The Great McGinty Preston Sturges won the 1940 Academy Award for "Best Original Screenplay" for "The Great McGinty", which was named as one of the "10 Best Films of 1940" by both "The New York Times" and "Film Daily". The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: Streaming audio The Great McGinty The Great McGinty is a 1940 political satire comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff and featuring William Demarest and (in her final screen appearance) Muriel Angelus. It was Sturges's first film as a director; he sold the story to Paramount
Preston Sturges would be surprising if I weren't. 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'd intended to title "The Events Leading Up to My Death"), and 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 by Simon & Schuster. 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