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A Girl Like I: an autobiography
by
Anita Loos
Book by Loos, Anita
Hardcover
,
275 pages
Published
September 21st 1966
by The Viking Press
(first published 1966)
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Community Reviews
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I've made two great author discoveries this year; authors I'd long heard of and occasionally even fondled, but never actually read; authors I'll now have as friends for years. The first is Iain M Banks, about whom I have raved elsewhere. And the second, in an almost complete contrast to to all that sci-fi insanity, is Anita Loos. The sum total of my Loos experience up until now was my enthusiasm for the Monroe/Russell pairing in the 50s movie version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. More fool me. Ma
...more
Sep 02, 2011
Laurel Beth
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
from-the-library
,
rpl
When I go to get the book from the library it isn't on the shelves, but in the basement stacks. It's a first edition, '66, and there's 40 years of book glue cracked and peeling off the spine.
A man rosy with gin blossoms is at the desk giving shit to the reference sexagenarian. She knows her milky eyes are always popped out, but the man tells her to go to her eye doctor immediately. She doesn't even look up and says, I go every year . Not rude but not inviting either, perfectly stoic and unyieldin ...more
A man rosy with gin blossoms is at the desk giving shit to the reference sexagenarian. She knows her milky eyes are always popped out, but the man tells her to go to her eye doctor immediately. She doesn't even look up and says, I go every year . Not rude but not inviting either, perfectly stoic and unyieldin ...more
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Anita Loos: gifted storyteller, natural raconteur, first-hand participant in the birth of Hollywood, cool as cool gets. She drops names with reckless abandon, from Houdini to (her much-venerated) D.W. Griffith and H.L. Mencken, dishes dirt, and gives several glimpses into the people—and circumstances—that gave rise to Dorothy and Lorelei Lee. And yeah, her socio-political views are taken with mad grains of salt, but either way, she seems like one of the awesomest scribes to ever pen picture show
...more
The common statement made about this book is that since Ms. Loos wrote this in the 1960s about her life 40 years or more prior that the accounts she gives are most likely embellished and the truth grayed by the passing of time. But what autobio is without embellishment, really? "A Girl Like I" not only provides an insight into Anita's beginnings but also the beginnings of the movie industry (and first hand accounts of "Dougie" Fairbanks' start as well as his relationship with Mary Pickford among
...more
A week after I watched
The Women
, which was by Anita Loos, I read a mention of this book on
This Recording
. I found a copy on Amazon Marketplace and plowed through the book once I received it. Anita's life story is so entertaining, and to have it told by a writer as engaging as herself is great. My only complaint is that the book just kinda ends, and does so right before all the goodness of any of her movies I have actually seen. But if you see a copy of this book, or are interested in old Holly
...more
I tracked down a hardcover, 1966 Viking first edition of this book, which is loaded with photos (don't know about the paperback). Utterly fascinating... a must-read for anyone interested in the 1920s, fashion, Hollywood history, Broadway, Gertrude Stein, H.L. Mencken, D.W. Griffith, Sherwood Anderson, Douglas Fairbanks or any number of other famous players in this Zelig-like life story. She was at the right place at the right time, all the time. Loos is an irresistible narrator -- funny, iconocl
...more
Ahead of her time, she had a mind and style of her own. She was at the start of the movies, writing subtitles for the silent era and eventually for the "talkies". She knew or knew of everybody who was in those days. Her observations and thoughts on her acquaintances and life are amusing and very candid. I enjoyed the behind the scenes stories of Hollywood, before it became HOLLYWOOD.
A very selective memoir but still the reader gets a sense of what a remarkable life Loos had. She started her career writing for DW Griffith and was successful and well-paid at a time when most women didn't work outside the home. She traveled the world and lived among some of the most famous writers of the 20th century.
Would give it 2.5 stars. Covers her life up to about 1926, when Gentlemen Prefer Blondes came out. But also includes commentary on the world from perspective of the 1960s. Good if you already know something about what she's talking about.
Nov 17, 2007
Muffy Kroha
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Bio lovers
Shelves:
celebrity-biographies
Interesting and fun. Anita Loos' ( Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) autobigraphy. She was a plucky little lady indeed.
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Anita Loos (April 26, 1889 – August 18, 1981) was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
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