Profile of Preston Sturges on Famous Like Me

Preston Sturges (August 29, 1898-August 6, 1959), originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a screenwriter and director born in Chicago. Known for his comedic contribution to American film, he was one of Hollywood's great filmmakers. His mother was Mary Desti, a socialite famous for her friendship with Isadora Duncan.

Sturges took the screwball comedy format of the 1930s to another level, writing dialogue that, heard today, is often surprisingly naturalistic, mature, and ahead of its time, despite the farcical situations. It is not uncommon for one of Sturges' actors to deliver an exquisitely turned phrase and take an elaborate pratfall within the same scene. A love scene between Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck in "The Lady Eve" was enlivened by a horse, who repeatedly poked his nose into Fonda's head.

He is often credited as the first writer to direct his own script, but this is untrue. Many major directors such as Frank Capra and Howard Hawks preceded Sturges in making the leap from writing to directing. However, Sturges may have been the first to be promoted as such by the studios for publicity. Famously, he supposedly sold his screenplay for "The Great McGinty" to Paramount Pictures for $1, in exchange for the director's job.

He won the first Academy Award ever given for Writing Original Screenplay for the "McGinty" script. Perhaps more impressively, Sturges received two screenwriting Oscar nominations in the same year, for 1944's "Hail the Conquering Hero" and "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek."

Though he enjoyed a 30-year Hollywood career, the greatest of Sturges' comedies were filmed in a furious 5-year burst of activity. Half a century later, four of these were chosen among the American Film Institute's 100 funniest movies: "Morgan's Creek, "The Lady Eve," "Sullivan's Travels" and "The Palm Beach Story." Their combination of sentiment and cynicism has kept them fresh for today's audiences.

Sturges liked to reuse many of the same character actors, such as William Demarest, Byron Foulger, Victor Potel, Robert Grieg, Charles R. Moore, Robert Warwick, or Franklin Pangborn, giving him what amounted to a regular troupe even within the studio system.

Among his wives was Eleanor Close, a daughter of Post Cereals' heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and a great-aunt of film star Glenn Close.

He died in New York.

Feature-films filmography

• The Power and the Glory (writer only) (1933)
• Easy Living (1937)
• The Great McGinty (1940)
• Christmas in July (1940)
• Sullivan's Travels (1941)
• The Lady Eve (1941)
• The Palm Beach Story (1942)
• I Married a Witch (producer) (1942)
• The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
• Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
• The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (Mad Wednesday) (1947)
• Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
• The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949)
• The French, They Are a Funny Race (Les carnets du Major Thompson) (1955)

Awards

• Best Writing Original Screenplay, 1940 Academy Award

External link

• Official Preston Sturges Site
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Preston Sturges at the Internet Movie Database

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