Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (/ˈmæŋkəwɪts/ MANG-kə-wits; November 7, 1897 – March 5, 1953) was an American screenwriter who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941).
Mankiewicz was previously a Berlin correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily,[1] assistant theater editor at The New York Times,[1] and the first regular drama critic at The New Yorker.
In 1909, Herman's brother, Joseph L. Mankiewicz—who later became a successful writer, producer, and director—was born, and both boys and a sister, Erna,[12][13] spent their childhood there.
Mankiewicz was described as 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.
[5] After a period as managing editor of the American Jewish Chronicle and a reporter at the New York Tribune,[15] he joined the United States Army Air Service to fly planes, but because of airsickness, enlisted instead as a private first class with the Marines, A.E.F.
Known as a "gifted, prodigious writer,"[This quote needs a citation] he contributed to Vanity Fair, The Saturday Evening Post, and numerous other magazines.
[21] His writing attracted the notice of film producer Walter Wanger, who offered him a contract to work at Paramount,[1] and Mankiewicz soon moved to Hollywood.
As "a hard-drinking gambler," however, he hired men in his own image, such as Ben Hecht, Bartlett Cormack, Edwin Justus Mayer—writers comfortable with the iconoclasm of big-city newsrooms who would introduce their sardonic worldliness to movie audiences.
In 1927 and 1928, he did the titles (printed dialogue and explanations) for at least twenty-five films starring Clara Bow, Bebe Daniels, Nancy Carroll, Wallace Beery and other public favorites.
At the beginning of the Talkies era, he was one of the highest-paid writers in the world, because, Kael writes, "He wrote the kind of movies that were disapproved of as 'fast' and immoral.
[8]: 246 [a] Shortly after his arrival on the West Coast, Mankiewicz sent a telegram to journalist-friend Ben Hecht in New York: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots.
"[7] He attracted other New York writers to Hollywood who contributed to a burst of creative, tough, sardonic styles of writing for the fast-growing movie industry.
No studio was willing to produce his screenplay, The Mad Dog of Europe,[1] and in 1935, MGM was notified by Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Education and Propaganda under Hitler, that films written by Mankiewicz could not be shown in Nazi Germany unless his name was removed from the screen credits.
[1][25] During World War II, Mankiewicz officially sponsored and took financial responsibility for many refugees fleeing Nazi Germany for the United States.
[1][28][29] Much debate has centered on this issue, largely because of the importance of the film itself, which most agree is a fictionalized biography of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst.
When RKO opened the movie on Broadway on May 1, 1941, followed by showings at theaters in other large cities, the publicity programs included photographs of Welles as "the one-man band, directing, acting, and writing."
"[11]: 270 Mankiewicz biographer Sydney Ladensohn Stern discounts his assertion as his defensiveness with his father, especially because he and other family members had recently bailed him out financially.
[1] 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.'
[1] Sometime later, Welles commented on this allegation: God, if I hadn't loved him I would have hated him after all those ridiculous stories, persuading people I was offering him money to have his name taken off ... that he would be carrying on like this, denouncing me as a coauthor, screaming around.
Lederer grew up as a Hollywood habitué, spending much time at San Simeon, where Davies reigned as William Randolph Hearst's mistress.
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.
Meryman writes, "Herman insisted he had no chance to win, though The Hollywood Reporter had given the film first place in ten of its twelve divisions.
Richard Meryman describes the evening: On the night of the awards, Herman turned on his radio and sat in his bedroom chair.
"[11]: 272 Richard Meryman concludes that "taken as a whole ... Citizen Kane was overwhelmingly Welles's film, a triumph of intense personal magic.
"[36] Mankiewicz died March 5, 1953, at age of 55, of uremic poisoning, the result of liver failure,[37] at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles.
... and now that I have looked into Herman Mankiewicz's career it's apparent that he was a key linking figure in just the kind of movies my friends and I loved best.
Mank, a black-and-white Mankiewicz biopic directed by David Fincher and starring Gary Oldman in the title role, was released on Netflix in December 2020.