Herman J. Mankiewicz
| Herman J. Mankiewicz | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 photo from early 1940s |
|||||||
| Born | Herman Jacob Mankiewicz November 7, 1897(1897-11-07) New York, New York, USA |
||||||
| Died | March 5, 1953 (aged 55) Hollywood, California |
||||||
| Occupation | Writer, Screenwriter | ||||||
| Years active | 1926-1952 | ||||||
| Spouse(s) | Sara Aaronson (1920-?) | ||||||
|
|||||||
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (November 7, 1897 - March 5, 1953) was a Hollywood screenwriter, noted for writing, along with Orson Welles, the screenplay for Citizen Kane, which is considered one of the most important and most controversial movies in the history of film.
He was widely regarded as one of the brightest minds in Hollywood and was considered a master at witty dialogue. He was often asked to fix the screenplays of other writers. What distinguished his writing from that of other writers were occasional flashes of the "Mankiewicz humor" and satire that became valued in the films of the 1930s. That style of writing included a slick, satirical, and witty humor, which depended almost totally on dialogue to carry the film. It was a style that would become associated with the "typical American film" of that period.
After moving to Hollywood from New York, he became a popular guest at the homes of many of America's most famous and wealthiest families. But his image became tarnished after the continuing battle with Welles over how much of the screenplay for Citizen Kane he actually wrote. Despite the conflict, both he and Welles received Academy Awards for their screenplay - the only award Citizen Kane received.
Among the more well-known screenplays he wrote, besides Citizen Kane were Man of the World, Ladies' Man, Dinner at Eight, Pride of the Yankees, and The Pride of St. Louis.
Contents |
Personal life
Mankiewicz was born in New York City and educated at the Columbia University and the University of Berlin. He was the older brother of Joseph L. Mankiewicz and the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany (Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumenau).[1]
He was a "bookish, introspective child who, despite his intelligence, was never able to win approval from his demanding father" who was known to belittle his achievements.[2]
His children are screenwriter Don Mankiewicz, politician Frank Mankiewicz and the late novelist Johanna Mankiewicz Davis.
Writer and screenwriter
Early years
While a student at Columbia University, he wrote plays for students at local colleges. After graduating, he worked as a cub reporter for a newspaper, where he met his future wife, Sara Aaronson. He spent a brief time in the U.S. Marines and then worked with the Red Cross press service. He also worked as a publicity man for dancer Isadora Duncan while she did a tour in Europe.
In 1922, after he returned to America, he got a job as George S. Kaufman's assistant on theater coverage for the New York Times. Through his association with Kaufman, he came in contact with the Algonquin Round Table, a group of literary lights that included Kaufman, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Robert Sherwood, and Ben Hecht. Being in the company of this group fired his ambition to become a playwright.[2]
- Writer of satire and comedy
In 1926 Mankiewicz left a job as drama editor at The New Yorker magazine to write for Hollywood. Shortly after his arrival on the West Coast, he sent a telegram to journalist-friend Ben Hecht in New York: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around."[2] He attracted other New York writers to Hollywood who contributed to a burst of creative, tough, and sardonic styles of writing for the fast-growing movie industry. What distinguished his screenplays were "occasional flashes of the Mankiewicz humor and satire that proved to be a foreshadowing of a new type of slick, satirical, typically American film that depended almost totally on dialogue for its success."[2]
Between 1929 and 1935, he was credited with working on a least twenty films, many of which he received no credit for. Between 1930 and 1932 he was either producer or associate producer on four comedies and helped write their screenplays without credit: Laughter, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and Million Dollar Legs, which many critics considered one of the funniest comedies of the early 1930s.[2] In 1933, he co-wrote Dinner at Eight, which was based on the George S. Kaufman/Edna Ferber play, and became one of the most popular comedies at that time and remains a "classic" comedy today.
Citizen Kane
Mankiewicz is best known for his collaboration with Orson Welles on the screenplay of Citizen Kane, for which they both won an Academy Award and later became a source of controversy over who wrote what. (Pauline Kael attributed Kane's screenplay to Mankiewicz in an essay for which she did not interview Welles and has since been hotly disputed by Welles and Peter Bogdanovich.) Much debate has centered around this issue, largely because of the importance of the film itself, which most agree is a fictionalized biography of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, one of the most important figures in the 20th century. According to film biographer David Thomson, however, "No one can now deny Herman Mankiewicz credit for the germ, shape, and pointed language of the screenplay..."[3]
According to film historian Otto Friedrich, it made Mankiewicz "unhappy to hear Welles quoted in Louella Parsons's column, before the question of screen credits was officially settled, as saying, 'So I wrote Citizen Kane.' Mankiewicz went to the Screen Writers Guild and declared that he was the original author. Welles later claimed that he planned on a joint credit all along, but Mankiewicz claimed that Welles offered him a bonus of ten thousand dollars if he would let Welles take full credit. ... The Screen Writers Guild eventually decreed a joint credit, with Mankiewicz's name first."[4]
- Hearst's inner circle
He became good friends with Hollywood screenwriter Charles Lederer who was Marion Davies's nephew. Lederer grew up as a Hollywood habitué, spending much time at San Simeon, where Davies reigned as William Randolph Hearst's mistress. As one of his admirers in the early 1930s, Hearst often invited Mankiewicz to spend the weekend at San Simeon.
