Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) also distributed in reprints to newspapers circa 1929 to early 1930s. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady is a comic novel written by Anita Loos, first published in 1925. It is one of several famous novels published that year to chronicle the so-called Jazz Age, including Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" and Van Vechten's "Firecrackers". Loos was inspired to write the book after watching a sexy blonde turn intellectual H. L. Mencken into a lovestruck schoolboy. Mencken, a close friend, actually enjoyed the work and saw to it that it was published. Originally
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