Preston Sturges

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Preston Sturges (; born Edmund Preston Biden; August 29, 1898 – August 6, 1959) was an American playwright, inventor, screenwriter, and film director. He is credited as the first screenwriter to find success as a director. Prior to Sturges, other Hollywood directors (such as Charlie Chaplin and Frank Capra) had directed films from their own scripts; however, Sturges is often regarded as the first Hollywood figure to establish success as a screenwriter and then move into directing his own scripts. He sold the story for The Great McGinty to Paramount Pictures for $10 in exchange for directing it. Anthony Lane writes that "To us, that seems old hat, one of the paths by which the ambitious get to run their own show, but back in 1940, when The Great McGinty came out, it was very new hat indeed; the opening credits proclaimed 'Written and directed by Preston Sturges,' and it was the first time in the history of talkies that the two passive verbs had appeared together onscreen. From that conjunction...

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