Joseph L. Mankiewicz
| Joseph L. Mankiewicz | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz February 11, 1909 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | February 5, 1993 (aged 83) Bedford, New York, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Occupation | Writer, director, producer |
| Years active | 1929–1972 |
| Spouse(s) |
Elizabeth Young (m. 1934–37) Rose Stradner (m. 1939; her death 1958) Rosemary Matthews (m. 1962; his death 1993) |
| Children | 4, including Tom Mankiewicz |
| Relatives |
Herman J. Mankiewicz (brother) See Mankiewicz family |
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz (February 11, 1909 – February 5, 1993) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career, and he twice won the Academy Award for both Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950).
Joseph Mankiewicz was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to Franz Mankiewicz (died 1941) and Johanna Blumenau, Jewish immigrants from Germany. He had a sister, Erna Mankiewicz (1901–1979), and a brother, Herman J. Mankiewicz (1897–1953), who became a screenwriter. Herman also won an Oscar for co-writing Citizen Kane (1941).
At age four, Mankiewicz moved with his family to New York City, graduating in 1924 from Stuyvesant High School. In 1928, he obtained a bachelor's degree from Columbia University. At 19, he was sent by his college professor father to Berlin where he was to study German drama at the University of Berlin. Instead, Mankiewicz got work at the UFA film studio translating film intertitles from German to English.
Comfortable in a variety of genres and able to elicit career performances from actors and actresses alike, Joseph L. Mankiewicz combined ironic, sophisticated scripts with a precise, sometimes stylized mise en scène. Mankiewicz worked for seventeen years as a screenwriter for Paramount and as a producer for MGM before getting a chance to direct at Twentieth Century-Fox. Over six years he made 11 films for Fox, reaching a peak in 1950 and 1951 when he won consecutive Academy Awards for Screenplay and Direction for both A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve, which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six.
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