"Herman told Joe [his brother] to come to the office of their mutual friend Charlie Lederer ..."[5]:144 “Mankiewicz found himself on story-swapping terms with the power behind it all, Hearst himself. When he had been in Hollywood only a short time, he met Marion Davies and Hearst through his friendship with Charles Lederer, a writer, then in his early twenties, whom Ben Hecht had met and greatly admired in New York when Lederer was still in his teens. Lederer, a child prodigy, who had entered college at thirteen, got to know Mankiewicz ..."[6] :254-255 Herman eventually “saw Hearst as ‘a finagling, calculating, Machiavellian figure.’ But also, with Charlie Lederer, ... wrote and had printed parodies of Hearst newspapers ...”[5]:212-213
In 1939, he suffered a broken leg in a driving accident and had to be hospitalized. During his hospital stay, one of his visitors was Orson Welles, who met him earlier and had become a great admirer of his wit. During the months after his release from the hospital, he and Welles began working on story ideas which led to the creation of Citizen Kane, "regarded by many as the greatest achievement in the history of film."[2]
Despite Welles' denial that the film was about Hearst, few people were convinced - including Hearst. After the release of Citizen Kane, Hearst pursued a longtime vendetta against Mankiewicz and Welles for writing the story.[2] "Certain elements in the film were taken from Mankiewicz's own experience: the sled Rosebud was based - according to some sources - on a very important bicycle that was stolen from him....[and] some of Kane's speeches are almost verbatim copies of Hearst's."[2]
- Other works
Mankiewicz wrote and co-wrote many other screenplays (including the original version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Pride of the Yankees), Dinner at Eight, and Pride of St. Louis.
After Citizen Kane, Mankiewicz's career declined, likely a result of alcoholism. He died of uremic poisoning in Hollywood, CA on March 5, 1953.[7]
Producer
Mankiewicz was the executive producer of such early sound comedy classics as Million Dollar Legs (1932), and three Marx Brothers movies, Monkey Business (1931), Horsefeathers (1932), and Duck Soup (1933).[8]
Writing filmography[9]
|
|
Quotations
- "I don't know how it is that you start working at something you don't like, and before you know it you're an old man."[10]
- "If I hadn't been so rich, I might have been a really great man." (from Citizen Kane)[11]
Notes
- ^ http://www.adherents.com/people/pm/Joseph_Mankiewicz.html
- ^ a b c d e f g h Kilbourne, Don. Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 26, American Screenwriter (1984) Gale Research, pp. 218-224
- ^ Thomson, David, A Biographical Dictionary of Film, 3rd, ed. (1995) Alfred A. Knopf
- ^ Friedrich, Otto, City of Nets - a portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's, (1986) Harper & Row
- ^ a b Meryman, Richard. Mank (New York, William Morrow, 1978)
- ^ Kael, Pauline. For Keeps (New York, Penguin Books, 1994)
- ^ "H. J. Mankiewicz, Screenwriter, 56. Winner of Academy Award in 1941 Dies. Playwright Was Former Newspaper Man.", New York Times (March 6, 1953). Retrieved on 2 July 2008. "His brother, Joseph, is a well known screen author, producer and director. ... A sister, Mrs. Erna Stenbuck of New York, also survives."
- ^ Siegel, Scott, and Siegel, Barbara, The Encyclopedia of Hollywood, 2nd ed. (2004) Checkmark Books
- ^ IMDB Pro[1]
- ^ Halliwell, Leslie, Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies, 4th ed. (2006) HarperCollins
- ^ Halliwell, Leslie, Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies, 4th ed. (2006) HarperCollins
Further reading
- Kael, Pauline, The Citizen Kane Book, (1971) Bantam Books
- Lambert, Gavin, On Cukor (1972) Putnam
- Marion, Frances, Off With Their Heads (1972) Macmillan
- Meryman, Richard Mank: The wit, world, and life of Herman Mankiewicz (1978). ISBN 0-688-03356-3
- Naremore, James, The Magic World of Orson Welles (1978) Oxford University Press
External links
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mankiewicz, Herman J. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mankiewicz, Herman Jacob |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Writer, Screenwriter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1897-11-7 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1953-3-5 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Hollywood, California |
Why are we here?
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
This page is cache of Wikipedia. History