A Girl Like I: typescript

Collection

Identifier: MSS 0667

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

This prepublication typed manuscript of American screen writer and author Anita Loos's (1893-1981) autobiography A Girl Like I (1966) bears typed and handwritten editorial markings. Some of the pencil notations are in Loos's hand.

A Girl Like I documented Loos's life as a screen writer and a socialite, as well as the relationships between prominent American writers and actors of the 1920s. Loos wrote in detail about the difficulties she faced as a woman writer and producer in Hollywood.

The typescript makes mention of many famous actors, writers, and socialites who surrounded Loos in Hollywood, New York, and Europe. Her relationship with her second husband John Emerson is discussed at length, as well as her many friendships, most notably with American actresses Constance Talmadge (1898-1973) and Norma Talmadge (1893-1957), American actor Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939), and American author H. L. Mencken (1880-1956). Her and Emerson's work with the United Artists Corporation and Actors' Equity Association is discussed as well.

A Girl Like I is typed on onionskin paper and bears extensive emendations and revisions in type, ink, and pencil, some of the latter marks being in Loos's hand. The first chapter is dated August 28, 1963, but no other dates are included. Also included is an autographed card inscribed by Loos "To Jack."

Dates

Creation: 1963 and undated

Creator

Loos, Anita, 1893-1981 (Person)

Language of Materials

Materials entirely in English.

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Terms Governing Use and Reproduction

Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. Please contact Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, http://library.udel.edu/spec/askspec/

Biographical Note

American screen writer and author Anita Loos (1893-1981) was known for her screen writing credits in 1920s Hollywood, her 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and popularization of the flapper lifestyle.

At the age of fifteen, Loos began writing film scripts for D. W. Griffith of the Biograph Company. By the time she was eighteen, she had sold over one hundred scripts. In collaboration with her second husband, director John Emerson, she continued her lucrative screen writing career as well as producing several Broadway plays and two non-fiction works: How to Write Photoplays (1920) and Breaking into the Movies (1921).

She is best known, however, for her novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925). The book brought Loos international renown, who, as one of the first women to bob her hair and shorten her hemlines, came to epitomize the flappers of the 1920s. The novel inspired a play, several musical versions, a sequel, and a 1953 film starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. Loos continued to write scripts, produce, and work in Broadway after the novel, and she published several memoirs about life in Hollywood.

Carey, Gary.Anita Loos. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.Mainiero, Lina, ed.American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from the Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1981.Elaine Fredericksen. "Loos, Anita."American National Biography Online. Feb. 2000. http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-02122.html (accessed October 7, 2013).