Lillian Lorraine reportedly was a large influence on Anita Loos in the creation of the character of Lorelei for the novel "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". Although her affair with Ziegfeld was over by the end of the 1910s, her box office drawing power kept her in a number of his productions of the period. Lorraine's fame waned in the 1920s, and she worked for a period in vaudeville. Lorraine's first marriage was to Frederick M. Gresheimer. They married on March 27, 1912 after meeting on a beach. Ten days later, Lorraine announced that the marriage had been a mistake and that the couple
Anita Loos ""Blondes"" would see three more printings sell through by year's end, and 20 in its first decade. The little book would see 85 editions in the years to come and eventually be translated into 14 languages, including Chinese. When asked who the models for her characters, Loos would almost always say they were composites of various people, but when pressed, admitted that toothless flirt Sir Francis Beekman was modeled after writer Joseph Hergesheimer and producer Jesse L. Lasky. Dorothy Shaw was modeled after herself and Constance Talmadge, and Lorelei herself most closely resembled acquisitive Ziegfeld showgirl, Lillian Lorraine, who was