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Joseph L. Mankiewicz was born in Wilkes-Barre in 1909 and spent the majority of his childhood in New York City. After graduating from Columbia University, he moved to Berlin to be a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. While in Germany, he translated the intertitles for silent films from German to English. This was the humble first act to one of Hollywood’s most impressive careers.
Mankiewicz moved to Los Angeles in the late 1920s. By this time, his older brother, Herman, was already something of a big shot in the industry – at least by the standards of a screenwriter in young Hollywood. This connection allowed Joe to write subtitles for Paramount Pictures during the awkward transition from silent films to “the talkies.” He quickly rose to become an accredited screenwriter, including on the 1931 film “Skippy,” for which he was nominated for his first Academy Award, and an early, star-studded adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland” in 1933.
In 1934, Joe Mankiewicz flipped from Paramount to MGM, where Louis B. Mayer gave him a new role: producer. At MGM, Mankiewicz produced “Fury,” the first American film directed by the legendary Fritz Lang, in 1936. Additional successes as a producer included 1940’s “The Philadelphia Story,” a Best Picture nominee, and 1942’s “Woman of the Year,” the film which sparked the partnership between Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.
By the mid-1940s, Mankiewicz was hungry for the opportunity to direct and bring his written work to the screen himself. This desire was satisfied when he moved on from MGM and signed a contract with 20th Century Fox. His directorial debut came in 1946 with “Dragonwyck,” and he spent the remainder of the decade bouncing from genre to genre, displaying a steady competence in each. Between 1946 and 1948, he directed a noir (“Somewhere in the Night”), a rom-com (“The Late George Apley”), a fantastical romance (“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir”), and a thriller (“Escape”).
There are few filmmakers who were as dominant in a two-year stretch as Mankiewicz was in 1949 to 1950. He became the first, and only, person to win writing and directing Oscars in consecutive years for “A Letter to Three Wives” and “All About Eve.” The latter won Best Picture and remains in a three-way tie for the most Oscar-nominated film of all-time with 14 nominations. “All About Eve” features the Mankiewicz-penned and Bette Davis-delivered line, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” In between “Wives” and “Eve,” he co-wrote and directed No Way Out, a stinging film that features Sidney Poitier in his feature film debut.
At the height of his powers in Hollywood, which included a stint as the president of the Directors Guild of America, Mankiewicz returned to New York to pursue a second wind as a playwright. Still, he remained a commercial and critical force in the film industry. In 1954, he directed and wrote “The Barefoot Contessa” under the banner of his own production company, Figaro. Other notable films produced by Figaro and directed by Mankiewicz include the box office smash musical “Guys and Dolls” and the politically-charged, and uber-controversial, “The Quiet American.”
The greatest challenge of Mankiewicz’s directorial career came in 1963 in the form of “Cleopatra.” Despite Mankiewicz’s persistence, and its status as a visual masterpiece and Best Picture nominee, “Cleopatra” was, to say the least, a difficult shoot. The film’s stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, were the subject of extensive tabloid gossip, and “Cleopatra’s” production costs ballooned to become the largest in Hollywood history up to that point. The exhausted Mankiewicz largely stepped out of the spotlight following “Cleopatra’s” release, but managed to create one more hit in 1972, “Sleuth,” for which he garnered the last of his ten Oscar nominations.
All the while, Mankiewicz remained a committed champion of human rights. He joined other entertainment figures of the day in a roundtable discussion regarding the Civil Rights Movement after the March on Washington in 1963. In 1969, Mankiewicz co-directed “King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis,” an essential documentary detailing Martin Luther King Jr.’s push for civil rights.
Throughout his career, Mankiewicz was known for writing scripts packed with dialogue, and his mostly understated direction served these scripts well. He was honored in 1985 with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America. As a senior member of the legendary Mankiewicz family of media and entertainment figures, his legacy continued after his 1993 death through his descendents. But the work of Joe Mankiewicz also lives on through the timeless cinematic gems he crafted, and the countless filmmakers who were influenced by his work.