Earle K. Bergey expanding paperback book industry along with skilled pulp artists like Rudolph Belarski, whose work is often confused with Bergey's. While continuing to paint pulp covers until his death, Bergey sold illustrations to at least four (4) leading paperback publishing houses, including Popular Library and Pocket Books. His art graced the covers of dozens of novels and helped to sell millions of volumes. His paperback cover illustrations were as diverse as his work for the pulps. In addition to his work on Anita Loos' famous "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", Bergey painted cover art for well-known authors from Émile Zola to the Western
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) as a book by Boni & Liveright in 1925 and became a runaway best seller, becoming the second best selling title of 1926 and earning the praise of no less than Edith Wharton who dubbed it "The Great American Novel." A sequel, "But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes", was published two years later. Responding to a male friend’s suggestion that she should write down her thoughts because it would make an interesting book, the blonde Lorelei Lee narrates the novel in the form of a diary complete with spelling and grammatical errors. Lorelei Lee had been working in movies in Hollywood when