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A Broadway actor and director in the 1900s, John Emerson began writing for films in the early teens, and by 1915 was directing. Under D.W. Griffith's supervision, he helmed several of Douglas Fairbanks' early films: The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, In Again, Out Again, Wild and Wooly, Down to Earth, and three which Emerson co-scripted with his wife Anita Loos, His Picture in the Papers, The Americano, and Reaching for the Moon. Emerson stopped directing in the early '20s but continued to write with Loos, most notably Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, adapted from her play; The Struggle, Griffith's final film; and the Jean Harlow comedy The Girl from Missouri. As a producer in the mid '30s, Emerson made the Loos-scripted films San Francisco and Mama Steps Out.