Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady is a 1925 comic novel written by American author Anita Loos. The story follows the dalliances of a young blonde gold-digger and flapper named Lorelei Lee during "the bathtub-gin era of American history.": "Anita Loos's comic masterpiece, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, is the story of a gold-digger's progress in the bathtub-gin era of American history." Published the same year as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Carl Van Vechten's Firecrackers, the lighthearted work is one of several notable 1925 American novels focusing on the carefree hedonism of the Jazz Age.: "[The Jazz Age represented] a whole race going hedonistic, deciding on pleasure."
Originally serialized as sketches in Harper's Bazaar during the spring and summer of 1925, Boni & Liveright republished Loos's sketches in book form in November 1925. Although dismissed by critics as "too light in texture to be very enduring", the book garnered the praise of many writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, William Faulkner, and H. G. Wells. Edith Wharton hailed Loos's satirical work as "the great American novel" as the character of Lorelei Lee embodied the avarice and self-indulgence that characterized 1920s America during the presidencies of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
Loos's book became the second-best selling title of 1926 in the United States and a runaway international bestseller. It was printed worldwide in over 13 languages, including Russian and Chinese. By the time Loos died of a heart attack in 1981 at the age of 93, the work had been printed in over 85 editions and adapted into a 1926 comic strip, a 1926 Broadway play, a 1928 silent comedy, a 1949 Broadway musical, and a 1953 film adaptation of the musical.
Loos wrote a sequel, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, in 1927.
Background
Over the years, Anita Loos told differing origin stories for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, although each of the different origin stories involves an incident aboard a train. While working as a screenwriter in Hollywood, California, a 40-year-old Loos boarded a train either alone or with actor Douglas Fairbanks. Aboard the train, she encountered littérateur H. L. Mencken, the gruff editor of The Smart Set, in the company of an attractive young blonde, often identified as either actress Mae Davis or Mae Clarke.: "In most accounts, her name is either Mae Davis or Mae Clarke, always identified as an actress. Miss Clarke, best remembered for getting a grapefuit squashed in her face in The Public Enemy, insists that she was not Anita's model. She did meet Anita on a train, but not until several years later".
As Loos lugged her heavy suitcases from their overhead racks while nearby men failed to offer any assistance whatsoever, the young blonde dropped her book, and several male bystanders jumped to retrieve it. As an attractive young brunette, Loos observed this stark contrast in the men's behavior and surmised that the difference stemmed from the other woman being a blonde.
During the train ride, Mencken, a close friend to whom Loos felt sexually attracted, continued focusing his attention on the young blonde and behaving like a love-struck simpleton. "Prompted by a flirtation that Henry Mencken was having with a stupid little blonde," Loos recalled, "I wrote a skit poking fun at his romance. I had no thought of it ever being printed". A jealous Loos jotted down the short story in the persona of a young blonde flapper recounting her dalliances in an intimate diary.
Upon arriving at her home, Loos forgot about the story, but she rediscovered the manuscript after unpacking her suitcases. Piqued at Mencken, she placed the manuscript in an envelope and mailed it to him. Mencken enjoyed the deprecatory piece and forwarded the manuscript to Henry Sell, the editor of Harper's Bazaar. Sell accepted the story for publication, and he urged Loos to continue writing about the blonde flapper's escapades. Due to the popularity of Loos's stories, the magazine's circulation skyrocketed, and Boni & Liveright published the stories in book form in November 1925.
Plot summary
Born in Arkansas, a blonde flapper named Lorelei Lee meets Gus Eisman, a Chicago businessman whom she calls "Daddy". He installs her in a New York City apartment and "educates" her. He pays for jewelry from Cartier, dinners at the Ritz, and tickets to the Ziegfeld Follies. During this time, she meets novelist Gerry Lamson. He wishes to "save" her from Eisman and asks her to marry him. Not wishing to forgo a trip to Europe paid for by Eisman, Lorelei spurns Lamson. Meanwhile, Lorelei criticizes her friend Dorothy Shaw for wasting her time with a poor writer named Mencken, the editor of a dull magazine, instead of pursuing wealthy men.
Sailing for Europe with Dorothy on the RMS Majestic, Lorelei learns that Bartlett, a former district attorney who is now a senator, is aboard the ship. She recounts a dubious backstory in which a lawyer employed her as a stenographer, and she shot him to defend her virtue. During the trial, which Bartlett prosecuted, Lorelei gave such "compelling" testimony that the all-male jury acquitted her. The judge bought her a ticket to Hollywood so that she could use her acting talents to become a star. Due to her siren-like personality, he nicknamed her "Lorelei". Lorelei exacts revenge on Bartlett by seducing him and revealing secrets about his senatorial activities.
Arriving in England, the Tower of London fails to impress Dorothy and Lorelei as it is smaller than "the Hickox building in Little Rock". Invited to a soirée where English aristocrats sell counterfeit jewels to naive tourists, Lorelei encounters an elderly matron who is selling a diamond tiara. Lorelei casts her eye around the room for a wealthy man to buy it for her and settles on Sir Francis Beekman, whom she calls "Piggie". With flattery and the promise of discretion due to his matrimonial status, she persuades him to buy the tiara.
