top of page
"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
"A significant contribution to film scholarship."
-Washington Post
"A biography that concentrates, in revelatory detail, on Preston’s latter years . . . . often breathtakingly raw."
-The Guardian
About Preston Sturges:
The Last Years of Hollywood’s First Writer-Director
Few directors of the 1930s and ‘40s were as distinctive and popular as Preston Sturges, whose whipsmart comedies have entertained audiences for decades. Beginning with a foreword by Peter Bogdanovich, 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 Drawing on diaries, sketchbooks, correspondence, unpublished screenplays and more, Nick Smedley and Tom Sturges present the writer-director’s final years in more detail than we’ve ever seen, showing a master still at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.
Learn More:
Pam Hutchinson’s Interview of Tom Sturges for The Guardian
Nicholas Bell’s Interview of Tom Sturges for the Criterion Collection
Preston Sturges: The Last Years of Hollywood’s First Writer-Director
PRESTON STURGES: THE LAST YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD’S FIRST WRITER-DRECTOR
-BOOK SIGNING-
bottom of page