Research Catalog

Title

The brothers Mankiewicz : hope, heartbreak, and Hollywood classics / Sydney Ladensohn Stern.

Author

Stern, Sydney Ladensohn

Publication

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2019]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 468 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

"Herman J. (1897-1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture's only Academy Award. Joe earned the second pair of his four Oscars for writing and directing All About Eve, which also won Best Picture. Despite triumphs as diverse as Monkey Business and Cleopatra and Pride of the Yankees and Guys and Dolls, the witty, intellectual brothers spent their Hollywood years deeply discontented and yearning for what they did not have--a career in New York theater. Herman, formerly an Algonquin Round Table habitué, New York Times and New Yorker theater critic, and playwright-collaborator with George S. Kaufman, never reconciled himself to screenwriting. He gambled away his prodigious earnings, was fired from all the major studios, and drank himself to death at fifty-five. While Herman drifted downward, Joe rose to become a critical and financial success as a writer, producer, and director, though his constant philandering with prominent stars like Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Gene Tierney distressed his emotionally fragile wife who eventually committed suicide. He wrecked his own health using uppers and downers in order to direct Cleopatra by day and finish writing it at night, only to be very publicly fired by Darryl F. Zanuck, an experience from which he never fully recovered. For this first dual portrait of the Mankiewicz brothers, Sydney Ladensohn Stern draws on interviews, letters, diaries, and other documents still in private hands to provide a uniquely intimate behind-the-scenes chronicle of the lives, loves, work, and relationship between these complex men."--Provided by publisher.

Series Statement

Hollywood legends series

Uniform Title

Hollywood legends series.

Subject

• Mankiewicz, Herman J. 1897-1953
• Mankiewicz, Joseph L
• Motion picture producers and directors > United States > Biography
• Motion picture producers and directors > Biography
• United States

Genre/Form

Biographies.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 439-442), filmography (pages 431-438), and index.

Contents

Prologue -- The end: Joe, 1993 -- The beginning: Herman, 1926 -- The real beginning: Pop, 1891 -- Herman -- Herman's life begins -- Glorious adventures -- Central Park West Voltaire -- The Mankiewicz brothers of Hollywood -- In pursuit of a lump sum -- Gold safe, however -- Mad dogs -- The Tiffany of studios -- Joe's black years -- Citizen Kane -- Apprentice director -- Promised land -- All about Eve -- Breaking away -- Exit Herman -- Joe -- Hollywood Cinderella: a cautionary fairy tale -- New York crooks and showgirls: an American fairy tale -- Joe rewrites Graham Greene -- Exit Rosa -- Southern gothic horror story -- The toughest three pictures i ever made -- The honey pot(boiler) -- Ironic western -- Of page and screen -- Honors but no dough -- Epilogue -- What they wrought -- Appendix: family tree -- Notes -- Filmography -- Select bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Photo credits -- Index.

Call Number

MWES (Mankiewicz, H.) 19-4331

ISBN

• 9781617032677
• 1617032670

LCCN

• 2019009744
• 40029465006

OCLC

1098219735

Author

Stern, Sydney Ladensohn, author.

Title

The brothers Mankiewicz : hope, heartbreak, and Hollywood classics / Sydney Ladensohn Stern.

Publisher

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2019]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Hollywood legends series

Hollywood legends series.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 439-442), filmography (pages 431-438), and index.

Other Form:

Online version: Stern, Sydney Ladensohn. Brothers Mankiewicz. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2019] 9781617032684 (DLC) 2019019569

Other Standard Identifier

40029465006

Research Call Number

MWES (Mankiewicz, H.) 19-4331