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- [00:01]
Ben Mankiewicz
Race the rudders. Raise the sails. Raise the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started today@LinkedIn.com Campaign terms and conditions apply.
- [00:31]
Podcast Caller
Hi, Ben.
- [00:32]
Hi, Ben.
- [00:33]
Hi, Ben.
- [00:34]
Hey, Ben. How's it going? This is Bob from Monterey.
- [00:36]
My name is Jan.
- [00:38]
This is Larry.
- [00:39]
My name is Sue. This is Mary from Indiana. Claristown, New Jersey. Tampa, Florida.
- [00:44]
Chicago. Houston, Texas.
- [00:47]
Here's my question.
- [00:49]
Ben Mankiewicz
Hey, there. I'm Ben Mankiewicz. Thanks for joining us for this bonus episode of the Plot Thickens. We just wrapped our sixth season about the making of Cleopatra from 1963, a production that was, as you certainly know by now, incredibly stressful, incredibly emotionally damaging for my great uncle, Joe Mankiewicz. We figured after listening, you might have some questions, and since this season had so much to do with my family, I wanted to try and answer them. We gave you a number to call into, and we didn't really know what to expect, but you guys came through. Turns out you have a lot of questions. We got hundreds of voicemails. I'm going to answer a few of them now. We'll get through as many as we can. So let's get it going. Let's play the first message.
- [01:37]
Podcast Caller
Hi, my name is Janine, and I'm an American living in Germany supporting the US forces over here. My question might be too personal for those involved. I don't know, and I apologize. I totally understand if you'd rather not answer. But here is my question. I'm a huge fan of Judy Garland and have read every biography I could get my hands on. So of course I knew about her relationship with your Uncle Joe, and I think it's a widely held belief that he was a great, maybe the great love of her life. And I think I read somewhere that she named her son Joey Luft after your Uncle Joe. And I've always wondered what the Mankiewicz family thought about that and if there's any truth to that rumor. So, anyway, thank you for everything. Thank you so much. And please bring us more podcasts. Thanks. Take care.
- [02:36]
Ben Mankiewicz
So, Jeanine, thank you for your service, first of all. And I got no problem answering that question. The problem is, I don't really know. There's no way to know for sure, although I do have an Interesting story, which I'll add at the end. I mean, here's the official answer. The. In the archive tapes that, that we listen to. Ken Geiss, Joe's biographer, asked Joe about it, and my uncle, he responds, I don't know. I don't know. So we really don't know if, If Joey L. Judy's son, was named for Joe. We do know that Joe and Judy talked occasionally over the years after the end of their relationship. When she died, Joe wrote a letter to Liza Minnelli, who, as you know, is. Is her most famous daughter, although Joe had never met Liza. And she wrote back, I know my mother loved you and I love you for it. Then, few years ago on the TCM cruise, Lorna Luft was a. One of our guests. And she said to me, and although I knew about Joe and Judy's relationship, I didn't even think about it when I saw Lorna, but she said to me, she gave me a really big warm hug and then she said something like, you and I could be cousins. So. So I think if you piece all that together, I think it's possible. I think that would show some compassion and understanding from Sid left that were the case. But he may have thought, yeah, this is someone from Judy's past who, who, who she loved, and maybe that's why. But I, I have no, I have no reason to believe it is or isn't. But there's nothing wrong with the question and it's fun to speculate about. All right, let's play the next voicemail.
- [04:22]
Podcast Caller
Hey, Ben, this is Zachary from Houston. I'd like to ask you, when you were preparing for a project on Cleopatra for the plot thickens, were you very nervous at first to go for your uncle's private diaries and, you know, the structure that he went through and the chaos that occurred. Thanks again. Bye. Bye.
