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79-418: A stage manager is an individual who has overall responsibility for stage management and the smooth execution of a theatrical production. Stage management may be performed by an individual in small productions, while larger productions typically employ a stage management team consisting of a head stage manager, or production stage manager , and one or more assistant stage managers . The title of stage manager

158-434: A Harold Lloyd vehicle entitled The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947), for which Sturges had coaxed the silent film star out of retirement, went over budget and far behind schedule, and was poorly received when released. Hughes, who had promised not to interfere in the film's production, stepped in and pulled the movie from distribution in order to re-edit it, taking almost four years to do so. Released in 1950 by RKO , which

237-464: A Sturges comedy does a happy family sit around being a happy family; you could read that as a psychotic reaction to his own precarious parentage, but I prefer to think that Sturges was so taken by the drama of his origins that he chose to milk it dry. James Agee called Sturges's films "uncontrollably, almost proudly corrupt, vengeful, fearful of intactness and self-commitment ... their mastering object, aside from success, seems to be to sail as deep into

316-558: A brave public face on the situation, writing, "I had so very much for so very long, it is quite natural for the pendulum to swing the other way for a while, and I really cannot and will not complain." However, his drinking became heavy, and his marriage and many of his relationships continued to deteriorate. Sturges began spending more time in Europe, as he had as a young man. His last directorial effort took place there when he wrote and directed Les Carnets du Major Thompson , an adaptation of

395-517: A certain writer here direct his own picture here, and he's made such a go of it that there may be a different feeling about that soon." Though he had a thirty-year Hollywood career, Sturges's greatest comedies were filmed in a furious five-year burst of activity from 1939 to 1944, during which he turned out The Great McGinty , Christmas in July , The Lady Eve , Sullivan's Travels , The Palm Beach Story , The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Hail

474-480: A director. Prior to Sturges, other Hollywood directors (such as Charlie Chaplin , D. W. Griffith 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

553-477: A disastrous preview, Paramount allowed Sturges – who by that time had left the studio – to come back and fix the film. Sturges did some rewriting, shot some new scenes, and re-edited the film back to his original vision, all without pay. He was unable to similarly rescue The Great Moment , however. The historical biography about the dentist who discovered the use of ether for anesthesia ended up being Sturges's only flop during this period. More significantly, it marked

632-423: A draw in my first fight, stupified everyone by winning the championship in my second, got a couple of wins with picture rights, then was knocked out three times in a row. Dragging my weary carcass to Hollywood, I was immediately knocked out again, won a big fight some six months later, then marked time for six years as an ordinary ham-and-beaner, picking up what I could. Suddenly I saw a chance and offered to fight for

711-464: A guaranteed audience because of their location. They may be on cruise ships, in theme parks, Las Vegas or at destination resorts. These shows warrant very long-range development and planning and use stage managers to run almost all technical elements in the show, without many of the other traditional crew members, such as sound, lighting and rigging operators. In these cases, show control systems are installed and connected to all other technical systems in

790-477: A head as the end of his contract approached. He had filmed The Great Moment and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek in 1942 and Hail the Conquering Hero in 1943, but Paramount was suffering from a surfeit of films. Indeed, some of the studio's finished movies were sold off to United Artists , which needed films to distribute. The studio held onto Sturges's three films, since he was their star filmmaker at

869-401: A lot of enemies. Writers at that time worked in teams, like piano movers. And my first solo script was considered a distinct menace to the profession." For the remainder of the 1930s, Sturges operated under the strict auspices of the studio system, working on a string of scripts, some of which were shelved, sometimes with screen credit and sometimes not. While he was highly paid, earning $ 2,500

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948-469: A lowbrow aristocrat and a melancholy wiseguy, he reaped the rewards and paid the price for being a brilliant American dreamer. Sturges was born in Chicago , Illinois , the son of Mary Estelle Dempsey (later known as Mary Desti or Mary D'Este) and traveling salesman Edmund C. Biden. His maternal grandparents, Catherine Campbell Smyth and Dominick d'Este Dempsey, were immigrants from Ireland , and his father

