Anita Loos with humorous anecdotes and Jule Styne played songs from Loos' musicals, including "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend". 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". Anita Loos was born Corinne Anita Loos in Sisson,
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) first film version, which is now lost, was released in 1928 and starred Ruth Taylor and Alice White. Better known is the 1953 film version of the musical, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. The novel's characters were licensed for use in a daily newspaper comic strip series that ran from April to September 1926. The comic strip was not an adaptation of the novel, but used the novel's characters in new gag situations. Although the writing was credited to Loos, it was presumably ghosted by the artists, Virginia Huget and Phil Cook. The original series was