festival as written by Tom Sturges
It is a unique and distinct honor to be invited to participate in
this, the 9th International Film Festival of Beauvais.
1998 marked the 100th Anniversary of my father' birth, an event
that has inspired many tributes, including film festivals in Los
Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Tulsa, Moscow and Brisbane,
among others. The Academy of Motion
Pictures Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) celebrated with a reception
for more than 1000 friends and was kind enough to have his Oscar
refinished in new gold.
Universal Home Video re-released his entire catalogue on videocassette
and even added a few new titles. Simon & Schuster republished
his autobiography PRESTON
STURGES BY PRESTON STURGES and UC Press published a 3rd volume
of his screenplays.
France represented an important part of my father's life, as
a child, a young man and an adult. He was fluent in the language,
having grown up with it. His mother Mary Desti, brought him to
Paris for the first time when he was one, and the very next day
they met Isadora Duncan. He spent a few years at the Lycee Janson
in Paris, and the Ecole de Roches in Normandy, and was sent home
to America when only WWI broke out in the summer of 1914.
He returned to Paris in 1920 and, after falling in love with
a dancer at the Folies Bergere, learned the harsh lesson that
one must have a great deal of money in one's pocket if one intends
to entertain a woman who gets off work at 4 in the morning.
He brought his first love Estelle Mudge to France in 1921, and
chased his second wife Eleanor Hutton to Paris in 1931 hoping
to recapture her heart. Fortunately, he was not successful in
this regard, or else someone else would be writing the introduction
you are now reading.
He returned for the last time in 1954, and stayed to make the
film LES CARNETS DU MAJOR THOMPSON. I arrived, as a true surprise
to all concerned, during the shooting of the third reel of this
film (on June 22, 1956) and was baptized at the Cathedral de Notre
Dame, with Jose Iturbi and Countess de Massieux of Boulevard Berthier
representing me.
My father left Paris for the last time in 1958, to go to New
York and write his autobiography. He passed away there in August
1959.
He loved Paris and he loved France. He devoured the culture
and the sensibility that it brought to his life. He possessed
a Frenchman's appreciation for good wine and beautiful women.
He would have been very happy to know that his life's work, his
films and scripts, have survived and remain appreciated by a country
and a people that he so much admired.
On his behalf, thank you for making a tribute to Preston Sturges
part of the Beauvais Film Festival.
-Tom Sturges
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