Anita Loos, one of the century's most gifted humorists, was the author of over 150 screenplays. Spanning three decades, her screenwriting career accompanied her success as a novelist and playwright. Loos helped to create what has come to be known as the "Golden Era" of Hollywood.

Born in Sisson (now Mount Shasta), California, to R. Beers and Minnie Ellen Smith Loos, Loos was one of three children. Her father introduced her to theater life at a young age. Loos became a star at age five.

At nineteen, Loos submitted an unsolicited "photoplay" to the Biograph Company. The New York Hat (1912) earned her twenty-five dollars and starred the not-yet-famous cast of Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, and Lionel Barrymore. By Loos's account, between 1912 and 1915 she wrote 105 scenarios, only 4 of which were rejected by Biograph. Even these were sold to lesser studios. A majority of the photoplays were slapstick comedies...