- [04:44]
Ben Mankiewicz
So was I nervous about reading Joe's diaries? No, I was eager to read Joe's diaries. The diaries were incredibly revealing to me, just about who Joe was. And I guess he's a character that I. I don't even know why I mythologized him and why I saw him the way I did, as sort of distant and not terribly warm and as a remote figure who thought he was smarter than everybody. First of all, he. He was smarter than everybody, it turns out. You know, this guy went to Columbia at, I think 16, maybe 17, but I think he was at Columbia at 16 years old. Columbia University. So what I learned about Joe was that he was much more. I mean, this is gonna Sound so stupid, but he was much more human than I gave him credit for. And he was funny, and he was smart, and he was incredibly wounded by, by what happened to him professionally about Cleopatra. I don't think he blamed anyone other than himself. I don't think he pitied himself, but he. It bothered him. So. Joe is a fully rounded person who I wish I'd gotten to know better. And I, I, I very much wish I hadn't wasted, you know, 50 years putting him into a corner where he was sort of distant, remote, and autocratic and, you know, only wanted to talk about theater. And if you couldn't talk about George Bernard Shaw with him in a meaningful way, then he thought you were an idiot. There's really no reason for me to have believed that. But for some reason, that got into my head. So I was eager to look at the diaries. The diaries were a big part of unearthing what kind of person Joe was. But mostly it was talking to my cousin Alex and reading my cousin Nick's book and realizing that Joe was a far more complicated and interesting figure than I ever gave him credit for. And I'm a little embarrassed by how I felt about him before. And thanks for asking that question. All right, who's next?
- [06:41]
Podcast Caller
Hi, Ben. Great episode. Loved it. Here's my question. You talked a lot about the other stars with Cleopatra, but I didn't hear you mention Roddy McDowell. Great actor, wonderful man. Can you talk a little bit more about his role in the movie? And also, I've heard that he was good enough to get an Oscar nomination for Cleopatra, but the studio didn't submit his name to the Academy for. For the part or for that award. What a bummer. Let me know if that's true. My name is Sarah and I'm from Hastings, Michigan. Thanks. Looking forward to the next season.
- [07:19]
Bye.
- [07:19]
Ben Mankiewicz
Bye, Sarah. Thanks for the question. You weren't the only person to bring up Roddy McDowell in the relative absence of Roddy McDowell from the Cleopatra podcast. So let me say this. Roddy McDowell is, is what we like to call a mensch. Roddy was the kind of guy people went to with their problems. He was friends with Elizabeth Taylor. He was friends with Sybil Burton. They both went to him. They both talked about what they were going through because he was a decent person, but he just didn't talk about it. He did not share those stories with anyone else. Maybe he told intimate friends who he knew could keep a secret. I hope he did, because I feel bad if he had to sort of carry the Burden of all that, but. But it never got out. So problem is, there's really no audio about the story and he never gave an interview about. He just wouldn't talk about it. We tried. We looked his performance in. In. In Cleopatra, as, you know, as you saw, I played Octavian, was. Was. Was quite good. The thought, well, he was nominated for Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. The thought was he was. Would easily get an Oscar nomination, but 20th Century Fox messed up and submitted his name in the Best Actor category. And somehow there's no way to fix that problem, even when it's obvious, like, obviously he's not a Best Actor. There were two people who could be nominated for Best Actor from the movie. Roddy McDowell, not one of them. So it was a mistake on the part of the studio. They, the Fox, put a letter in, I think Variety, an open letter apologizing to Roddy McDowell for the M. It seems like that should be reparable, but I don't even know if it is now, but it certainly wasn't then. That friendship that he had with Elizabeth and with Sybil did not end with the production on Cleopatra. It continued for the rest of his life. When, When Roddy was dying of cancer in 1998, Elizabeth and. And Sybil were together by his side, and then they became friends. Roddy had this reputation in Hollywood, in fact, as Hollywood's best friend. Like. Like, it wasn't just that he knew Elizabeth's secrets and Sybil's secrets. There were other people, too. Again, we tried. We tried pretty hard to find stuff of Roddy, but as you can tell from what I just said, it wasn't there. David Camp, who's in the podcast, you heard him when he wrote that big Vanity Fair story about Cleopatra. Roddy wouldn't talk to him, but he did tell Elizabeth to talk to him. Like, he came to trust David, and he was like, look, I'm just not going to reveal anything. I'm not going to do it. It's not how I've lived my life. But I'll. I'll talk to Elizabeth and try and urge her to talk to you. And it worked. So I, I just, you know, I, I wish I'd known Roddy McDowell. I. But I think everyone wishes they'd known Roddy McDowell. And I'm. I feel bad that he wasn't a bigger player in the podcast, but in some ways, Roddy would think, yeah, you're right. I'm not a bigger player in the podcast because I. Because I know how to keep a secret. Anyway, Great question. Thanks. Thanks for listening and thanks for the kind words. Okay, on to the next question.