1027-558: A managing position at the Desti Emporium in New York, a store owned by his mother's fourth husband. He spent eight years there, until he married Estelle De Wolfe. Sturges's 1928 turn to playwriting was accidental. While on a date with a young actress of certain renown, she informed Sturges that while she had pretended to find him witty and charming, she actually considered him a bore. "The only reason I'm going out with you, sir,

1106-423: A mate. Most startling is The Palm Beach Story , in which Claudette Colbert runs out on her husband (Joel McCrea) even though her toes go all funny whenever he kisses her; she simply needs more money in her life, and that means somebody else. The movie starts and ends with the curlicued words "And they all lived happily ever" after filling the screen, followed at once by the jaunty rider " Or did they? " At no point in

1185-536: A play at all, and that she was surprised and flattered that he had taken her ravings so seriously. In 1928, Sturges performed on Broadway in Hotbed , a short-lived play by Paul Osborn , and Sturges's The Guinea Pig opened in Massachusetts. The play was a success and Sturges moved it to Broadway the following year, a turning point in his career. That same year also saw the opening of Sturges's second play,

1264-531: A popular French novel. The film was released in France in 1955 and two years later in the U.S., under the title The French, They Are a Funny Race . It failed to register with critics or audiences. Sturges made four brief cameo appearances during his career: in his own Christmas in July and Sullivan's Travels ; in the Paramount all-star extravaganza Star Spangled Rhythm and, in the years of his decline, in

1343-459: A restless and impatient attempt to escape codified rules and narrative schemata, and to push the mechanisms and conventions of their genre to the extent of unveiling them to the spectator. See for example the disruption of standardized timelines in films such as The Power and the Glory and The Great McGinty or the way an apparently classical comedy such as Unfaithfully Yours (1948) shifts into

1422-560: A runner for New York stock brokers, a position he obtained through Solomon Sturges. The next year, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Service , and graduated as a lieutenant from Camp Dick in Texas without seeing action. While at camp, Sturges wrote an essay, "Three Hundred Words of Humor", which was printed in the camp newspaper, becoming his first published work. Returning from camp, in 1919 Sturges picked up

1501-560: A union known as the Actors' Equity Association , which also represents performers. In addition to performing their typical stage management duties (e.g., maintaining the prompt book and calling performances), Equity stage managers are also required to uphold the union's rules and rights for Equity artists. Union stage managers for opera, ballet, and modern dance are represented by the American Guild of Musical Artists and perform most of

1580-456: A week, he was unhappy with the way directors were handling his dialogue, and he resolved to take creative control of his own projects. He accomplished this goal in 1939 by trading his screenplay for The Great McGinty (written six years earlier) to Paramount in exchange for the chance to direct it. Paramount promoted the unusual deal as part of the film's publicity, saying that Sturges had received just ten dollars. Sturges's success quickly paved

1659-536: A writer-for-hire, operating on short contracts, for Universal , MGM , and Columbia studios. He also sold his original screenplay for The Power and the Glory (1933) to Fox , where it was filmed as a vehicle for Spencer Tracy . The film told the story of a self-involved financier via a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, and has been seen as a precursor to Citizen Kane (1941). Fox producer Jesse Lasky had been prepared to customarily pass Sturges's screenplay along to other writers for rewriting, but said, "It

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1738-444: Is for the same reason that a scientist embraces a guinea pig; I just like to try my situations out on you to see how they turn out." She claimed that the dramatic research was for a play she was writing. Outraged, Sturges told her that if she could write a play, he could write a play, but that his would be better and run longer. Within two months, he had written his first play, The Guinea Pig , only to find out that she wasn't writing

1817-426: Is still generally known for its integral relationship with theater. Many other types of productions and events have incorporated the position of stage management, however. Some of the most common are opera, music and dance concerts, film and television. For music concerts, stage management includes a large variety of responsibilities depending on both the venue and the size and expertise of the musical group coming into

1896-478: Is that a good front or guise can easily bamboozle the public." McCarthy cites Sturges's screenplay for Diamond Jim (1935). The critic Ephraim Katz wrote that Sturges's films "... parodied with pungent wit various aspects of American life from politics and advertising to sex and hero worship. They were marked by their verbal wit, opportune comic timing, and eccentric, outrageously funny camo characterizations." Andrew Sarris wrote, "Sturges repeatedly suggested that

