Virginia Joyce Mooney was a dancer who performed in the Sands Hotel and Casino and the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. She changed her name to Virginia James when she began performing at the Sands.

Preston Sturges was a Hollywood film director, producer, and screenwriter who co-established California Pictures Corporation with Howard Robard Hughes Jr. Born as Edmund Preston Biden in Chicago, Illinois, Sturges entered Broadway productions in the late 1920s and produced his first play, "The Guinea Pig," in 1928. During the 1930s, Sturges worked on films for studios including Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer (MGM). He won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for The Great McGinty (1940).