- [10:30]
Podcast Caller
Hey, Ben. This is Dan from Richmond, Virginia. Love tcm. Love. The plot thickens and love you. My question is, what came of all those massive sets and elaborate costumes from Cleopatra? Anything reused in subsequent films. Thanks.
- [10:48]
Ben Mankiewicz
Thanks, Dan. I'm from dc. I used to go to King's Dominion in Richmond. I thought that was the biggest amusement park in the world. Had no idea about Disneyland. I like Richmond. It's a nice place. Okay. Starting in London. We do know that some of the sets built at Pinewood were destroyed. There's actually newsreel footage of them being torn apart. Some of the costumes and props from Cleopatra did get used in a movie released, a British comedy released the next year, 1964, carry on Cleo. The Carry on series of films ran for, like, more than 25 years, and there were, I think, more than 25 films in the Carry on series. There were a lot of movies, but Carry On Cleo did reuse some costumes and props. It was a. A spoof of historical epics like Spartacus and. And Cleopatra. So that made sense. As for the sets, in Rome sets, they were taken apart after Cleopatra wrapped, but those parts stayed at Chinichita and I imagine showed up in. In various productions there over the years. But I don't. I don't know which ones, and I don't think anybody knows for certain. One thing that is a little odd is that I found odd is that I took the Warner Brothers TCM tour with my family, and they, you know, they. They were very nice. And. And, you know, let us stroll around the. The props warehouse where you can see a bunch of props from old stuff still gets requested, and you'll. Whether it's a TV show or a movie. And they're like, we want this. From th. This to this. There's. It's still being used, all these props. And I mean, there were toasters and phones from every type of phone from every type of era. It's crazy. And. And sporting equipment. Like, there's baseball gloves from the 1930s and 40s and tennis rackets and. And speed bags. Anyway, there was also stuff from Cleopatra. I said to the guy, hey, that looks like it's from Cleopatra. So, yeah, we think it is from Cleopatra. Why Warner Brothers had stuff from Cleopatra in Los Angeles, I couldn't tell you. I don't know. I don't know. But there is certainly stuff there that looks like it's from Cleopatra. And I was told that it is very likely From Cleopatra. And now some, some reason it's, it's Warner Brothers. They were props, but they were, they looked remarkably Egyptian. Anyway, it was incredibly cool and I wish I remembered specifically what it was, but, but I was struck by the presence of those in the Warner Brothers prop room. Anyway, good question. Thanks for it. Let's hear another one.
- [13:21]
Podcast Caller
Hi, this is Dan from Arcadia, California. We've heard what Elizabeth Taylor thought about the movie after seeing it. What did Richard Burton think about Cleopatra after it was released? We never have heard that. Thank you.