1975-512: Is the labor union of singers, dancers, and staging staff in opera, ballet and concert dance, and concert choral performance in the United States. A national union with a membership of over 6,000 artists, AGMA provides forceful advocacy and defense of its members' employment and artistic rights. AGMA negotiates and enforces over 65 collective bargaining agreements throughout the country, ensuring fair and safe working conditions and enhancing

2054-461: The Bob Hope comedy Paris Holiday , filmed in France and the last film he worked on. Two decades earlier, Sturges had been a writer on one of Hope's earliest film successes, Never Say Die . In 1959, Sturges summed up his career: Between flops, it is true, I have come up with an occasional hit, but compared to a good boxer's record, for instance, my percentage has been lamentable. I fought

2133-473: The Conquering Hero , for each of which he served as both writer and director. Half a century later, four of these – The Lady Eve , Sullivan's Travels , The Palm Beach Story and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek – were chosen by the American Film Institute as being among the 100 funniest American films . Production on these films did not always go smoothly. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

2212-421: The company and he took over. So I left." Coming on the heels of the failure of The Great Moment , these further flops, disappointments and setbacks served to tarnish the once stellar reputation of the golden boy of Hollywood. Sturges was left professionally adrift. Accepting an offer from Darryl Zanuck , he landed at Fox where he wrote, directed, and produced two films. The first, Unfaithfully Yours (1948),

2291-422: The country, ensuring fair and safe working conditions and enhancing the quality of life of its members. AGMA claims exclusive jurisdiction over all aspects of the work of its members and shares some Broadway jurisdiction with its fellow union, Actors' Equity Association . AGMA was founded in 1936 in an effort to protect opera singers who were being forced into unfair contracts without benefits or protections. Over

2370-411: The direction himself. Seven weeks later, Sturges himself was fired or quit (accounts differ). The promising partnership between the two iconoclasts was dissolved after just one completed picture. As Sturges later recalled, "When Mr. Hughes made suggestions with which I disagreed, as he had a perfect right to do, I rejected them. When I rejected the last one, he remembered he had an option to take control of

2449-497: The documentary Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer , he opened the gates for generations of future filmmakers by becoming the first screenwriter to establish himself as a film director. In the process, he made himself one of the most celebrated figures of the 1940s. But his star, which had burned so brightly, fell almost as quickly as it had risen. To this day, this man who introduced irony to American screen comedy remains an enigmatic and contradictory personality:

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2528-540: The door and serving as a prompter on stage. The prompter held the script and was prepared to feed performers their lines; this was a common practice of the time. Between the Renaissance and 17th century, the actors and playwrights handled stage management aspects and stage crew. In the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre there were two roles that covered stage management: stage keeper and bookkeeper. The stage keeper

2607-428: The emotional expression aligns with the intended message. Successful performances are scrutinized for the strategies used to captivate the audience. Those responsible for bringing the performances planned by stage planners to life on stage are the staff. Consequently, stage planners organize various staff members responsible for directing, choreography, music, stage design, lighting, costumes, makeup, etc. They also oversee

2686-575: The experience including performers, audience, and any crews required. Stage managers often ensure safe working conditions in the theatrical space by working closely with theatrical unions to keep rehearsals and performances on time, safe, and efficient. Commonly referred to as Equity , AEA is the American union for stage managers and actors. The AEA works to negotiate and provide performers and stage managers quality living conditions, livable wages, and benefits. American stage managers work closely with

2765-540: The farcical situations. It is not uncommon for a Sturges character to deliver an exquisitely turned phrase and take an elaborate pratfall within the same scene. Such versatility and dexterity can be seen in The Lady Eve , where a tender love scene takes place between Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck , which is enlivened by a horse as it repeatedly pokes its nose into Fonda's head. Critic Andrew Dickos wrote that "the touchstone of Preston Sturges' screenwriting lies in

2844-677: The film's theme of patriotism and duty. Sometimes this attitude could be conveyed in a single line of dialogue, such as in The Lady Eve when Jean Harrington (Stanwyck) vows revenge on Charles Pike (Fonda), declaring, "I need him like the axe needs the turkey." In recent years, film scholars such as Alessandro Pirolini have also argued that Sturges's cinema anticipated more experimental narratives by contemporary directors such as Joel and Ethan Coen , Robert Zemeckis and Woody Allen , along with prolific The Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder : "Many of [Sturges's] movies and screenplays reveal

