Sig Arno as Toto Robert Dudley as Wienie King Esther Howard as Wife of Wienie King Franklin Pangborn as Apartment Manager Arthur Hoyt as Pullman Conductor Al Bridge as Conductor Fred "Snowflake" Toones as George, Club Car Bartender Charles R. Moore as Train Porter Frank Moran as Brakeman Harry Rosenthal as Orchestra Leader J. Farrell MacDonald as Officer O'Donnell The Ale and Quail Club: Robert Warwick as Mr. Hinch Arthur Stuart Hull as Mr. Osmond Torben Meyer as Dr. Kluck Victor Potel as Mr. McKeewie Jimmy Conlin as Mr. Asweld Unnamed members played by: William Demarest Jack Norton Robert Greig Roscoe Ates Dewey Robinson Chester Conklin Sheldon Jett Production At least part of the initial inspiration for The Palm Beach Story may have come to Preston Sturges from close to home. Not only had he shuttled back and forth to Europe as a young man, his ex-wife Eleanor Hutton was an heiress who moved among the European aristocracy, and had once been wooed by Prince Jerome Rospigliosi-Gioeni. One scene in the film is based upon an incident that had happened to Sturges and his mother while traveling by train to Paris, where the car with their compartment and baggage was uncoupled while they were in the dining car. The story Sturges came up with was entitled Is Marriage Necessary?, which, along with an alternative, Is That Bad?, became a working title for the film. The original title was rejected by Hays Office censors, who also rejected the script submitted by Paramount over its "sex suggestive situations...and dialogue." In spite of changes the script was still tabled because of its "light treatment of marriage and divorce" and overt parodying of John D. Rockefeller. More changes were made, including reducing Princess Centimillia's divorces from eight to three (plus two annulments), before the script finally was approved. This was Sturges' second collaboration with Joel McCrea, following Sullivan's Travels from the previous year and they worked again on The Great Moment, filmed in 1942 (but released in 1944). Although Colbert and Sturges worked on The Big Pond (1930) and the first version of Imitation of Life (1934), The Palm Beach Story was the only time they worked on a movie Sturges wrote and directed. The movie was Rudy Vallee's first outright comedic role, and he gained a contract with Paramount, as well as an award for Best Actor of 1942 from the National Board