- [13:38]
Ben Mankiewicz
All right, Dan, thanks for the, thanks for the question. Richard Burton loved it and watched it every year on his birthday. No, that is not, that is not true. This is crazy. Richard Burton never saw Cleopatra. He used to say that it was a trailer for what the real movie should have been, which was the full six hour film that Joe Mankiewicz, that my uncle wanted two three hour movies, Cleopatra and Caesar and then Cleopatra and Mark Antony. So I can't, I'm, I find it stunning that he never saw the movie. So. But the, the, the, the good people at the Plot Thickens. Pulled this answer and I thought it was really good. I think you'll think it's good. Richard's biographer, Michael Munn, wrote about a conversation that he had with Richard toward the end of Burton's life. And I'm just going to read this. This is in Mun's voice. Over the years, he and I discussed the film, or rather I discussed it and he listened, barely agreeing with me on anything. But in 1984, I reminded him of the clever editing of a montage scene between Anthony and Cleopatra, which linked a single conversation over different scenes. One of Mankiewicz's brilliant touches talked about the devastation Richard portrayed as Anthony following his defeat at the Battle of Actium. Richard was a sick man by 1984 and was prepared to reflect on things past. And Mun writes here, this is all in Mun's voice. Mun says, I saw a tear run down his cheek and I believe for a few moments he was back on the set in Rome, making the character of Anthony, becoming Richard Burton and sweating blood to make him so. It was something special. He said, I never saw it. There you go. I never saw the movie. It was something special. Burton said, I never saw it, but I knew on the set it was going to be supposed to be something I would actually be proud of. But everyone hates it. Elizabeth hated it. And then Burton looked like he remembered something and said we were sailing to Capri on their yacht and 1970 or 71, we used to show films on board the yacht. And one night Elizabeth and all her children sat and watched Cleopatra. I wandered in and could only manage about 10 seconds and then went to bed. The next morning Elizabeth said to me, richard, it wasn't bad. And I said, what wasn't bad? And she said, cleopatra. I said, but you hate that movie. And Elizabeth said, I thought I did, but it's really not at all bad. And Richard, you were fabulous as Anthony. And then Richard, I guess as he's talking to, to Michael Munn said, so maybe you are right. If Elizabeth could sit through the picture and think it wasn't bad and I was good, then maybe you're right, Mick. And then writes Munn, for maybe only just 10 minutes or so, Richard asked me to tell him some of the scenes that I could recall. And I did, quoting single lines. Anthony struggling to push his sword into his own belly, saying, I always envied Rufio his long arms. Anthony single handedly challenging the entire army of Octavian, crying, will no one grant Anthony an honorable way to die? And then Munn quotes Richard. Ah, yes, I remember he said with a half smile, I was good, wasn't I? Anyway, you know, we gave, we gave Joe, Joe Manka with sort of a, a nice coda in the podcast of recognizing that he'd really made some good movies. And that made me feel good. And it makes me feel good to hear Burton recognizing that, yeah, I was, I was pretty good and I was good in this. And I'm glad that Elizabeth saw it and I'm glad she said that to him in the morning and said like, hey, it's not, it's actually, it's okay. And you were great. It's nice, it's nice. Anyway, thanks for the question. Hope that helped. Let's take a quick break. More of your questions and my answers coming up. If you thought goldenly breaded McDonald's chicken couldn't get more golden, think Golder, because new sweet and smoky special edition gold sauce is here made for your chicken favorites at. Participate in McDonald's for a limited time tonight. Turn down the noise of the day and focus on the rest with agz.
- [18:42]
Podcast Caller
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- [18:54]
Ben Mankiewicz
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- [18:57]
Podcast Caller
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- [19:01]
Ben Mankiewicz
Learn more@drinkagz.com okay, time for another voicemail. Let's Hear it?
- [19:12]
Podcast Caller
Hi, I'm Doug from Crowley Lake, California. And I just wondered, this great villain, I'm afraid, Daryl Zanuck, what, what happened to him after the movie? That's it.
