Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Overview

Born
February 11, 1909 · Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA
Died
February 5, 1993 · Bedford, New York, USA (heart failure)
Birth name
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz
Nicknames
- Joe
- Mank
Height
5′ 10″ (1.78 m)

Biography

Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on February 11, 1909, Joseph Leo Mankiewicz first worked for the movies as a translator of intertitles, employed by Paramount in Berlin, the UFA's American distributor at the time (1928). He became a dialoguist, then a screenwriter on numerous Paramount productions in Hollywood, most of them Jack Oakie vehicles. Still in his 20s, he produced first-class MGM films, including The Philadelphia Story (1940). Having left Metro after a dispute with studio chief Louis B. Mayer over Judy Garland, he then worked for Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century-Fox, producing The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), when Ernst Lubitsch's illness first brought him to the director's chair for Dragonwyck (1946). Mankiewicz directed 20 films in a 26-year period, successfully attempted every kind of movie from Shakespeare adaptation to western, from urban sociological drama to musical, from epic film with thousands of extras to a two-character picture. A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950) brought him wide recognition along with two Academy Awards for each as a writer and a director, seven years after his elder brother Herman J. Mankiewicz won Best Screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). His more intimate films like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), The Barefoot Contessa (1954)--his only original screenplay--and The Honey Pot (1967) are major artistic achievements as well, showing Mankiewicz as a witty dialoguist, a master in the use of flashback and a talented actors' director (he favored English actors and had in Rex Harrison a kind of alter-ego on the screen).
- IMDb mini biography by: Vincent Merlaud <merlaud@studi.mathematik.hu-berlin.de>

Family

Spouses
Children
Relatives

Trivia

Uncle of Frank Mankiewicz, noted writer and Democratic political strategist who once worked as Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's press secretary. Frank Mankiewicz serves as Vice Chairman of Hill & Knowlton Public Relations in Washington, DC.
Directed 12 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: George Sanders, Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, Celeste Holm, Thelma Ritter, Marlon Brando, Edmond O'Brien, Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. Sanders and O'Brien won Oscars for their performances in one of Mankiewicz's movies.
Brother of writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and Erna Mankiewicz.
He is still one of only three film directors to win the Academy Award for Best Director two years in a row, winning for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950). The other directors are John Ford, who won for The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941), and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who won for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) and The Revenant (2015).
Granduncle of Timothy, Jesse, Antonia and Nick Davis (Johanna's children), John Mankiewicz (Don's son), Ben Mankiewicz and Josh Mankiewicz (Frank's sons).

Quotes

I think it can be said fairly that I've been in on the beginning, rise, peak, collapse, and end of the talking picture.
I got a job at Metro and went to see Louis B. Mayer, who told me he wanted me to be a producer. I said I wanted to write and direct. He said, "No, you have to produce first, you have to crawl before you can walk". Which is as good a definition of producing as I ever heard.
There were always financial crises. Someone would come out from the east and announce that the business was in deep trouble, and what would happen was that they'd reduce the number of matzo balls in Louis B. Mayer's chicken soup from three to two. Then they'd fire a couple of secretaries and feel virtuous.
[on the birth of the famous line usually attributed to Spencer Tracy] I was walking into the commissary on the day Kate [Katharine Hepburn] and Spencer met for the first time in the corridor. Kate said, "I'm afraid I'm a little tall for you, Mr Tracy". I turned to her and said, "Don't worry, Kate, he'll soon cut you down to size".
The death of Hollywood is Mel Brooks and special effects. If Mel Brooks had come up in my day he wouldn't have qualified to be a busboy.