Joseph L. Mankiewicz
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| Joseph L. Mankiewicz | |
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| Born | Joseph Leo Mankiewicz February 11, 1909 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Died | February 5, 1993 (aged 83) Bedford, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer, Director, Producer |
| Years active | 1929 - 1972 |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Young (1934–1937) Rose Stradner (1939–1958) Rosemary Matthews (1962) |
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz (11 February 1909 – 5 February 1993) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.
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[edit] Early life
Mankiewicz was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to Franz Mankiewicz (?–1941) and Johanna Blumenau, Jewish immigrants from Germany.[1][2][3] He had a sister, Erna Mankiewicz (1901–1979), and a brother, Herman J. Mankiewicz, who became a screenwriter.[4][5][6]
At age four, Mankiewicz moved with his family to New York City where he graduated in 1924 from Stuyvesant High School.[7] In 1928, he obtained a bachelor's degree from Columbia University. For a time he worked in Berlin, Germany, as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune newspaper before being lured into the motion picture business.
[edit] Career
Comfortable in a variety of genres and able to elicit career performances from actors and actresses alike, Joseph L. Mankiewicz combined ironic, sophisticated scripts with a precise, sometimes stylised mise en scène. Mankiewicz worked for seventeen years as a screenwriter for Paramount and as a producer for MGM before getting a chance to direct at Twentieth Century-Fox. Over six years he made 11 films for Fox, reaching a peak in 1949 and 1950 when he won consecutive Academy Awards for Screenplay and Direction for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve.
During his long career in Hollywood, Mankiewicz wrote forty-eight screenplays, including All About Eve, for which he won an Academy Award. He also produced more than twenty films including The Philadelphia Story which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1941. However, he is best known for the films he directed, twice winning the Academy Award for Directing. In 1944, he produced The Keys of the Kingdom, which starred Gregory Peck, and featured Mankiewicz's then-wife, Rose Stradner, in a supporting role as a nun.
In 1951, Mankiewicz left Fox and moved to New York, intending to write for the Broadway stage. Although this dream never materialised, he continued to make films (both for his own production company Figaro and as a director-for-hire) that explored his favourite themes — the clash of aristocrat with commoner, life as performance and the clash between people's urge to control their fate and the contingencies of real life.
In 1953, for MGM, he directed Julius Caesar, an adaptation of Shakespeare's play. It received widely favorable reviews, and David Shipman, author of the book The Great Movie Stars: The Hollywood Years, called it "perhaps the finest Shakespeare film ever made". The film serves as the only record of Marlon Brando in a Shakespearean role; he played Mark Antony, and received an Oscar nomination for his performance.
In 1958, Mankiewicz directed The Quiet American an adaptation of Graham Greene's 1955 novel about the seed of American military involvement in what would become the Vietnam War. Mankiewicz, under career pressure from the climate of anti-Communism and the Hollywood blacklist, distorted the message of Greene's book, changing major parts of the story to appeal to a national audience. A cautionary tale about America's blind support for "anti-Communists" was turned into, according to Greene, a "propaganda film for America."
Cleopatra consumed three years of Mankiewicz's life and ended up both derailing his career and causing severe financial losses for the studio, Twentieth Century-Fox. Mankiewicz made more films, however, garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Direction in 1972 for Sleuth starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, his final production.
He was the younger brother of Herman J. Mankiewicz. His sons are writer/director Tom Mankiewicz and producer Christopher Mankiewicz. He also has a daughter named Alexandra Mankiewicz. His great-nephew is radio & television personality Ben Mankiewicz, currently on TCM.
Mankiewicz, who died in 1993, was interred in Saint Matthew's Episcopal Churchyard cemetery, Bedford, New York.[7]
[edit] Awards
| Year | Film | Result | Category | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | |||||||
| 1931 | Skippy | Nominated | Best Adapted Screenplay | ||||
| 1941 | The Philadelphia Story | Nominated | Best Picture | ||||
| 1950 | A Letter to Three Wives | Won | Best Director | ||||
| Won | Best Original Screenplay | ||||||
| 1951 | All About Eve | Won | Best Director | ||||
| Won | Best Original Screenplay | ||||||
| No Way Out | Nominated | Best Original Screenplay | |||||
| 1953 | 5 Fingers | Nominated | Best Director | ||||
| 1955 | The Barefoot Contessa | Nominated | Best Original Screenplay | ||||
| 1973 | Sleuth | Nominated | Best Director | ||||
| Directors Guild of America | |||||||
| 1949 | A Letter to Three Wives | Won | Outstanding Directorial Achievement | ||||
| 1951 | All About Eve | Won | Outstanding Directorial Achievement | ||||
| 1953 | 5 Fingers | Nominated | Outstanding Directorial Achievement | ||||
