Preston Sturges: The Last Years of Hollywood's First Writer-Director

by Nick Smedley, Tom Sturges, Peter Bogdanovich (Foreword by)

Overview

Few directors of the 1930s and 40s were as distinctive and popular as Preston Sturges, whose whipsmart comedies have entertained audiences for decades. This book offers a new critical appreciation of Sturges' whole oeuvre, incorporating a detailed study of the last ten years of his life from new primary sources. Preston Sturges details the many unfinished projects of Sturges' last decade, including films, plays, TV series and his autobiography. Drawing on diaries, sketchbooks, correspondence, unpublished screenplays and more, Nick Smedley and Tom Sturges present the writer-director's final years in more detail than we've ever seen, showing a master still at work – even if very little of that work ultimately made it to the screen or stage. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789380255
Publisher:	Intellect Books
Publication date:	05/21/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	324
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Nick Smedley is the author of A Divided World: Hollywood Cinema and Emigre Directors in the Era of Roosevelt and Hitler and The Roots of Modern Hollywood. He taught an MA module in recent Hollywood history at Birkbeck College, London, in 2008. Since then, he has been a freelance lecturer at film societies and cinemas in Chichester, the New Forest, Wimbledon and Central London.

Tom Sturges is the son of Preston Sturges and the author of three books: Parking Lot Rules, Grow The Tree You Got and Every Idea Is a Good Idea, all published with Penguin Random House. He teaches music business at UCLA and is both an artist manager and consultant. He has been widely recognized for mentoring at-risk, inner-city children and is the father of three sons.

Nick Smedley has a Ph.D. from London University on the history of Hollywood in the Golden Age, and has taught the master's course in film studies there.  

Tom Sturges spent 30 years in the music business. He is the author of three books and a tireless champion of his father's life and career.   

Table of Contents

Foreword by Peter Bogdanovich

Preface by Nick Smedley 

 

Part I

The Preludes: The Brilliant Career of Preston Sturges, 1940–1949 — A Critical Survey of His Hollywood Films

1. Beginnings

2. The Emergence of a Genius

3. Sturges Triumphant

4. A Sputtering Flame: The Final Hollywood Films

5. Conclusion: The Brilliant Career of Preston Sturges

 

Part II

The Last Years of Preston Sturges, 1949–1959

Chapter 1: A Fallen Giant: Adjusting to the New, 1949–1950

Chapter 2: Back to the Future: Broadway and Paramount, 1951–1952

Chapter 3: Sturges’ Travels: Farewell to America, 1953

Chapter 4: The Millionairess and the Major: Sturges Returns to Paris, 1954

Chapter 5: Americans in Paris: Filming Major Thompson, 1955

Chapter 6: American Gangster: The Trials and Tribulations of Independent Film Production, 1956–1957

Chapter 7: Farcical Manoeuvres, 1957–1958 

Chapter 8: New York, New York: Public Hopes, Private Griefs, 1957

Chapter 9: For Better or For Worse: Marital Tensions, 1957–1958

Chapter 10: Sliding Towards the Brink, January–July 1958

Chapter 11: The Road to Despair, July–December 1958

Chapter 12: The Conquering Hero: Return to New York, January–March 1959

Chapter 13: Triumph over Pain: The Last Happy Months of Preston Sturges, March–August 1959

Chapter 14: The Events Have Led Up to His Death, August 1959 

 

Afterword by P. G. Sturges

Appendix 1: Fabulous Inventions 

Appendix 2: Story Ideas

Editorial Reviews

"A biography that concentrates, in revelatory detail, on Preston’s latter years . . . . often breathtakingly raw."

The Guardian

"A fascinating and revealing book about [Tom Sturges's] father’s 10 years of decline, leading to his death, a decade when he struggled every day to regain his status as Hollywood royalty."

Easy Reader News

Tapping a wealth of fascinating archival material, including telegrams, diaries and screenplay drafts, the co-authors find a story that could have made for one of Sturges’s frenzied farces.

Wall Street Journal - Peter Tonguette

"Other books on the great writer-director Preston Sturges have tended to dismiss his frustrating final years. This one, co-written by his son, emphasizes that part of his life, drawing largely on correspondence between the filmmaker and his last wife Sandy (who kept carbon copies of everything she wrote)."

Leonard Maltin

"A significant contribution to film scholarship."

Washington Post

"A fascinating account of Preston Sturges, who wrote and directed some of the great treasures of cinema and has remained as mysterious as his God-given talent."

Francis Ford Coppola

"The unknown final chapter in the life of American comic genius Preston Sturges after his meteoric rise and fall, revealed in great detail by Nick Smedley and Tom Sturges."

Ron Shelton

"It’s a thoroughly researched, illuminating, and heartbreaking portrait of the artist."

Gay City News

"Every past, present and future screenwriter owes Preston Sturges big time. He was the first Hollywood screenwriter to control his own work by becoming film's first writer-director. I owe him my hyphen as well as my pure awe of his talent. And now, finally, in this book, the whole story of his life and times and his forever-golden work."

James L. Brooks

"A significant contribution to film scholarship."

Washington Post