Preston Sturges and four by Elliott J. Clawson.) Though he had a thirty-year Hollywood career, Sturges' 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 the Conquering Hero". 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. The film
Preston Sturges 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 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 childhood and youth in France, he ended up fluent in French and