Anita Loos: a Hollywood Legend with Roots in the Small Siskiyou County Town of Etna
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Anita Loos: A Hollywood legend with roots in the small Siskiyou County town of Etna By Jon Lewis The gravestone is rather unassuming, as is its location in the Etna Cemetery. What’s not unassuming, however, is the story of the diminutive woman whose fi nal resting place is in Siskiyou County’s Scott Valley. Anita Loos, who stood an inch short of fi ve feet and weighed in at 90 pounds, was a giant in early 20th- century Hollywood and Broadway. In a career spanning 60 years, she wrote some 200 screenplays and played a key role in advancing the acting careers of Douglas Fairbanks, Jean Harlow and Audrey Hepburn. She’s best known for “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” a best-selling comic novel published in 1925 that introduced the world to Lorelei Lee, a gold-digging fl apper. The fi rst edition of the book sold out overnight and it was ultimately printed in 13 diff erent languages in some 85 editions. It garnered praise from literary stalwarts William Faulkner and Aldous Huxley while Edith Horton called it “the great American novel.” The infl uential director D.W. Griffi th dubbed Loos “the most brilliant young woman in the world.” Helen Gurley Brown, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, would later remark that the prescient and pioneering Loos had managed the twin goals of “being PHOTO AND COVER PHOTO / Everett Collection / Courtesy Everett Collection - stock.adobe.com sexy and having a fantastic career at the same time before anybody.” Anita Loos, right, and Jean Harlow in a publicity still for the 1932 movie “Red-Headed Woman,” which Loos’s roots in Siskiyou County Loos wrote the screenplay for and Harlow starred, in one of the more famous pre-code era fi lms. can be traced to her mother’s side of the family. Loos’s maternal Loos’s mother, Minerva Ellen New York Times as a “charming, occurred while her father was away grandparents, George and Cleopatra “Minnie” Smith, was born in Etna in feckless person, often away from on business.) “Cleo” Smith were among Etna’s early 1869. Her father was Richard Beers home with pretty women and often Loos continued performing after pioneers, having arrived in the area in Loos, a newspaperman and theatre short of money.” her father moved the family to San 1849. manager who was described in the Richard and Cleo were married Diego in 1903. Richard Loos had in 1881 and Anita Loos was born taken a job managing a theater in 1889 in Sisson (now Mount company and had his daughter on Shasta). Richard Loos, who was stage there as well. The precocious publisher of the Sisson Mascot Loos soon became the family newspaper, apparently developed breadwinner. It also was in San Diego, some wanderlust and by Anita’s third and later in Los Angeles, that Loos year, the family had relocated to began to expand her writing. San Francisco where Richard Loos Loos’s foray into writing was purchased The Dramatic Event, a a natural progression, suggested tabloid that focused on theater doings. Jennifer Bryan, a Yreka native and a A curious sort, Loos would board member of the Siskiyou County accompany her father to San Historical Society. Francisco’s pier where she had her “Her father was involved in theater fi rst brushes with the city’s underbelly and writing throughout her childhood,” and some of its more unsavory she said. “It was all around her.” characters. Those associations are “The Ink Well” was one of Loos’s credited with sparking her “lifelong fi rst published plays, after which she fascination with lowlifes and loose turned her attention to screenplays. women,” according to the Times. Her third eff ort, “The New York Theater was ever-present in Hat,” starred Mary Pickford and Loos’s life, and even as a young girl Lionel Barrymore and became a her father had Loos and her sister, hit for director D.W. Griffi th in 1911. PHOTO / Everett Collection / CSU Archives/Everett Collection - stock.adobe.com Gladys, performing on stage in San The script showcased what the Francisco. (Gladys died at age 8 Times described as “the Anita Loos Loos, right, and her friend, actress Helen Hayes, left, co-wrote the from appendicitis, an attack that aesthetic: sharp, wit-driven, female- 1972 book “Twice Over Lightly: New York Then and Now.” Page 12 / October 2020 / After