Anita Loos: A biography

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 The author, by drawing on her previously unpublished diaries, letters and scrapbooks, examines her friendships with the famous names of her day - The Gish sisters, Aldous Huxley, Chaplin, Cecil Beaton and Helen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.