Motion Picture Screenwriter. The elder brother of Joseph Leo Mankiewicz. Educated at Columbia and at the University of Berlin, Mankiewicz began his writing career as a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Returning to the US, he became prominent in New York's cultural life as the assistant drama editor of The New York Times. He went to Hollywood in 1926 to write a screen story for Lon Chaney and remained with Paramount for several years as a prolific title, dialogue, and script writer, for a while pursuing a parallel career as a drama critic for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote numerous screenplays and adaptations and was largely responsible for the Academy Award-winning screenplay of "Citizen Kane" (1941), which he wrote in collaboration with Orson Welles. In addition to his many screen credits, he collaborated without receiving credit and was an executive producer on such films as "Laughter" (1930), "Horse Feathers" (1932), "Million Dollar Legs" (1932), and "Duck Soup" (1933). Enormous gambling debts, a desperate drinking habit, and frequent spats with studio executives, combined to undermine the remainder of his Hollywood career. In 2020, a movie directed by David Fincher and starring Gary Oldman as Mankiewicz was made about Herman, titled "Mank."
Motion Picture Screenwriter. The elder brother of Joseph Leo Mankiewicz. Educated at Columbia and at the University of Berlin, Mankiewicz began his writing career as a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Returning to the US, he became prominent in New York's cultural life as the assistant drama editor of The New York Times. He went to Hollywood in 1926 to write a screen story for Lon Chaney and remained with Paramount for several years as a prolific title, dialogue, and script writer, for a while pursuing a parallel career as a drama critic for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote numerous screenplays and adaptations and was largely responsible for the Academy Award-winning screenplay of "Citizen Kane" (1941), which he wrote in collaboration with Orson Welles. In addition to his many screen credits, he collaborated without receiving credit and was an executive producer on such films as "Laughter" (1930), "Horse Feathers" (1932), "Million Dollar Legs" (1932), and "Duck Soup" (1933). Enormous gambling debts, a desperate drinking habit, and frequent spats with studio executives, combined to undermine the remainder of his Hollywood career. In 2020, a movie directed by David Fincher and starring Gary Oldman as Mankiewicz was made about Herman, titled "Mank."
Bio by: MC
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