stay, she invites him to share her enormous suite while he looks for a new job. They quickly fall in love. Meanwhile, J.B.'s wife goes to Florida, he moves into the Hotel Louis, and reports of a nonexistent affair make their way into gossip columns. The hotel instantly becomes popular with the elite, and various luxury firms begin giving Mary jewelry, clothes, and a sixteen-cylinder car. Mary's supposed connection to J.B. has disastrous consequences for the stock market. Stockbroker E.F. Hulgar asks her for inside information about steel from Mr. Ball. The only Ball the confused Mary knows is John Jr., so she consults him. He jokingly tells her it is going down, and she passes this along to Hulgar. As a result, everybody begins selling just as J.B. starts buying, causing his firm to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. Jenny returns from Florida. When Mary, John, and J.B. finally get together and figure out what is going on, John comes up with a bright solution: Mary tells Hulgar that J.B. has cornered the market on steel. Prices shoot up, rescuing the beleaguered financier. The delighted J.B. gives his son a job, and John Jr. asks Mary to be his wife. Cast Jean Arthur as Mary Smith Edward Arnold as J.B. Ball Ray Milland as John Ball Jr. Luis Alberni as Mr. Louis Louis Mary Nash as Mrs. (Jenny) Ball Franklin Pangborn as Van Buren (the hat shop proprietor who starts the misunderstanding) Barlowe Borland as Mr. Gurney William Demarest as Wallace Whistling (the gossip columnist who makes Mary famous) Andrew Tombes as E.F. Hulgar Esther Dale as Lillian (J.B.'s secretary) Harlan Briggs as Office Manager William B. Davidson as Mr. Hyde Nora Cecil as Miss Swerf George Cowl as Bank President Robert Greig as Butler (Graves, J.B. Ball's butler) Robert Homans as Private Guard (uncredited) Olaf Hytten as Houseman (uncredited) Cast notes: Jean Arthur and Edward Arnold starred together in 1935's Diamond Jim, also written by Sturges. This was the second film written by Preston Sturges that William Demarest appeared in, after Diamond Jim, and he would go on to do eight others. Franklin Pangborn, another member of Sturges' de facto stock company, first worked with the writer on Imitation of Life (1934). In 1937, before working on Easy Living, he appeared in Hotel Haywire, and subsequently in seven other of Sturges' productions. Production Preston Sturges had signed