- [19:25]
Ben Mankiewicz
Well, thanks, Doug. Darryl Zanuck is, he's one of the most important figures in the telling of the story of classic Hollywood. Starting as a writer at Warner Brothers and then through his decades leading Fox. I think you can say that, that if Cleopatra wasn't his last hurrah, it was the beginning of the last hurrah chapter. It was a bit of a freebie for him because he came in in the middle of production, a production that was already famous for the scandalous way it went over budget and the literal scandal of the movie, the affair between Richard and Elizabeth. So Zanuck was in a position where if it bombed, you know, he could, he could blame it on Spiroscurus and the previous administration and say there was nothing he could do. And if it was a hit, it was because he came in, returned to Fox gloriously and came to the rescue. As it turned out, neither of those things happened. Cleopatra was the highest grossing movie in 1963. Always worth mentioning when you talk about Cleopatra because it's seen as this off the rails movie that nearly bankrupted a studio. But it was the highest grossing movie, but it didn't turn a profit because of the, the huge budget. But all that money that comes back in still comes into Fox and becomes their operating budget. And then in 1965, Zanuck leading Fox makes the Sound of Music, which is a, a huge hit. And then in 19, I think 66, when, when the studio, when Fox sells Cleopatra to television, all of a sudden Cleopatra is in the black. It started to turn a profit. So Cleopatra ended up making money. Sound of Music made money. Fox was back in as a, you know, major player and the crisis was averted. So Zanuck, I'm sure, could hang his hat on that, but his second run at Fox was nothing like his first. There were some other successes they made, they made mash, they made Patton, which won the best Picture Oscar. So, so Fox did have some hits, but out of 10 Fox movies lost money during Xanax. Second run. That information comes from Scott Iman, who really great storyteller about classic Hollywood, good friend to TCM, and, and Scott wrote a history of 20th Century Fox. So eventually, with seven out of 10 movies failing, 70% failure rate, the, the Fox board wanted to get rid of Zanuck in 1970, they fired his son Richard, who was then president of the studio and they fired him and his dad Daryl let the board do it. He didn't do anything because if he'd fought it, he probably would have gotten fired then too. Daryl did it so he could stay in power a little bit longer. He probably should have left on principle with his son. I don't know their dynamics. But it didn't matter that he stayed in power a little while longer. It was very short lived. Just a few months later, in the early part of 1971, Darrell Zanuck was fired as well by the Fox board. That was the end of his comebacks. He was then in his late 60s. He died eight years later, et cetera. 77 in 1979. All right, that was a great question. Now another one.
- [22:31]
Podcast Caller
Michael from Valley Village, tell us about the nexus between the budget and expenditures for Cleopatra and the sale of the back lot and the development of what is now Century City. Thank you, Michael.
- [22:46]
Ben Mankiewicz
Thank you for that question. I have trouble answering any questions that use the word nexus and then require me to know anything about economics. But I'm going to try because there are a couple of interesting misconceptions about that, about Cleopatra and what is now Century City, which is a really prime location in Los Angeles. It's not so much that it's nice, although America's best outdoor mall, the Century City Mall is right there. But Century City is like right next to Beverly Hills, like in between Westwood and, and, and Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. It is, it is the center of the city. But that is not why it's called Century City. It's called Century City because the land there was purchased from 20th Century Fox. So the misconception is, is that Fox sold the land because of the cost overruns on Cleopatra. But that's not true because that process for the sale started in 1956. Obviously Cleopatra was not in production in 1956. That happened right after Gerald Zanuck left the studio. They were hurting for cash. So Spiroscuros, who took over from Zanic, he started looking into in the mid-50s to how much late to mid-50s, how much money the Fox the property was worth, the studio and the huge backlot. And then in 59, still before Cleopatra, Fox finally sold the property to a developer, big time developer named William Seckendorf. And he had a partner. His partner was Alcoa. Anybody who watched a football in the 1970s know that knows that Alcoa can't wait. We can't wait. We can't wait for tomorrow. Alcoa can't wait. Anyway, so, and then the developer leased about a third of that land back to Fox. Really, the Fox studio that it is today, that's. That happened in May of 1959. It wasn't, it was more than a year before Cleopatra started production. Elizabeth Taylor was not even signed on to play Cleopatra. Original sale price, 56 million doll to be paid in installments over 10 years. But then in August of 1960, Fox agreed to take it all in one lump sum for $43 million. Obviously they, they needed money, but again, August 1960, that can't be because of crazy cost overruns on Cleopatra. So now the land that Fox sold for $43 million, back in the deal when it closed in, in 1960, when they took the $43 million now worth, you know, more than $6 billion. So obviously Fox should have made a better deal. But whatever, they needed it then. That's what I'm saying, they made a better deal. I know nothing about business. That's the deal they made then. That's how much money they got. It is funny to me and interesting that the land sold for $43 million in Cleopatra basically cost $43 million. So the way people tell the story, Cleopatra was tied to the sale, but the sale happened before Cleopatra. Thanks for the, thanks for the question, Michael. All right, let's play another voicemail.
