A Girl Like I, written by Anita Loos, published by Viking Press, 1966.

After "reading her way through" the public library in San Diego, Anita Loos began mailing unsolicited "scenario treatments" to the Biograph Company—a silent film studio in Hollywood—using the pen name of "A. Loos." Her first silent film scenario was The New York Hat which she sold to the Biograph Company for $25 in 1912 and which was made into a film starring Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore. The Biograph Company started buying her scenarios and invited her to visit Hollywood. When legendary producer D.W. Griffith (Birth of a Nation) walked into the room to meet her, he was stunned to discover that "A. Loos" was a young woman in the company of her stern and disapproving mother. Shortly thereafter, Anita was signed to a contact for $50 per week, thus becoming one of the first salaried staff writers in Hollywood history. This was in January 1914 and Anita was just getting started. When D.W. Griffith, preoccupied with filming Intolerance, asked John Emerson, an actor and producer, to look for ideas suitable for the talents of Douglas Fairbanks, he stumbled upon a "gold mine of material" written by Anita Loos. One of her screenplays was titled His Name in the Pictures which opened at The Strand in New York City in 1916 making Douglas Fairbanks a star in a single week. John Emerson then reached out for Anita's help in filming Macbeth, the first Shakespearean play produced in Hollywood history. John Emerson and Anita later married and worked together on a multitude of projects.

After taking a career break in New York City, Anita and her husband returned to Hollywood in 1931 where Anita spent 18 years with MGM and her husband was elected as President of the Actor's Equity Association. Throughout her career—including the silent era as well as the golden era with MGM—Anita wrote and sold 155 screenplays of which 117 were produced. Disinterested in the Women's Lib movement, Anita liked to say that "her sole preparation for her career was to buy a fountain pen and a large legal pad." Perhaps her greatest hit was a spoof she wrote about a "golden-haired birdbrain" she observed on the Twentieth Century Limited flirting with her husband and every other man on the train. She later expanded the skit into a novel titled Gentlemen Prefer Blondes published in 1926 which went on to be a big hit on Broadway staring Carol Channing and later became a 1953 film starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. The theme song was "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." The screenplay earned millions.

Anita's autobiography is a fascinating lookback at the early years of Hollywood, when, as Anita summed it up, "once upon a time it turned out a product which sweetened the flavor of life all over the world." Anita Loos unquestionably played a starring role in this epic saga.