Screenplay for Citizen Kane

The authorship of the screenplay for Citizen Kane, the 1941 American motion picture that marked the feature film debut of Orson Welles, has been one of the film's long-standing controversies. With a story spanning 60 years, the quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a fictional character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick. A rich incorporation of the experiences and knowledge of its authors, the film earned an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles.

More works of conjecture … have been written on the creation of the screenplay for Citizen Kane than Orson and Herman were ever able to cram between those blue covers.

Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz was a notorious personality in Hollywood. "His behavior, public and private, was a scandal," wrote John Houseman. "A neurotic drinker and a compulsive gambler, he was also one of the most intelligent, informed, witty, humane and charming men I have ever known."Orson Welles told Peter Bogdanovich that "Nobody was more miserable, more bitter, and funnier than Mank ... a perfect monument of self-destruction. But, you know, when the bitterness wasn't focused straight at you, he was the best company in the world."

Welles admired Mankiewicz, and had met him in New York in 1938 at the time of the Mercury Theatre's Broadway successes. In September 1939 Welles visited Mankiewicz while he was hospitalized in Los Angeles after a car accident, and offered him a job writing scripts for the Mercury Theatre's show on CBS radio, The Campbell Playhouse. "I felt it would be useless," Welles said later, "because of Mank's general uselessness many times in the studios. But I thought, 'We'll see what he comes up with.'" Mankiewicz proved very useful, particularly working with Houseman as editor, and wrote five scripts for Campbell Playhouse shows broadcast between November 12, 1939, and March 17, 1940. Houseman and Welles were partners in the Mercury Theatre, but when Mercury productions moved from New York to California the partnership ended and Houseman became an employee, working primarily as supervising editor on the radio shows. In December 1939, after a violent quarrel with Welles over finances, Houseman resigned and returned to New York. To Welles, his departure was a relief.

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