- [25:53]
Podcast Caller
Hello, my name is Guy, I'm in Washington D.C. and I have sort of a three part question. You mentioned during the podcast that your uncle's preferred version of the film was to have edited as two three hour movies. One, Cleopatra and Caesar and the second Cleopatra and Catherine Anthony. But then eventually the film was re edited to kind of a single shorter film. I was wondering, one, does the footage exist that the two three hour versions could be assembled like, or was the, or all the negatives destroyed? Two, did your uncle leave behind any notes or information on how he saw the editing of those two films? Kind of like how Orson Welles left the famous memo for the Touch of Evil. And three, do you think there would be any interest from Fox's current owner, Disney in assembling such a version? Hashtag release the Mankiewicz cut.
- [26:48]
Ben Mankiewicz
Thanks Guy in dc. Thank you. Hashtag Release the Mankiewicz cut. Yeah, that's great. I love that. That's awesome. Not going to happen. It would appear not because of anybody being petty or sinister. And this. By the way, I'm from dc. I spent yesterday with a tremendous amount of work to do about 28 minutes deciding whether I should buy a vintage Bobby Dandridge 1978 Bullets jersey, which you can't wear because you look like a. And then I would frame it and hang it because, you know, Bobby D was really key to the Bullets winning the title in 78. But you know, that guy. And that's really what people want to hear me talk about anyway. And Guy, by the way, this is the most asked question that we got here by far. People want to know exactly what you're asking. Can Joe's cut be reassembled? Will we ever get a chance to see it? So the answer is not. Not a good one. According to my cousin Chris Makowitz, who. Who died earlier this year, Joe always wanted Fox to let him re edit the movie. Fox never gave him that chance. And. But after Joe died, I think he died in 93. Fox then started a worldwide search for the missing footage. My cousin Tom, Chris's brother, played a. A role in that. Tom was. Became very interested. Tom was trying to get it done also. But the problem is, is that when Fox started actively looking for it, they didn't find much. There's a scene of Elizabeth Taylor walking around her camp in Egypt that was supposed to be in Joe's version. That would have been the first time we saw Cleopatra on screen. They found some stuff from the procession that had been cut that had not been destroyed, but they didn't find much else. So I mean, if you want to be. If they've. I don't think there'd be any reason to be quiet about it if they found it. So I think it got destroyed in a fire or lost or destroyed. The way film was regularly destroyed, that wasn't used. You know, most of Hollywood history is marked by the. The film that wasn't used being thrown away. You know, there was no. There's no reason to save it. No movie was going to get recut, especially a movie that was done and pretty good. There were no, you know, there's no DVDs, so there's no bonus features. The idea that somebody would want to see material that was. That was, you know, left on the cutting room floor was inconceivable. So that doesn't mean. Based on how some other stuff has turned up, not from Cleopatra, but just how we found lost movies. But keep in mind, when, when we find lost, when, when archivists or people stumble into a basement and find out that there exists old movies, it's probably not footage of a movie. It's usually the movie. I don't think Disney is sitting on it because why wouldn't they? You're telling Me on DVD they could have a release and then on a DVD or Blu Ray or streaming whatever that they couldn't do. You how many people would buy a even people without a DVD player? TCM fans would buy the Joe Makeowitz three hour Cleopatra movies. So if Disney had it, they'd do it, they'd sell it and people would be interested in it. So I don't think it's out there and hopefully it'll somebody will stumble across it one day, but I unfortunately think that's it. It strikes me as incredibly unlikely at this point because there was some real effort to find it. But thanks for the question. Thanks to everybody who asked that, asked that question and, and, and guy in particular for being from dc. All right, on to the next question.
