Remember the Night

“When the last dime is gone,  I’ll sit on the curb outside with a
pencil and a ten cent notebook and start the whole thing over again.”
                                                                    -Preston Sturges
                                                                                                                                   

No matter how long its history goes on,  Preston Sturges will always be
one of the great writers and one of the great directors in the history of film.

On June 18,  2005,  at the opening of the Writers Guild Foundation’s
new library,   Mrs. Preston Sturges,   scissors in hand,   attended the
ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Preston Sturges Lounge.

Not long after,  it was revealed in the New York Times that Preston Sturges
was on the Writers Guild’s undeliverable list,  owed so-called foreign levies. 

Petrie Jr.,  president again,  immediately attempted  damage control
by writing a letter to the membership in which he stated that none
of the famous names the New York Times reported from the
undeliverable list were owed much more than two hundred dollars.

Addressing the fact that he had been photographed with Mrs. Sturges
at the ribbon cutting ceremony although,  when money was involved,
the Guild couldn’t find her,  he wrote,  “I shake my head.”

And apparently that’s all he did.

After  the New York Times had called Mrs. Sturges to tell her that the
name Preston Sturges was on the Writers Guild undeliverable list,
she telephoned the Guild.

They told her that they had two hundred and five dollars for her
and would be mailing it.

Ten months later,  she had still not received it.

When an article entitled MYSTERY MONEY appeared in Daily
Variety revealing that one payment for Preston Sturges,  in just one
country,   for just one quarter,  was over five thousand dollars,  the
Guild called Mrs. Sturges and told her they were aware that Preston
Sturges had three previous wives and had died intestate (without a
will)  and so the Guild would not be sending her the two hundred
and five dollars unless she provided proof that she was
Preston Sturges’s heir.

The Guild which has been collecting monies for Sturges all over
the world by fraudulently claiming to represent the Sturges estate
had no intention of remitting even two hundred bucks to Mrs. Sturges.

Mrs. Sturges,  at this time,  had become very ill.   Having lived her life
with grace and wisdom,  she recognized the game,  and told them what
they already knew,  that it had all been settled years and years ago and
they could find the proof they needed downtown in the probate archives
of Los Angeles Superior Court.

What the Guild did instead was to send in the shills.

Former officer and board member and official disseminator of foreign
levies disinfomation Carl Gottlieb and then-board member Craig Mazin
posted on a private website for WGA members only that Mrs. Sturges
“is not the only  Sturges heir claiming the right to the funds.”  And
“…various legal matters have to be worked out between the people
who believe they’re owed the money.”

Then the lie becomes more odious.  “We have apparently
been attempting to determine the true and single beneficiary for
three years now.”

Steven Schwartz,  a member of the WGA Membership and Finance
Committee, posted:  “How hard is it for Sandy Sturges to give the Guild
a current address?   If you knew how much staff time (and your dues
money) was going to track people down you’d be saying ‘Fuck ‘em.
It’s their responsibility to give us a current address.’ ”

You did not know Anne Margaret Sturges,  Schwartz.  Where in hell
did you think you get the right to refer to her by her nickname or in any
way other than as Mrs. Sturges?

And “fuck ‘em,”  Schwartz?  You should hope for your sake that we
never meet.

Preston Sturges did not join the Writers Guild or the Directors Guild
until 1952.  As Mrs. Sturges told me,  “Preston did not believe in
joining things.”

When the first MBA came into effect in 1942,  the studiois were not
100% union shops.  Preston Sturges joined the unions  only when
to write or direct in this town you had to be a member.

He never wrote or directed a film under a WGA or DGA contract

He wrote and directed only one film after 1952 and that was in France
for a French company.

Mrs. Sturges died in December of 2006.

But the Guild wouldn’t shut up.

In May of 2007,  Mazin on his own site wrote that the heirs “are
battling for his money,  so the guild doesn’t know to whom his levies
should go.”  And,  incredibly,  Mazin is talking about two hundred
and five dollars.

Most despecible of all is Jody Frisch.

Ms. Frisch was appointed director of public policy and government affairs
for the WGA in April of 2007.

Allegedly,  she addresses legislative issues of interest to writers on the
federal, state and local level.  But her efforts are kept hidden from us.

Announcing her appointment,  the Guild cited her agenda. Included were
piracy and copyright protection and orphaned works,  all areas outside
the territory of the union.  She misrepresents our interests in Washington.
She represents the agenda of Robert Hadl and the trade associations.

One of her first acts in her new position was to lie about Mrs. Sturges
to Richard Verrier of the Los Angeles Times.

She told him that Mrs. Sturges was not the individual owed the
money and that the Guild has been spending a fortune for years
to settle the matter between all the wives and all the children
claiming  the two hundred and five dollars.

When I told Verrier it wasn’t true,  he said can you prove it,
I said yes,  and he changed the subject.

When he published his story he ignored considerable evidence that
was provided to him.  And in doing so,   the Los Angeles Times became
participant in the Guild’s lies.

A week later,  Verrier would actually lie in print for the Guild.

For eighteen years now the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild,
both claiming to represent the Preston Sturges estate,  have accessed
monies collected in his name around the world,  have had most of 
it  diverted to Universal International Films,  Inc in the Netherlands,
and have kept the rest.

Anne Margaret Sturges was in her early twenties when she married
Preston Sturges in 1951.

After his death,  she went to law school,  and,  after graduating,
worked as a paralegal.

In 1991,  she edited excerpts from his letters and diaries and
combined them with his unfinished  autobiography to create
“ Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges.”

Her life was a gift to this world that lasted 79 years.

Click here for Probate Archives of Los Angeles Superior Court

Below is a percentage of monies collected for Preston Sturges in
one quarter in one country.  You will read the titles of several of the greatest films in the history of film.

Scroll down to see the record of payments.