Herman J. Mankiewicz

Herman J. Mankiewicz

Known For: Writing

Date Of Birth:1897-11-07

Place Of Birth:New York City, New York, USA

Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (November 7, 1897 – March 5, 1953; New York City) was an American screenwriter, who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Earlier, he was the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the drama critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott said that Herman Mankiewicz was the "funniest man in New York". Both Mankiewicz and Welles received Academy Awards for their screenplay. Mankiewicz's younger brother was Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993), an Oscar-winning Hollywood director, screenwriter, and producer. His nephew Tom Mankiewicz (1942 – 2010) was also a screenwriter and director. He was often asked to fix the screenplays of other writers, with much of his work uncredited. Occasional flashes of what came to be called the "Mankiewicz humor" and satire distinguished his films, and became valued in the films of the 1930s. The 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. Among the screenplays he wrote or worked on, besides "Citizen Kane", were "The Wizard of Oz", "Man of the World", "Dinner at Eight", "Pride of the Yankees", and "The Pride of St. Louis". Film critic Pauline Kael credits Mankiewicz with having written, alone or with others, "about forty of the films I remember best from the twenties and thirties. ... he was a key linking figure in just the kind of movies my friends and I loved best.". Mankiewicz was an alcoholic. Ten years before his death, he wrote: “I seem to become more and more of a rat in a trap of my own construction, a trap that I regularly repair whenever there seems to be danger of some opening that will enable me to escape. I haven’t decided yet about making it bomb proof. It would seem to involve a lot of unnecessary labor and expense". A future Hollywood biographer went so far as to suggest that Mankiewicz’s behavior “made him seem erratic even by the standards of Hollywood drunks.” Herman Mankiewicz died March 5, 1953, of uremic poisoning, at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles.

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Castings

Citizen Kane
Duck Soup
Love and Learn
Christmas Holiday
Stamboul Quest
The Enchanted Cottage
A Woman's Secret
Another Language
The Spanish Main
This Time for Keeps
Man of the World
Man of the World
Stand by for Action
The Last Command
My Dear Miss Aldrich
Escapade
John Meade's Woman
Dancers in the Dark
Ladies' Man
The Pride of the Yankees
After Office Hours
Horse Feathers
The Vagabond King
The Man I Love
Keeping Company
Million Dollar Legs
The Pride of St. Louis
True to the Navy
A Gentleman of Paris
Ladies Love Brutes
Rise and Shine
The Road to Mandalay
Men Are Like That
Dinner at Eight
A Woman's Secret
The Big Killing
Figures Don't Lie
Fashions for Women
Love in Exile
Meet the Baron
Girl Crazy
Fast Workers
Dinner at Eight
Stranded in Paris
Honey
His Tiger Lady
The Magnificent Flirt
Avalanche
Honey
The Royal Family of Broadway
Thunderbolt
The Drag Net
Laughter
Something Always Happens
Avalanche
The Dummy
The Gay Defender
The Mating Call
Monkey Business
The Lost Squadron
The Water Hole
Take Me Home
The City Gone Wild
The Ghost Comes Home
Three Week Ends
Two Flaming Youths
The Emperor's Candlesticks
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Jede Frau hat etwas
My Dear Miss Aldrich
What a Night!
The Three Maxims
Love Among the Millionaires
It's a Wonderful World
Abie's Irish Rose
The Barker
The Love Doctor
The Mighty
The Human Comedy
The Spotlight
The Perfect Gentleman
Operator 13
The Murder Man
That's Entertainment, Part II
The Good Fellows
Live, Love and Learn
Come On, Marines!
It's in the Air
Moran of the Marines
See Here, Private Hargrove
San Francisco
Suzy
Serenade
Comrade X
Mademoiselle Docteur
The Enchanted Cottage
The Show-Off
The Canary Murder Case
Dude Ranch
The Wild Man of Borneo