gentlemen prefer blondes the illuminating diary of a professional lady

The scenes on the ship were filmed on an old Titanic set but the ocean liner they’re on is supposedly the SS lle de France. She’s a gorgeous, vivacious young platinum blonde who actively seeks out rich gentlemen to fund her fabulous, transatlantic lifestyle. In the original novella Lorelei isn’t a showgirl – as depicted by Marilyn Monroe – instead Lorelei is a professional gold-digger, hustler and quite possibly a classy prostitute. Monroe already possessed the acting skills to invest her latest character with immense wit and naivety while subtly giving out hints that she was one hell of a clever dame. Later it morphed into a film with Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei in 1953. After the riotous success of Loos’ book, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes became a popular musical comedy Broadway show in 1949. While still on the train, Loos whipped out her notepad and got to work, creating the blonde character, Lorelei Lee from Little Rock Arkansas. Loos idly wondered if it was because, ‘She was a natural blonde and I was a brunette.’ A vacuous blonde actress was effortlessly hogging all the male attention, including that of the handsome actor Douglas Fairbanks. Barton’s line-drawn illustrations are marvellous witty, insightful and mocking.Īnita Loos began her novella Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, after observing a female passenger on a train trip from LA to New York. Its been ‘ intimately illustrated ’ by Ralph Barton. On my copy it has a subtitle, ‘ The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady ’. So popular was Anita Loos’ novella that it ran to over 80 editions and was translated into fourteen languages – including Chinese.

One of my favourite books is a hardcover 1926, tenth edition of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. ‘I overheard Dorothy tell Major Falcon that she liked to become intoxicated once in a dirty while.’įrom Anita Loos novella, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Gentlemen prefer blondes the illuminating diary of a professional lady