Preston Sturges

After emerging from the theater world, Sturges almost singlehandedly redefined the screwball comedy as a director, while getting his start as a writer on such varied movies as the adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The Invisible Man" (1932), the time-shifting drama "The Power and the Glory" (1933), the biopic "Diamond Jim" (1935), and the historical drama "If I Were King" (1938). But it was as a director that Sturges left his most indelible mark. …