2923-413: The first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay . Sturges went on to receive Oscar nominations for The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) and Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). He also wrote and directed The Lady Eve , Sullivan's Travels (both 1941) and The Palm Beach Story (1942), each considered classic comedies, appearing on the American Film Institute 's 100 Years...100 Laughs . Per

3002-412: The first mounting of one of Sturges' plays on Broadway, The Guinea Pig , in 1929. In the United States, stage manager is a generic title that may be applied to anyone who performs stage management functions. On small shows, one person typically performs all the tasks of stage management, and is simply referred to as the stage manager . Larger shows often need two or more stage managers. In such cases

3081-402: The following unions. Stage managers often have an in depth knowledge of their sister unions: Notes Bibliography Preston Sturges Preston Sturges ( / ˈ s t ɜːr dʒ ɪ s / ; born Edmund Preston Biden ; August 29, 1898 – August 6, 1959) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and film director. He is credited as being the first screenwriter to find success as

3160-458: The handling of finances, general directorial duties, and stage management. Stage management first emerged as a distinct role in the 17th century during Shakespeare's and Molière's time. During Shakespeare’s time the roles of stage management were left to apprentices, young boys learning the trade. There is still evidence of a prompter at this time. It was not until the 18th century in England that

3239-580: The head stage manager is titled production stage manager (commonly abbreviated PSM), and working under the PSM is one or more assistant stage managers (commonly abbreviated ASM). Shows that employ three stage managers have a PSM and two ASMs, though the program credits may list them as production stage manager (first or head stage manager), stage manager (second stage manager), and assistant stage manager (third stage manager). Some professional stage managers on plays and musicals may choose to be represented by

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3318-459: The hit Strictly Dishonorable . Written in just six days, the play ran for sixteen months and earned Sturges over $ 300,000. It attracted interest from Hollywood, and Sturges was writing for Paramount by the end of the year. Three other Sturges stage plays were produced from 1930 to 1932, one of them a musical , but none were hits. By the end of the year, he was working more in Hollywood as

3397-409: The lowliest boob could rise to the top with the right degree of luck, bluff, and fraud." In 1942, in his review of The Palm Beach Story , critic Manny Farber wrote: He is essentially a satirist without any stable point of view from which to aim his satire. He is apt to turn his back on what he has been sniping at to demolish what he has just been defending. He is contemptuous of everybody except

3476-528: The onset of a downturn from which Sturges did not fully recover. Preston Sturges was a temperamental talent who fully recognized his own worth. He had invested in entrepreneurial projects, such as an engineering company, and The Players, a popular restaurant and nightclub at 8225 Sunset Boulevard , projects which were both net losses. At one point the third highest paid man in America – for writing, directing, producing, and numerous other Hollywood projects – he

3555-774: The opportunist and the unscrupulous little woman who, at some point in every picture, labels the hero a poor sap. That the invariable fairy godfather of each picture is not only expressive of his own cold-blooded cynicism but of typical Hollywood fantasy is an example of how this works. Another phase of his attack is shrouding in slapstick the fact that the godfather pays off not for perseverance or honesty or ability but merely from capriciousness. Anthony Lane writes that his films are peopled, to an alarming degree, by families that don't add up, and by couples who click together and them come apart like toys. The hero of The Great McGinty marries his secretary (who already has children of her own) purely because, as an aspirant political thug, he needs

3634-488: 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 sprang a whole tradition of filmmaking: literate, spiky, defensive, markedly personal, and almost always funny." For that film, Sturges won

3713-553: The preparation process, secure the necessary funds, check preparations, and guide the director in staging scenes. One of the most notable Korean stage planners is Kim Sang-wook, the CEO of PLAN A, who has orchestrated numerous performances, including the 'Love Yourself' tour by BTS . Many live shows around the world are produced with the foreknowledge that they will have a very long run, often measured in years. These are usually known quantities that are very expensive productions and have