Five PHOTO / Everett Collection / Courtesy Everett Collection - stock.adobe.com Loos started her career writing for silent fi lms, including as one of the co-writers for D.W. Griffi th’s 1916 movie “Intolerance.” centric plots, with barbs pointed Loos and Emerson collaborated at Puritanical humorlessness and on two well-received industry books, hypocrisy. From the beginning, she “How to Write Photoplays” and IMAGE / Shawshots / Alamy Stock Photo embodied the modern woman to “Breaking Into the Movies.” The fi lms The 1953 fi lm “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” starring Marilyn Monroe millions of readers — a work-driven, “Red-Headed Woman” and “The and Jane Russell, with the screenplay by Charles Lederer, was glamorous female success story in a Women” were two examples of Loos’s adapted from the Broadway musical written by Loos and Joseph man’s world.” success in the sound era. Loos also Fields, which was based on the novel by Loos. Between 1912 and 1915, Loos adapted “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” wrote 105 scripts and only four of for a successful Broadway production Monroe and Jane Russell. zero copayments. The group became them went unproduced. She became that starred Carol Channing. That A young Audrey Hepburn the country’s fi rst health maintenance the fi rst-ever female staff scriptwriter production would later be adapted performed the lead in Colette’s organization (HMO) in the United when Griffi th hired her at his Triangle by screenwriter Charles Lederer for “Gigi,” another successful show Loos States. The HMO concept has since Film Corporation. Loos went on to the popular 1953 fi lm starring Marilyn adapted for Broadway. been used by Anthem Blue Cross and write for Paramount, United Artists In her later years, Loos began a other large insurers. and MGM, easily making the transition volume of memoirs starting with “A Cliff ord’s daughter Mary became a from silent to sound fi lms. Girl Like I,” in 1966. Her 1972 book, writer who published under the name Loos joined director John Emerson “Twice Over Lightly: New York Then Anita Loos. She married Richard for a series of successful Douglas and Now,” was written in collaboration Sale, a screenwriter and novelist, and Fairbanks swashbuckling adventure with friend and actress Helen Hayes, together they wrote 17 fi lms, including fi lms and later married Emerson (her while “Kiss Hollywood Goodbye” from “Gentlemen Marry Brunettes,” “The second husband), who was 15 years 1974 was a Hollywood memoir about Wackiest Ship in the Army” and her senior. her MGM years. “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.” Loos would later complain that Cliff ord Loos and his sister Gladys, the bulk of the pair’s successful Famous relatives along with his parents, are buried scripts were primarily her own work. Loos’s older brother, H. Cliff ord alongside Loos at the Etna Cemetery. Emerson’s infi delity and jealousy over Loos, also was born in Mount Shasta “I kind of think the land and the his wife’s accomplishments strained and grew up in the Scott Valley. He family roots drew them,” said Bryan, the marriage, while also providing attended medical school at Stanford who also does research for the Loos with the opportunity to mingle University and practiced medicine and Genealogical Society of Siskiyou with fellow writers like Gertrude Stein, surgery in San Diego from 1906 to County. “They felt at home here. My Alice B. Toklas, Elisabeth Marbury 1917. current generation, even though they and Elsie De Wolfe. PHOTO / Everett Collection / CSU Archives/Everett In 1929, with fellow physician Don left to make a living, they still come William Randolph Hearst Collection - stock.adobe.com Ross, Cliff ord Loos formed the Ross- back to be buried with the family.” contracted with Loos to write a fi lm Loos Medical Group and became for his mistress, Marion Davies, and John Emerson and Anita Loos in the fi rst group to collect monthly Jennifer Bryan of the Siskiyou the resulting “Getting Mary Married” a photo taken one minute after payments from its members (initially County Historical Society provided became one of the few Marion Davies their wedding in Bayside Long Los Angeles County employees) in a signifi cant amount of help for this fi lms that didn’t lose money. Island in 1919. exchange for health care with small or article. After Five / October 2020 / Page 13.