Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges was a transformative figure in American cinema. He was an American playwright, inventor, screenwriter, and film director. Sturges is most famous for changing the power structure of Hollywood. He was the first screenwriter to achieve major success as a director. Before his rise, other figures like Charlie Chaplin and Frank Capra had directed their own scripts. However, Sturges was the first to establish himself as a successful writer first. He then moved into directing his own written material. This shift created a new tradition of filmmaking that was personal and funny.

His transition to directing involved a very unusual business deal. In 1939, Sturges wanted to direct the film The Great McGinty. He had actually written the story six years earlier. To get the chance to direct, he made a surprising trade with Paramount Pictures. He sold the rights to the story for only ten dollars. This was a massive sacrifice of potential wealth. In exchange, he gained creative control over the production. When the film was released in 1940, it made history. The opening credits featured the phrase "Written and directed by Preston Sturges." This was the first time these two terms appeared together in the history of "talkies," or films with sound.

Sturges's early life was marked by international travel and diverse experiences. He was born Edmund Preston Biden in Chicago on August 29, 1898. His mother, Mary Desti, was a singer who lived in Paris. Because of her career, Sturges spent much of his youth in France. He became a Francophile, meaning he loved French culture, and he became fluent in French. He even traveled across Europe with the dance company of Isadora Duncan. After returning to America, he worked as a runner for stock brokers in New York. He also served as a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Service.

His path to writing began with an accidental moment of inspiration. In 1928, an actress told Sturges he was a bore during a date. She claimed she used him as "dramatic research" for a play. Outraged, Sturges vowed to write a better play than she could. He wrote his first play, The Guinea Pig, within two months. His second play, Strictly Dishonorable, became a massive hit. It ran for sixteen months and earned him over $300,000. This success brought him to the attention of Hollywood studios. By the end of 1928, he was already writing for Paramount.

During the 1930s, Sturges worked as a highly paid writer-for-hire. He worked for major studios like MGM, Universal, and Columbia. In 1933, he sold a screenplay called The Power and the Glory to Fox. The producer, Jesse Lasky, called it the most perfect script he had ever seen. Sturges received $17,500 and 7% of the profits above $1 million. This was an unprecedented deal for a screenwriter at that time. However, Sturges was often unhappy with how directors handled his dialogue. He wanted more control over his creative vision. This desire led him to pursue the directing deals that defined his career.

Sturges reached the height of his fame during a five-year burst of creativity. Between 1939 and 1944, he wrote and directed several classic comedies. These included The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, and The Palm Beach Story. His work was so highly regarded that the American Film Institute named four of his films among the 100 funniest American films. Sturges also achieved significant critical success at the Academy Awards. He won the first-ever Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for The Great McGinty. In 1944, he received two more nominations for Hail the Conquering Hero and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.

Despite his success, Sturges faced many challenges within the studio system. He often clashed with executives like Buddy DeSylva at Paramount. One major disagreement involved his use of character actors. Sturges liked to use a regular troupe of actors in his films. Studio bosses feared that audiences would grow tired of seeing the same faces. Sturges defended them, stating they had a moral right to work in his pictures. He also struggled with money despite being one of the highest-paid men in Hollywood. He invested in projects like the Players restaurant and the Sturges engineering company, which resulted in losses. He remains a complex and influential figure in film history.