3792-508: The projects were underfunded or stillborn, and those that emerged did not approach the same success as his earlier triumphs. His 1951 Broadway musical, Make a Wish , underwent extensive rewriting by Abe Burrows and ran for only a few months. His next Broadway project, Carnival in Flanders , a musical which Sturges wrote and directed in 1953, closed after six performances. Sturges was having no better luck in Hollywood, where his clout

3871-647: The quality of life of its members. AGMA has a direct charter from the AFL–CIO and is affiliated with the AFL–CIO Branch of Associated Actors and Artists of America and the Department for Professional Employees (DPE). AGMA is also a part of the Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds (COBUG). The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) negotiates and enforces over 65 collective bargaining agreements throughout

3950-580: The realm of multiple and hypothetical narratives." Filmmakers who have acknowledged Sturges as an influence include the Coen brothers,   Wes Anderson , James Mangold , John Hughes , Peter Bogdanovich and John Lasseter . Sturges married four times and had three sons: Sturges died of a heart attack at the Algonquin Hotel while writing his autobiography (which, ironically, he had intended to title The Events Leading Up to My Death ), and

4029-423: The respect paid to the play and density of verbal language" and "establishes the standard of eloquence as one of poetry, of a cacophony of Euro-American vernacularisms and utterances, peculiarly—and appropriately—spoken with scandalous indifference." His scripts were almost congenitally unable to deliver a single mood. In Hail the Conquering Hero , the series of lies, crimes, and embarrassments all somehow bolster

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4108-550: The same duties as their counterparts in plays and musicals. The American Guild of Variety Artists also represents variety performers, dancers and stage managers. In the UK, the structure of a stage management team depends on the type and size of the production. It can consist of stage manager (overseeing the running of the show), deputy stage manager (commonly called DSM), and assistant stage manager (commonly called ASM). A fringe theatre show may employ one stage manager to carry out

4187-457: The script to restart halted scenes. The deputy stage manager (DSM) is a separate position in some theatres, while in others the responsibilities of the DSM may be assumed by the stage manager or assistant stage manager. The assistant stage manager (ASM) has varied responsibilities, which are assigned by the stage manager. The ASM assists in finding and maintaining props during rehearsals and the run of

4266-463: The show. The ASM may take attendance or estimate audience size, may manage the backstage technicians, may act as a liaison between crew, cast and management, and may call some cues. Mundane tasks such as mopping the stage and brewing coffee or tea may fall to the ASM. If the stage manager is unable to perform his or her duties, the ASM must be able to fill in. The assistant may also be in charge of one wing of

4345-520: The stage, while the stage manager is on the other wing. Due to the recent global rise in popularity of K-POP and mainstream cultural arts, Korean stage planners are playing a significant role worldwide. Typically, stage planners determine the timing and venue of performances and take responsibility for the entire process leading up to the completion of the event, acting as overall directors. They conduct thorough analyses on what performances people desire, whether similar events have already taken place, and if

4424-606: The tasks of an entire team, whereas a West End theatre show in London might employ multiple ASMs. Professional stage managers are represented by the British Actors' Equity Association , which also represents performers. The DSM prompts actors and will usually cue technical crew members and sometimes cast, while following the orders of the director and stage manager. The DSM calls actors to hold while technical problems are sorted out during rehearsal, and determines where in

4503-515: The term stage manager was used. This was the first time a person other than actors and playwright was hired to direct or manage the stage. Over time, with the rise in complexity of theatre due to advances such as mechanized scenery, quick costume changes, and controlled lighting, the stage manager's job was split into two positions— director and stage manager . Many playwrights, directors, and actors have previously worked as assistant stage managers. Writer and director Preston Sturges , for example,

4582-405: The theatre, which are specifically designed to be controlled by show control and to operate safely with minimal supervision. Stage managers working these shows usually have the additional responsibility for programming the show control system, and often the other control systems as well. The role of stage manager evolved from an amalgamation of various positions in theater over several centuries and

4661-471: The time, but did not immediately release them. Internally, studio heads expressed serious reservations about them, as did the censors at the Breen Office . Sturges managed to get The Miracle of Morgan's Creek released with only minor changes, but The Great Moment and Hail the Conquering Hero were taken out of his control and tinkered with by DeSylva. When the revamped Hail the Conquering Hero had

