Joseph Mankiewicz: Hollywood Director, Intelligence Blazing

The glamor and wealth of Hollywood attracted many talented people in the early days of cinema. One of the most intelligent, witty and elegant Joseph L Mankiewicz was, he enjoyed a long career, first as a brilliant writer and then as a producer of equally brilliant manager.

After graduating from Columbia University in 1928, spent some time in Berlin (he was a lover of all things German), where he worked as a journalist. He began his relationship with the films, while in Germany, when his brother, Herman helped him get a job at Paramount Pictures as a translator of title cards for silent movies. In 1929 he returned to America and began a long film, learning how the ideal team for his role as director.



He started as a writer with 48 scenarios to its name, works most of them witty and courteous. The script points out first in Hollywood was in 1931 "Skippy," which gained great popularity. He also worked as a producer of over 20 films, working with some of the greatest filmmakers of the time in prestige productions such as Frank Borsage is "Three Comrades" in 1938 and George Cukor "The Philadelphia Story" in 1941.

In this context, and a long apprenticeship with a counterparty authoritative and high quality, it is not surprising that when he had the opportunity to direct the film himself, has made a series of masterpieces. When the matter in early 1946, "Dragonwyck", he directed a total of elf-Twentieth Century Fox films, to reach a peak magnificent creativity mid 1950, when he reached the great hero-making win consecutive Oscars, both Screenplay and Best Director for the first "Letter to Three Wives" in 1950, the year and then "All About Eve" below. Both the movie masterpiece sparkles with witty dialogue and great acting. "All About Eve" in particular, played by Bette Davis and Eve Arden, has been described as one of the best films ever made.

Mankiewicz continued to lead the next two decades and has continued to create masterful films as "The Barefoot Contessa" in 1954, "The Quiet American" in 1958, adapted from the novel by Graham Greene, and "Suddenly Last Summer" in 1959. In 1963, Mankiewicz took over the management of 'Cleopatra' by Rouben Mamoulian. It proved to be a bit too far for him as the film turned out to be one of the most expensive faults Hollywood, which costs about $ 40 million and the studio with a near-fatal blow to the career of Mankiewicz.

He does not produce or direct a film in almost a decade ago, in 1972, has produced a final flourish "Sleuth," starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier, who brought him a second nomination for best director.

Mankiewicz, then enjoy a quiet retirement 20 years in New York, and his third wife, Rosemary Matthews, refusing many invitations to write and direct again. He died of a heart attack in 1993 at the age of 84 years.