination of witty backstage anecdote and respectful sensitivity makes for an enlightening and entertaining reading experience. Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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