4740-410: The venue. Some of the responsibilities of a concert stage manager include overseeing the schedule for load in and out of equipment, seeing to the comfort of the group which can include arranging refreshments and or transportation, sometimes arranging how and where merchandise is to be sold at the venue, and above all, as with all areas of stage management, watching out for the safety of all participants in

4819-437: The way for similar deals for such writer–directors as Billy Wilder and John Huston . Sturges said, "It's taken me eight years to reach what I wanted. But now, if I don't run out of ideas – and I won't – we'll have some fun. There are some wonderful pictures to be made, and God willing, I will make some of them." Sturges won the first-ever Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for The Great McGinty , at which time he

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4898-406: The wind as possible without for an instant incurring the disaster of becoming seriously wholly acceptable as art. They seem to be, indeed, in much of their twisting, the elaborately counterpointed image of a neurosis. 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

4977-612: The world championship for a dollar. To everyone's astonishment, I won that championship and defended it successfully for a number of years, winning nine times by knockout, fighting three draws, losing twice and getting one no-decision in Europe. I have just come over to America for a fight, but it was called off at the last moment, one of the promoters having gone nuts and having to have been locked up. Why I'm not walking on my heels after all this, I don't know. Maybe I am walking on my heels. It would be surprising if I weren't. According to Todd McCarthy , "A continuing theme of Preston Sturges

5056-431: The world, along with England's Noël Coward and France's René Clair . The status led, again, to widespread admiration and envy among his Hollywood peers. However, this career peak also marked the beginning of Sturges's professional decline as Hughes proved an unstable and mercurial partner. While the startup California Pictures was being created and structured, it was three years until Sturges's next release. That film,

5135-519: The young Sturges would sometimes travel from country to country with Duncan's dance company. Mary also carried on a romantic affair with Aleister Crowley and collaborated with him on his magnum opus Magick . As a young man, Sturges bounced back and forth between Europe and the United States. As Sturges spent much of his youth in France, he became fluent in French and a Francophile who always considered France his "second home". In 1916, he worked as

5214-1329: Was adamant, stating, "[T]hese little players who had contributed so much to my first hits had a moral right to work in my subsequent pictures." The way Sturges wrote and directed these actors created a succession of what Andrew Sarris later called "self-expressive cameos of aggressive individualism." Members of the Preston Sturges Unofficial Stock Company Actors included: George Anderson , Al Bridge , Georgia Caine , Chester Conklin , Jimmy Conlin , William Demarest , Robert Dudley , Byron Foulger , Robert Greig , Harry Hayden , Esther Howard , Arthur Hoyt , J. Farrell MacDonald , George Melford , Torben Meyer , Charles R. Moore , Frank Moran , Jack Norton , Jane Buckingham , Franklin Pangborn , Emory Parnell , Victor Potel , Dewey Robinson , Harry Rosenthal , Julius Tannen , Max Wagner and Robert Warwick . Sturges re-used other actors, such as Sig Arno , Luis Alberni , Eric Blore , Porter Hall and Raymond Walburn , and even stars such as Joel McCrea and Rudy Vallee , who both made three films with Sturges, and Eddie Bracken , who did two. The prolonged clashes between Sturges and Paramount came to

5293-415: Was being written by Sturges at night even as the production was being filmed in the daytime, and Sturges the screenwriter was rarely more than 10 pages ahead of the cast and crew. Despite box office success of The Lady Eve and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek , conflict with Paramount's studio bosses increased. In particular, executive producer Buddy DeSylva never really trusted his star writer-director and

5372-440: Was by that time owned by Hughes, the retitled Mad Wednesday was no more successful than Sturges's original version. In the meantime, California Pictures had put another film into production, Vendetta . At Hughes's behest, Sturges had written the script as a vehicle for Hughes' protégé, Faith Domergue . Max Ophüls was hired to direct, but after only a few days of filming, Hughes demanded that Sturges fire Ophüls and take over

