Taking Hollywood by Storm
The Amazing Career of Etna’s Anita Loos….
She was born in Sisson (now Mount Shasta) in 1889 and buried in Etna in 1981, but for six of her nine decades, Anita Loos was busy taking Hollywood by storm. Loos was a prolific and influential writer who, according to one biographer, compiled “one of the most impressive writing resumes of a woman in the 20th century.” Although she’s generally best remembered as the author of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” a novel and stage play that eventually became the 1953 film starring Marilyn Monroe, she is credited with hundreds of works, from silent film scenarios to films and memoirs. She collaborated with silver screen luminaries like D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and Audrey Hepburn, and counted William Faulkner, Winston Churchill and James Joyce among her admirers.
But what really stands out above the longevity of her career is her pioneering ability to tell sharp, witty, female-centric stories in what was still very much a man’s world, and to do it with style. In fact, during her time, she was almost as famous as the actors for whom she wrote. “In researching her story, I was surprised to learn that she accomplished as much as she did because women of that era very rarely reached the heights she did,” says Jennifer Bryan, a volunteer for the Genealogical Society of Siskiyou County.
Loos’ intrepid spirit might not come as a surprise to anyone who knows her family tree. Her maternal grandparents, George and Cleopatra “Cleo” Smith, were some of the first pioneers to arrive in Etna. According to the Siskiyou Pioneer, “George was born in England and crossed the plains with other gold adventurers, arriving at Sutter’s Fort in 1849,” before settling in Scott Valley in 1852. Eventually, he went back east and returned with his bride in 1858. Loos’ mother, Minerva Ellen “Minnie” Smith, was born to George and Cleo in Etna in 1859.
Even today, there are Smith family descendants living in Scott Valley. “Siskiyou County’s pioneer roots go back to 1845 Gold Rush era, when hoards came for gold for a short time. But while the gold miners came and went, the people that provided the necessary survival resources, food, shelter and building materials were ‘salt of the earth’ people who were intent on making a better life for their families. They had the tenacity to build businesses that survived long term,” explains Bryan.
If her maternal family gave her tenacity, it was Loos’ father, Richard Beers, who fostered her creative gene in theater and writing. Although described as “charming” and “feckless,” Richard Loos had an incurable wanderlust that led him to managing theaters in San Francisco and Southern California. Ultimately, he gave Loos and her sister their first parts on stage. Although Loos reportedly found acting dull, she discovered she had a knack for writing, and particularly loved making fun of sex and romance. As The Guardian later wrote, Loos was “a born raconteur, the life and soul of many a… party, with a hawkish eye on the glamorous, or scandalous, events that surrounded her.”
Even her obituary in the New York Times on August 19, 1981, notes her ability to write satiric comedy and crisp dialogue. “Miss Loos could not seem to take romance seriously; for her it was a pretension to play with…and [she] seldom permitted precise facts to spoil a good story. She seemed demure, but that was a facade for a bright tongue and a quick mind…This made her excellent company and served as an entree to the houses of celebrities here and abroad.”
Although Loos was undoubtedly a role model for many women, she never necessarily set out to be. She more or less played the games she had to in a male-dominated industry, even submitting her first script under the gender-neutral name of A. Loos because she heard male writers got paid better. But Loos still stands as a testament to Siskiyou County and the kind of self-starter it breeds. When Loos died in 1981, her remains were returned to the Smith family plot in Etna. For such an accomplished woman, it’s an unassuming grave that can still be visited today.
But Loos’ story is not alone in a county filled with characters, and Bryan says the resources at the Genealogical Society of Yreka is can help make those histories come to life. “The Genealogical Society and Historical Society are both non-profit societies funded by memberships and donations. We are bare bones financially but we have an amazing library that is filled with information on Siskiyou County that is not available anywhere elsee in the world.” •
Genealogical Society of Siskiyou County
320 W. Miner St., Yreka
www.siskiyougenealogy.org
Open Wednesdays and Saturdays 10am-4pm or by appointment
