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Herman J. Mankiewicz, affectionately known as “Mank,” was born in New York City in 1897, but he spent his formative years in Wilkes-Barre. It was here that he became the youngest prep school graduate in Luzerne County history, and it was here that he mingled with coal miners, from whom he picked up habits and sharpness. It was in Luzerne County where Herman J. Mankiewicz, one of the great Hollywood screenwriters, was raised.
Mankiewicz was an especially intelligent young person, evidenced by his graduation from Columbia University as a teenager. He made his way overseas after graduating, both as a member of the United States Air Force, and later as a foreign correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily and the Chicago Tribune in Berlin. Upon returning to work in the United States, he became the first regular drama critic for The New Yorker.
His writing was laced with wit and humor, and he was closely associated with the Algonquin Round Table, a group of elite New York creatives at their most prominent in the 1920s. His work caught the attention of Hollywood producer Walter Wanger, who offered Mankiewicz the opportunity to work at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. While Mankiewicz was skeptical of film’s validity as an artform, he accepted Wanger’s offer.
Before long, Mankiewicz was put in charge of the Paramount scenario department just as silent films were getting phased out in favor of “the talkies.” This transition played right into Mankiewicz’s strengths as a writer. Dialogue became key, and Mankiewicz was an early master at crafting it for the screen. While at Paramount, he had a role in recruiting others to the film industry. Among those Herman recruited into the industry was his younger brother, Joe.
Despite his strong influence on the pre-Code film industry’s sensibilities, and his status as one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood, Mankiewicz often went uncredited for his work. His role was frequently that of a script doctor, or a writer who would iron out and strengthen the work of the initial or credited screenwriter. He moved from Paramount to MGM in 1933, and did receive a co-writing credit on the esteemed 1933 comedy “Dinner at Eight.”
While on leave from MGM, he wrote “The Mad Dog of Europe,” one of the most legendary unproduced scripts in Hollywood history. The screenplay boldly took on the rise of Adolf Hitler at the onset of the Nazi takeover of Germany. Though “The Mad Dog of Europe” never made it past the scripting phase, Nazi Germany would eventually ban any film that included a screen credit for Mankiewicz. He would eventually return to MGM, where he offered critical, uncredited work to “The Wizard of Oz.” He developed “The Wizard of Oz’s” Kansas sequence, and laid the groundwork for the film’s revolutionary transition from sepia tone to color upon Dorothy Gale’s arrival in Oz.
While recovering from a car accident in 1939, Mankiewicz began writing “Citizen Kane,” often thought to be a fictionalized biography of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. In fact, Mankiewicz was a member of Hearst’s inner circle for a time in the 1930s. The amount of insight Mankiewicz pulled from his lived experiences with Hearst and the magnate’s mistress, the actress Marion Davies, continues to fuel speculation. In response to the film’s development, Hearst used his considerable influence to damage its reputation and box office potential.
Originally, Orson Welles, “Citizen Kane’s” director and star, was to be the film’s sole credited screenwriter. Though retrospect does offer Welles quite a bit of credit in developing “Kane’s” script, the contributions from Mankiewicz to the project are considered vital. Mankiewicz lobbied for co-credit on what he considered some of his best work. He succeeded, and this move offered Mankiewicz a bit of immortality. He and Welles won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and “Citizen Kane” has become a popular pick for the greatest film ever made. Mankiewicz’s authorship of “Citizen Kane” has been covered at length, and in various formats, including the award-winning 2020 film “Mank,” in which Herman was portrayed by Gary Oldman.
Mankiewicz co-wrote 1942’s “The Pride of the Yankees,” which gave him his second Oscar nomination. From there, his career slowed. Since his death in 1953, Mankiewicz has been remembered as a delightful character, despite his well-known battles with drinking and gambling. As the first member of the Mankiewicz family to go west, he is the flag bearer for one of the great Hollywood dynasties. And to think, much of this story sprouts from a childhood spent in Luzerne County.