Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph L. Mankiewicz was an influential American screenwriter, director, and producer, born in 1909 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He displayed exceptional intelligence from a young age, graduating high school at fifteen and later earning a degree from Columbia University. Mankiewicz began his career as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in Berlin, where he first ventured into film writing by translating German films. His transition to Hollywood was facilitated by his brother, Herman Mankiewicz, leading him to write dialogue for silent films and earn an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay of "Skippy" in 1931.
Mankiewicz achieved significant acclaim in the late 1940s, winning two Academy Awards for both Best Screenplay and Best Director for "A Letter to Three Wives" and "All About Eve." His prolific career includes over forty screenplays and notable films such as "The Philadelphia Story" and "The Keys of the Kingdom." However, the ambitious production of "Cleopatra" in 1963 marked a downturn in his career. Mankiewicz continued to work on films until his retirement, leaving a legacy of critically acclaimed works before passing away in 1993. His contributions to cinema are celebrated, though his later work received mixed reviews.
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Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Producer
- Born: February 11, 1909
- Birthplace: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
- Died: February 5, 1993
- Place of death: Bedford, New York
Biography
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz, the son of Franz and Johanna Blumenau Mankiewicz, was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1909. When he was quite young his family moved to New York City, where his father was a high school teacher. Mankiewicz had an older brother, Herman J. Mankiewicz, who later became a screenwriter and film producer.
Mankiewicz was unusually bright and graduated from Peter Stuyvesant High School when he was fifteen. He continued his studies at Columbia University, where he received a bachelor’s degree at age nineteen. He soon found a job as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, working as a foreign correspondent stationed in Berlin. It was here that he had his earliest exposure to film writing when he moonlighted by translating German films into English for Universum Film Aktien.
Living far beyond his income, Mankiewicz soon was forced to return to the United States. His brother, Herman, already one of the highest paid screenwriters at Paramount Studios, helped him get a job as a junior writer whose assignment was to write dialogue for silent films. Mankiewicz produced nine sets of silent film titles in 1929 and then became a dialogue writer, working on a number of films starring Jack Oakie.
His screenplay for Skippy, released in 1931, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, and the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture. These honors marked the beginning of Mankiewicz’s illustrious screenwriting career. With his career on the rise, Mankiewicz married Elizabeth Young in 1934 but divorced her three years later. In 1939, he married Rosa Strader, who died in 1958. He married Rosemary Matthews in 1962.
Mankiewicz’s career was much enhanced by Million Dollar Legs, released in 1932. This well-received comedy was produced by his brother, Herman, who claimed to have written much of the dialogue without credit. The dispute over who wrote the screenplay was heated and a breach formed between the brothers that was never fully repaired. The success of Million Dollar Legs led Mankiewicz to be offered more significant writing assignments than he had been able to command previously. He wrote a screen adaptation of Alice in Wonderland in 1933, which was a vehicle for some of Hollywood’s most celebrated stars.
During his lifetime, Mankiewicz wrote more than forty screenplays, including A Letter to Three Wives, which in 1949 won Mankiewicz Academy Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Director. Remarkably, the following year Mankiewicz again received Academy Awards in both categories for All About Eve. As his career advanced, Mankiewicz served both as producer and director of his films. He was the producer of The Philadelphia Story, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of 1940. Among his most well- received films were The Keys of the Kingdom, Dragonwyck, and The Quiet American.
In 1963, Mankiewicz undertook the disastrous production of Cleopatra starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, which cast a shadow over his career. He wrote one more screenplay after this and directed two more films before retiring. In 1993, Mankiewicz died of heart failure in his home at Bedford, New York. Despite some critical reservations about his later work, he is celebrated for his prize-winning films.