Herman_mankiewicz

Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (November 7, 1897 in New York City—March 5, 1953 in Hollywood, California) was a legendary Hollywood screenwriter and noted raconteur. 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." 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. Much debate has centered around this issue, largely because of the importance of the film itself, with Pauline Kael attributing 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. Mankiewicz wrote and co-wrote many other screenplays (including the original version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Pride of the Yankees) and served as producer on several Marx Brothers movies. After Citizen Kane, Mankiewicz\'s career declined, likely a result of alcoholism; he once vomited on the table at a dinner then reassured the hostess that "the white wine came up with the fish." He died of uremic poisoning in Hollywood, CA on March 5, 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin and Sergei Prokofiev.

Mankiewicz was educated at 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] His children are screenwriter Don Mankiewicz, politician Frank Mankiewicz and the late novelist Johanna Mankiewicz Davis. His grandchildren are John Mankiewicz (Don\'s son), Josh Mankiewicz and Ben Mankiewicz (Frank\'s sons) and Timothy, Jesse, Antonia and Nick Davis (Johanna\'s children with Peter Davis).

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Herman J. Mankiewicz

• Herman J. Mankiewicz at the Internet Movie Database

References

Richard Meryman, Mank: The wit, world, and life of Herman Mankiewicz (1978). ISBN 0-688-03356-3

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