Anita Loos styled her bestselling novel as an “Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady,” after observing her friend, the world-famous author H.L. Mencken lose his capacity for words at the sight of a lithe blonde. Could she have imagined her character, Lorelei Lee, becoming the epitome of a ditzy blonde? That it would be immortalized by the novice actress Carol Channing? Or that it would spawn an iconic song performed by Marilyn Monroe in the screen adaptation? This was the legacy of her Gentlemen Prefer Blondes creation.

On this day, December 8, in 1949, the musical adaptation of Loos’s book opened on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre under the title Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It ran for  740 performances.

The story of flappers of the Jazz age on a trip to Paris, was turned into a movie four years after, before the Broadway show even closed. Marilyn Monroe took over Channing’s role as Lorelei Lee, alongside her co-star Jane Russell. Monroe’s pink dress became iconic, and the movie, like the play and the book before it, became a great success.