| 1954 | Julius Caesar | Nominated | Outstanding Directorial Achievement | ||||
| 1981 | Won | Honorary Life Member Award | |||||
| 1986 | Won | Lifetime Achievement Award | |||||
| Writers Guild of America | |||||||
| 1950 | A Letter to Three Wives | Won | Best Written American Comedy | ||||
| 1951 | All About Eve | Won | Best Written American Comedy | ||||
| Nominated | Best Written American Drama | ||||||
| No Way Out | Nominated | The Robert Meltzer Award | |||||
| 1952 | People Will Talk | Nominated | Best Written American Comedy | ||||
| 1955 | The Barefoot Contessa | Nominated | Best Written American Drama | ||||
| 1956 | Guys and Dolls | Nominated | Best Written American Musical | ||||
| 1963 | Won | Laurel Award for Screen Writing Achievement | |||||
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Director
[edit] Writer
- Fast Company (1929) co-writer
- Slightly Scarlet (1930) co-writer
- Paramount on Parade (1930)
- The Social Lion (1931) Adaptation
- Only Saps Work (1931) co-writer
- The Gang Buster (1931)
- Finn & Hattie (1931)
- June Moon (1931) co-writer
- Skippy (1931) co-writer
- Newly Rich (1931) co-writer
- Sooky (1931) co-writer
- This Reckless Age (1932) co-writer
- Sky Bride (1932) co-writer
- Million Dollar Legs (1932) Story
- If I Had A Million (1932) (segments "China Shop", "Three Marines", "Violet") Uncredited
- Diplomaniacs (1933) co-writer
- Emergency Call (1933) co-writer
- Too Much Harmony (1933) Story
- Alice In Wonderland (1933) co-writer
- Manhattan Melodrama (1934) co-writer
- Our Daily Bread (1934) Dialogue
- Forsaking All Others (1934)
- I Live My Life (1935)
- The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) co-writer
- Dragonwyck (1946)
- Somewhere in the Night (1946) co-writer
- A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
- House of Strangers (1949) Uncredited
- No Way Out (1950) co-writer
- All About Eve (1950)
- People Will Talk (1951)
- Julius Caesar (1953) Uncredited
- The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
- Guys and Dolls (1955)
- The Quiet American (1958)
- Cleopatra (1963) co-writer
- The Honey Pot (1967)
[edit] References
- ^ The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1998. ISBN 0684806207. http://books.google.com/books?id=FVUYAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Franz+Mankiewicz%22&dq=%22Franz+Mankiewicz%22&pgis=1. "Mankiewicz was the youngest of three children born to the German immigrants Franz Mankiewicz, a secondary schoolteacher, and Johanna Blumenau, a homemaker."
- ^ Joseph L. Mankiewicz. 1983. ISBN 0805792910. "The father, Franz Mankiewicz, emigrated from Germany in 1892, living first in New York and then moving to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in to take a job ..."
- ^ "Dr. Frank Mankiewicz". New York Times. 1941-12-05. "Mankiewicz, Mr. Frank, dearly beloved husband of Johanna, devoted father of Herman, Joseph, and Mrs. Erna Stenbuck. Services Park West Memorial Chapel, ..."
- ^ "Joseph Mankiewicz Weds. MGM Producer Marries Rose Stradner, Viennese Actress". New York Times. 1939-07-29. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50C15FA3954107A93CBAB178CD85F4D8385F9. Retrieved on 2008-07-02.
- ^ "Erna Mankiewicz Stenbuck, 78, Retired New York Schoolteacher". New York Times. 1979-08-19. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F2071FF9355C12728DDDA00994D0405B898BF1D3. Retrieved on 2008-07-02. "Erna Mankiewicz Stenbuck, a retired, teacher in the New York City schools, died Aug. 1 in Villach, Austria, where she had lived for several years. She was 78 years old. ... She was married in ... to Dr. Joseph Stenbuck, a New York City surgeon who died in 1951. They had no children. She is survived by a brother, Joseph L. ..."
- ^ "H. J. Mankiewicz, Screenwriter, 56. Winner of Academy Award in 1941 Dies. Playwright Was Former Newspaper Man.". New York Times. 1953-03-06. "His brother, Joseph, is a well known screen author, producer and director. ... A sister, Mrs. Erna Stenbuck of New York, also survives."
- ^ a b Flint, Peter (1993-02-06). "Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Literate Skeptic of the Cinema, Dies at 83". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5D9113AF935A35751C0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved on 2007-11-01. "Joseph L. Mankiewicz, a writer, director and producer who was one of Hollywood's most literate and intelligent film makers, died yesterday at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He was 83 and lived in Bedford, N.Y."
[edit] Further reading
- Jack Brodsky and Nathan Weiss: The Cleopatra Papers. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1963.
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Gary Carey: More About 'All About Eve. New York, Random House, 1972.
- Kenneth L. Geist: Pictures Will Talk: The Life and Films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz. New York, Scribners, 1978. ISBN 0-68415-500-1
- Cheryl Bray Lower: Joseph L. Mankiewicz: Critical Essays and Guide to Resources. Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Co., 2001. ISBN 0-78640-987-8
- Bernard F. Dick: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. New York, Twayne Publishers, 1983. ISBN 0-80579-291-0
- Oderman, Stuart, Talking to the Piano Player 2. BearManor Media, 2009. ISBN #1-59393-320-7.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz at the Internet Movie Database
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz at the TCM Movie Database
- Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
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