Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel)
history
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a comic novel written by Anita Loos first published in 1925. The book was later filmed twice and made into a Broadway musical in 1949 starring Carol Channing. The work is best known, however, for the 1953 film version of the musical, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.
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 published as a magazine series, it was published as a book in 1925 and became a runaway best seller earning the praise of no less than Edith Wharton who dubbed it "The great American novel."
The sequel, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, was published two years later.
- Rodgers, Marion Elizabeth (2005) . NY: Oxford University Press.