gentlemen prefer blondes the illuminating diary of a professional lady

Although the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department, located at the UCLA Arts-Special Collections Library, note that Sale and Mary Loos wrote a screenplay for the film, their work was not included in the finished picture. Īccording to a HR news item, the picture was originally to be produced by George Jessel and directed by Richard Sale, who was to collaborate on the screenplay with his wife, Mary Loos, Anita Loos's niece. After Levin and Smith bought out Paramount's interest in the rights in late Aug 1951, according to DV news items, they sold the property to Twentieth Century-Fox in Nov 1951 for $150,000.Īccording to a HR news item, the picture was originally to be produced by George Jessel and directed by Richard Sale, who was to collaborate on the screenplay with. DV further reported that Columbia had tried to purchase the rights for Judy Holliday, but that she refused the role of Lorelei Lee.

Paramount had released the rights in exchange for a percentage of the profits from the sale to another film company, conditional upon the sale taking place within two years of the show's opening. Loos again wrote about her heroines in the novellas Why Not Brunette and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes.Īn Aug 1951 DV news item reported that the musical comedy's producers, Herman Levin and Oliver Smith, would 'have to scare up a deal for sale of film rights by 17 Nov or face the prospect' of the rights reverting to Paramount, which had produced a 1928 film based on the Loos novella. After being published in book form as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady, the material was turned into a dramatic play by Loos and her husband, John Emerson (New York, ). Anita Loos's popular novella depicting the adventures of 'Lorelei Lee' and 'Dorothy Shaw' first appeared as a serial in Harper's Bazaar (Mar-Aug 1925) under the title The Diary of a Hasty Traveler.

Gentlemen prefer blondes the illuminating diary of a professional lady