THE RICHNESS OF PRESTON STURGES PART 1

CONNECT THE DOTS: THIRTIES FILM DIRECTOR Preston Sturges and Mar-a-Loco, er… Lago. 

Indeed, as cited by David Trotter’s “An Elite Worth Joining,” London Review of Books, April 13, 2023, the connection is a direct one: Trotter notes that Eleanor Hutton, Sturges’ second wife (of four) “was the daughter of the food magnate Marjorie Merriweather Post, who built this ‘seventy-bedroom cottage by the sea,” as he called it in the late 1920s.”

Hutton, Eh? Where has SimanaitisSays talked about Huttons before? “Barbara Hutton’s GTC” mentioned this was “the last of 168 [Ferrari] GTCs and belonged to heiress and socialite Barbara Hutton, a woman whose links with automobiles were rich indeed.”

Among her seven husbands were a famous actor (whose film career included a hair-raising ride along Monaco’s Grande Corniche), a winner of the Targa Florio road race (Prince Igor Troubetzkoy), and a race-car-driving playboy (Porfirio Rubirosa, who added a second B-25 to his fleet when they split up). Another husband (Count Kurt von Haugwitz-Hardenberry-Revoltlow) fathered Barbara’s only child who grew up to build and race a famous American sports car, then sell his shop to a fellow named Shelby who built an even more famous one.

The following suggests the relationship between Eleanor and Barbara Hutton, sorta. And why do I get into these things anyway?

How Rich Folks Live. All this has relevance to our Sturges tale, being told in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow. For example, Wikipedia says of Eleanor “On April 12, 1930, she eloped with the playwright and director Preston Sturges (1898–1959). In 1932, she sought an annulment on the grounds that he was not legally divorced from his first wife when they eloped. Sturges’ screenplay for the 1933 film The Power and the Glory was loosely based on her stories about her grandfather C.W. Post.”

You know how families will talk.

And How Bios Relate. David Trotter is reviewing Stuart Klawans’ book Crooked, But Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges. 

Guest of the Rich. David Trotter writes, “The weeks Sturges spent as Eleanor’s house guest at Mar-a-Lago supplied him with abundant material when he came to write and direct The Palm Beach Story (1942), which exemplifies his approach to film in the challenge it poses to Hollywood decorum through riotous alternations of slapstick and salty dialogue. ‘Millionaires are funny’ was the lesson he drew from the experience.”

Tomorrow in Part 2, we’ll see this reflected in Sturges’ life as well as his flicks. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023