In Paris, the duo are more excited by jewelry shops than by the "Eyeful Tower". Beekman's wife confronts Lorelei and threatens to ruin her reputation if she does not return the tiara. Dorothy dismisses Lady Beekman's threats as hollow since Lorelei has no reputation to destroy. Later, a French lawyer and his son acting on behalf of Lady Beekman confront the flappers. Impressed by the women's beauty, the father and son dine with them and charge all expenses to Lady Beekman. Lorelei makes a replica of the tiara and sends them away with the fake one.
Eisman arrives in Paris and, after shopping trips with Lorelei, he departs for Vienna. He puts Lorelei and Dorothy on the Orient Express where she encounters Henry Spoffard, a staunch Presbyterian, prohibitionist, and moral reformer who delights in censoring movies. To gain his trust, Lorelei pretends that she is a reformer too and claims that she is trying to save Dorothy from her sinful lifestyle. Lorelei begins two-timing Eisman and Spoffard.
In Vienna, Lorelei meets "Dr. Froyd" who fails to psycho-analyze her because she never represses her inhibitions. Lorelei tells her past history to Spoffard who weeps at the moral outrages supposedly endured by Lorelei and likens her to Mary Magdalene. Meeting his mother, Lorelei claims to be a Christian Scientist and that her religion encourages drinking champagne. While drunk together, Lorelei gives his mother a cloche hat. Since Spoffard's mother has an Edwardian hairstyle, Lorelei bobs her hair for the hat to fit. Soon after, Spoffard proposes marriage to Lorelei by letter. She plans to use this letter as evidence of breach of promise and obtain a financial settlement.
Tiring of Spoffard, Lorelei nudges him towards breach of promise by embarking on a shopping spree and charging it to his account. After doing so, her paramour Gilbertson Montrose, a handsome screenwriter, advises her to marry Spoffard so that he will finance Montrose's new movie starring Lorelei. Deciding to wed Spoffard while pursuing a clandestine liaison with Montrose, Lorelei rushes to Spoffard and claims she faked her extravagance to test his love. A remorseful Spoffard vows to marry her and to finance Montrose's film.
Major characters
Lorelei Lee—a young blonde flapper and gold digger from Arkansas who epitomizes the insouciant hedonism and unbridled avarice of the Jazz Age. Originally inspired by Mae Davis or Mae Clarke, actresses Peggy Hopkins Joyce and Lillian Lorraine also partly inspired the character. As the most notorious of Florenz Ziegfeld's showgirls, Lorraine purportedly adored "all things sterling, forty-carat or unflawed, and she collected so many trinkets that when forced to sell the lot at the height of the [Great] Depression, she pocketed over two hundred thousand dollars." Dorothy Shaw—Lorelei's world-weary and perceptive brunette companion based on Loos herself as well as her friend, actress Constance Talmadge. Henry Spoffard—a staunch Presbyterian reformer and film censor whom Loos based on teetotaling and moralizing Hollywood film czar Will H. Hays. Sir Francis Beekman—a toothless flirt nicknamed "Piggie" who gives a diamond tiara to Lorelei in exchange for her physical affections. Loos modeled the character on writer Joseph Hergesheimer and producer Jesse L. Lasky who pestered Loos and other attractive young women at Hollywood soirées. Lady Beekman—the wife of Sir Francis Beekman who stalks Lorelei and Dorothy to France in order to obtain the tiara which her husband gifted to the blonde flapper. Gus Eisman—a wealthy international businessman known as "the Button King of Chicago" who serves as Lorelei's sugar daddy until she later weds Henry Spoffard. The character resembles globe-trotting entrepreneur and con-artist Ivar Kreuger, popularly known as "the Match King" during the Twenties. Edward Goldmark—a film producer based on Polish-American impresario Samuel Goldwyn who cultivated young blonde actresses such as Anna Sten. Gilbertson Montrose—a handsome young Hollywood screenwriter with whom Lorelei plans to have an extramarital affair after her marriage to Spoffard. The character was likely modeled upon Anita Loos's husband, screenwriter John Emerson.
Critical reception
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes became an instant success the moment it hit bookstores in November 1925 and sold out all copies on the day it was released. A second edition of 60,000 copies sold out within the next thirty days. Afterward, the novel sold an average of 1,000 copies per day. Loos's work became the second-best selling title of 1926 in the United States and outsold F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time, Ezra Pound's The Cantos, and William Faulkner's Soldiers' Pay.
Although the book became a commercial success, the critical response proved mixed. Reviewer Herman J. Mankiewicz, the future screenwriter of Citizen Kane, lauded Loos's book in The New York Times and described the novel as "a gorgeously smart and intelligent piece of work". Whereas some reviewers described the work as "droll and merry", "side-splittingly funny", and "sly and sophisticated"; other reviewers were less enthusiastic and patently unamused. Ruth Goodman in The New York Tribune disliked Loos's misspelling words for comedic effect, and columnist Doris Blake in The New York Daily News criticized Loos for asserting that blondes are more sexually appealing to men than brunettes.