- [30:30]
Podcast Caller
Ben, this is Sam from Factoryville, Pennsylvania which is located less than an hour away from Wilkes Barre. Could you please provide any insights why your great uncle Joe like to mention Wilkes Barry and his movies. The Mankiewicz's only lived there a few years. In fact I've located the house they lived in according to one of the censuses. Also there's a story floating around that one of the Mankiewicz boys have their bicycle stolen outside a library in Wilkes Barre and it was made by the Rosebud Bicycle Company. Factor Myth. I'm a big fan of tcm. Keep up the good work Sam.
- [31:09]
Ben Mankiewicz
Thanks for the question Sam. I love big city America. I love small town America and I love the names of towns and I have not heard of Factorville, Pennsylvania but it is immediately in the top eight best town names in America. I'm gonna put it at 6, maybe higher. Great name. Thanks for the question. Okay, so why did Joe Ann Herman, his brother, my grandfather Herman Mankiewicz put Wilkes Barry in in their films? They thought the name was amusing like Wilkes Barre. Not a great name for a town. Hard to even make your mouth say the words. I wish they had been from Factor Ville. Okay, so they. Joe was 4 when the family left Wilkes Barre in, in 1913 to go to New York and Herman was I think 11 or 12 years older than, than Joe. And in addition to the name amusing them, they sort of, you know when they would talk to each other and then to other screenwriters, Wilkes Barry was shorthand for small town American ways. So the bike story, and this is a great story about memory and how unreliable it is according to Sydney Stern and her in her biography of the brothers Mankowitz it's called which is definitely worth reading if you care about the history of Herman and Joe. But Sydney's book has that story and that when Herman was, like 10 years old, he. He badly wanted a bicycle for Christmas. It doesn't come on Christmas morning, but it comes a few months later and is proudly. His. His father, Franz, and his mother, Johanna give him the bike, and he loves it. One day, he was grounded for something. I can't imagine what it was. Maybe gambling at 10. Anyway, Herman snuck out and he rode his bike to the public library in Wilkes Barre, where he went all the time and where he would read books. Herman may have been Herman and Joe, probably the two best read brothers in American history. Certainly they're in the. They're. They're 1 percenters in terms of being well read. When he came out of the library after spending the day there reading, the bike was gone. It had been stolen. His parents were furious. They refused to replace it. And Herman had said that the sense of loss was so profound that he remembered that feeling of losing the bike when he wrote the scene of Charles Foster Kane whispering Rosebud at as he died as his last word, remembering. What we now know at the end of the movie was the sled. But in my memory, the bike is. Was made by the Rosebud Company. I. And I have. I have been corrected on it again and again and again. And I continue to tell people that that was the name of the company. It's like, I don't want to hear that it wasn't the Rosebud company that made the bike. I don't know how many people I've lied to now, but I regret it, and I'm sorry. And each time I hear that it wasn't and it's not. This is not the first time I think, okay, I gotta get it right from now on. But you know what, Sam? In facterville, Pennsylvania, I probably won't. But now you know it, and now it's. Now it's on tape anyway. Thanks, Sam.
- [34:27]
Podcast Caller
Hi, Ben. My name is Daniela. I'm calling from Orlando, Florida. And first of all, I absolutely love your podcast. The Plot Thickens is something I look forward to on my drive home from work. My question for you would be, if you could get in a time machine and be on set with your great Uncle Joe, what film would you go back to of his and why? All right, thank you, Daniela.