5451-705: Was employed as an ASM on Isadora Duncan 's production of Oedipus Rex at the age of 16 and a half: When one is responsible for giving an offstage cue, even the simplest ones, like the ring of a telephone or a birdcall, demand considerable sangfroid, and the job is nerve-wracking. One is very much aware that everything depends on the delivery of the cue at exactly the right microsecond. One stands there, knees slightly bent, breathing heavily... Sturges didn't last long in this job, due to his calling for thunder and then lightning instead of lightning and then thunder, but 16 years later Brock Pemberton hired him as an ASM on Antoinette Perry 's production of Goin' Home , which led to

5530-613: Was gone. Katharine Hepburn , who had starred in the 1952 Broadway production of the George Bernard Shaw 's The Millionairess got Sturges to agree to adapt the script and direct. But she could not get a single Hollywood studio to back the project. A 1953 lien by the Internal Revenue Service , with whom he had been having tax problems, cost Sturges the Players nightclub and other assets. Sturges put

5609-855: Was interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York . His book, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges: His Life in His Words , was published in 1990. In 1975, he became the first writer to be given the Screen Writers Guild 's Laurel Award posthumously. He has a star dedicated to him on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , at 1601 Vine Street . Informational notes Citations Bibliography Further reading Films: American Guild of Musical Artists The American Guild of Musical Artists ( AGMA )

5688-443: Was not initially well received by either reviewers or the public, though its critical reputation has since improved. However, his second Fox film, The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949), was the first serious flop in star Betty Grable 's career, and Sturges was again on his own. He built a theater at his Players restaurant, but the project did not pan out. Over the next several years, Sturges continued to write, but many of

5767-573: Was not used until the 18th century, though the concept and need for someone to fill the area of stage management can be seen with the Ancient Greeks. The playwrights were usually responsible for production elements. Sophocles is the first known stage technician, supported by his employment as a scenic artist, playwright, musician, and producer. In the Middle Ages, there is evidence of a conducteur de secrets , who oversaw collecting money at

5846-514: Was of English descent. When Sturges was two years old, his mother left America to pursue a singing career in Paris, where she annulled her marriage with Preston's father. Returning to America, Dempsey met her third husband, the wealthy stockbroker Solomon Sturges, who adopted Preston in 1902. According to biographers, Solomon Sturges was "diametrically opposite to Mary and her bohemianism". This included her close friendship with Isadora Duncan , as

5925-470: Was often known to borrow money (from his stepfather and studio, amongst others). Millionaire Howard Hughes , who had formed a friendship with Sturges, offered to bankroll him as an independent filmmaker. In early 1944, Sturges and Hughes formed a partnership called California Pictures. The deal represented a major pay cut for Sturges, but it established him as a writer-producer-director, the only one in Hollywood besides Charles Chaplin and one of only four in

6004-566: Was one of the highest paid men in Hollywood. He also received two screenwriting Academy Award nominations in the same year, for 1944's Hail the Conquering Hero and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek , a feat since matched by Frank Butler , Francis Ford Coppola , and Oliver Stone . (In the second Academy Awards, under a different nomination process, eleven screenplays were considered, including two by Bess Meredyth , two by Tom Barry , two by Hanns Kräly and four by Elliott J. Clawson .) F. Scott Fitzgerald , then in Hollywood, wrote that "They let

6083-453: Was responsible for the maintenance of the theater, taking props on and off stage, and security of performance space. The bookkeeper was responsible for the stage script, obtaining necessary licenses, copying/providing lines for the performers, marking entrances and exits, tracking props, marking when sound effects come in, and cueing props and sound effects. Between the Renaissance and the 16th century, actors and playwrights took upon themselves

6162-418: Was the most perfect script I'd ever seen ... Imagine a producer accepting a script from an author and not being able to make one change." Lasky paid Sturges $ 17,500 plus 7% of the profits above $ 1 million. It was a then-unprecedented deal for a screenwriter, which instantly elevated Sturges's reputation in Hollywood – although the lucrative deal irritated as many as it impressed. Sturges recalled, "The film made

6241-466: Was wary (and arguably jealous) of the independence Sturges enjoyed on his projects. One of the sources of conflict was that Sturges liked to reuse many of the same character actors in his films, thus creating what amounted to a regular troupe he could call upon within the studio system. Paramount feared that the audience would tire of repeatedly seeing the same faces in Sturges productions. But the director

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