- [34:53]
Ben Mankiewicz
Thank you very much for that question. I could go back in a time machine. Probably wouldn't go to one of Joe's sets. I take, like, whatever money I had, and I would. I would go to, like, Deadwood, and I'D be like, I have $7,000. I can do whatever I want here. That's always what I think. If you go to time machine and bring your money, man, you could do some damage in the 19th century. But that's not your question. Daniela. If I had to pick a Joe movie, I think it's pretty obvious. My first thought, of course, was All About Eve, but I am. I don't think that's right. I'm gonna go with, so. Joe's career was so remarkable in that period of time. When he started, when he came, you know, the first movie he directed was Dragon Wick. He wrote the screenplay for. And then there were still a couple of movies like ghost of Mrs. Muir, which, again, think something I get wrong, I forget he didn't write that script. He just directed that. Letter to Three Wives is the first, like, the movie that feels like a Joe Mankiewicz movie. Not knocking Dragonwick, but that Letter to Three Wives, which won the Oscar. Two Oscars for Joe. That's where he's a writer, director. And then the next year came. Later that year was House of Strangers, which is really good. And then came all about. Even 1950, but in between a lair to three wives, then house of Strangers and. And before All About Eve was the movie that I would go back to because it's Joe, right before All About Eve, at his best with a movie that is, to me, in many ways, more unlike some other Joe movies, and that it doesn't feel as stagey. I don't mean that to sound like the criticism that it probably does, because that's what Joe wanted and All About. He's a pretty perfect movie, but no Way out, which was Sidney Poitier's debut. Joe cast Sidney Poitier in his first film. Poitier lied about his age because he thought he was. I think he was 22. And he thought. He said he was like, 26, because he thought, they will never believe I'm a doctor if I say I'm 22. Poitier, one of my favorite actors, is the story of a black doctor, I think, in Milwaukee. I hope I'm not wrong about that. I'm not. I'm deliberately not looking it up. Linda Darnell, Richard Woodmark, Sidney Poitier. And Poitier is a. A black doctor in a city. And Richard Widmark and his brother are criminals, and they commit this crime. And I think the brother, the Woodmark, they both get wounded, and Widmark, his brother is dying, and Pawdie is going to be the surgeon to Treat him. And Woodmark doesn't want a black guy taking care of his brother. And then the story goes from there. But it's a, a, It's a great film. So I think I'd go back there to 1950, and I, I ran into City Party. I'd only been at tcm, like, a year or two, if my memory serves me, which would have put this at 2003 or 2004. I was a big UCLA basketball fan, and my, my folks went there and I grew up in dc, Still a big UCLA fan. And I. So I go to some Bruin hoop games and I was at the. I was at Bali pavilion in, like, 2004, and I see Poitier. He's walking on the concourse. And I think it was the year after Poitier got a. His honorary Oscar. So I might have the year wrong, but people can check me on that. So it was right after Poitier had gotten his honorary Oscar. And he said in his speech, he thanked Joe Mankiewicz for giving him the role in no Way Out. And so I was like, I'm going to talk to him. I feel weird. I'm going to go up to him. Other people were going up to him. Of course, he's very tall sine party. I mean, he was just a striking figure in every way. And I, I get a moment, I go, hey, I'm sorry, Mr. Poitier. And I'm sure I don't usually call people by their last name, but I did. There I was like, Mr. Pawania and Ben Mankiewicz work at TCM. And my. I'm Joe Mankiewicz. And before I could even say I'm Joe Mankiewicz's nephew, he goes, are you related to Joe? I go, yeah, he's my great uncle. And he put party A, put his hands on my shoulders and, and, and said, I wouldn't be in this business without your Uncle Joe. And I go, it was really kind of you to mention him. He goes, I. I would never have accepted if they told me I couldn't mention Joe, I wouldn't have accepted the honorary Oscar. Preposterous that they wouldn't allowed him to mention Joe, but it was a nice thing to say. And he talked to me for. I don't know what he said, but, like 80 seconds of him sort of focused, laser focused on me. And I was in the spell of Sidi Poitier. And it was, it was really nice. Everything he said was, you know, personal and how much that meant to him. And so I'd go back to no Way Out. And thanks for the question. That seems like a good place to end things. I want to thank everybody who called in. I'm sorry we couldn't answer every question, but I really appreciate all the thoughtful questions and all the kind words you had about the plot thickens. It means a lot, not just to me, but to everybody who worked on this podcast. We're already hard at work on the next season. It's a good one, so stay tuned for more. Until then, thanks for listening and be sure to tell your friends about the Plot Thickens that actually matters. Thanks.