Joe

Summary

The Plot Thickens: Episode "Joe" – A Deep Dive into Joe Mankiewicz's Life and Legacy

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Plot Thickens
• Host/Author: TCM (Ben Mankiewicz)
• Season: Sixth (Focus: Cleopatra)
• Episode: Joe
• Release Date: July 24, 2025

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1. Introduction

In the second episode of the sixth season of The Plot Thickens, titled "Joe," host Ben Mankiewicz delves into the tumultuous life of his great uncle, Joe Mankiewicz. A celebrated writer and director in Hollywood, Joe's career was marked by both monumental successes and personal tragedies. This episode intricately weaves through Joe's early beginnings, his rise in the film industry, his complex personal relationships, and the catastrophic production of the film Cleopatra.

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2. Early Life and Entry into Hollywood

a. Family Background

Joe Mankiewicz was born into a family with a strong foothold in the entertainment industry. His father, Franz Mankiewicz, was a stern and domineering figure, while his older brother, Herman, was a successful screenwriter known for his talent and tumultuous personal life. Growing up under a father who had little regard for Hollywood, Joe found himself seeking solace and identity outside his family's shadow.

Notable Insight:

"I was a midget in a family of giants, all highly articulate, opinionated, extroverted, argumentative and given to much bellowing." – Joe Mankiewicz [14:07]

b. Entering Hollywood

At 19, fresh out of college and battling depression, Joe wrote to his brother Herman for help. Herman, already a successful screenwriter at Paramount Pictures, welcomed Joe into Hollywood, albeit with a condition tied to his sobriety.

Key Moment:

"And Herman sent a telegram to Joe that said, for Christ's sake, come to Hollywood." – Nick Davis (Biographer) [12:26]

Joe's arrival in Hollywood was marked by enthusiasm and awe, attending lavish parties and immersing himself in the bustling world of film production.

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3. Rise in the Film Industry

a. Early Career and Challenges

Joe's initial role in Hollywood involved writing title cards for silent films. However, as the industry transitioned to "talkies," his talent for dialogue became evident. Demonstrating his dedication, Joe penned six versions of a single script, showcasing his versatility and commitment.

Highlight:

"He plays the politics of Hollywood very well." – Scott Iman [21:16]

b. Directorial Success

Joe's breakthrough came with the screenplay for Skippy (1931), which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay when he was just 22. This success propelled him into the limelight, allowing him to write numerous screenplays over the next few years.

Significant Achievement:

"A Letter to Three Wives" opened at Radio City Music Hall in January of 1949 to rave reviews. – Narrator [28:15]

"Joe won two Oscars that night, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director." – Narrator [28:46]

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4. Personal Relationships and Marriages

a. Affairs with Hollywood Actresses

Joe's charisma and intelligence made him a desirable figure among Hollywood's leading ladies. He had notable affairs with icons such as Joan Crawford and Judy Garland, often forming deep emotional connections with these talented yet troubled women.

Reflective Quote:

"He would talk to them about their mothers, about psychiatry, and about how difficult it must be to have grown up with your mother." – Scott Iman [38:25]

b. Marriage to Rosa Stradner

In 1939, Joe married Austrian actress Rosa Stradner. Their marriage was a blend of love and turmoil, marked by Rosa's severe mental health issues. Despite attempts to support her, including sending her to the esteemed Menninger Clinic, their relationship was fraught with challenges, leading to Rosa's tragic suicide in 1958.

Emotional Insight:

"She was schizophrenic. I mean, in the sense that with a couple of drinks, which was usually the trigger, she became a totally different human being and one that was at times violent and could be cruel. And yet she was a loving, wonderful mother." – Joe Mankiewicz [40:07]

Impact of Loss: Joe's reaction to Rosa's death was complex. Contrary to expectations of relief, he was devastated, leading him to make impulsive decisions such as selling his apartment and embarking on a solitary journey to Europe to heal.

Diary Entry Reflection:

"Should the ship sink, I can think of no one aboard this dreary vessel who will leave the world emptier." – Joe Mankiewicz [45:11]

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5. The Cleopatra Crisis

a. Contract and Relocation to London

In January 1961, at 52, Joe secured a lucrative contract with 20th Century Fox to direct Cleopatra, a project seen as Fox's make-or-break endeavor to reclaim audiences lost to television.

Strategic Move:

"It was basically a guy in Vegas down to his last $20,000, betting everything." – Scott Iman [06:40]

b. Challenges on Set

Shortly after beginning work, the production faced significant setbacks. The original director, Reuben Mamoulian, had shot only minimal footage under his brief tenure. Joe assessed the disorganized sets and chaotic production environment, leading him to advocate for a complete restart.

Determined Decision:

"We’re going to have to get up for a complete new start on this thing." – Joe Mankiewicz [08:43]

c. Elizabeth Taylor's Illness

On March 4, 1961, Elizabeth Taylor, the star of Cleopatra, fell gravely ill with pneumonia and slipped into a coma. Joe, deeply connected both professionally and personally, stood by her side during the harrowing hours of her medical crisis.

Heartfelt Moment:

"I pushed them out of the way. I tried to stop them from taking pictures. It was absurd. My wife was dying and I was protecting her from the media." – Joe Mankiewicz [01:11]

Despite the chaos and media frenzy, Elizabeth survived the operation but remained in critical condition, delaying the production indefinitely.

Press Misreporting:

"The press had mistakenly reported Liz's death, a fact that always amused her." – Narrator [52:24]

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6. Balancing Personal Grief and Professional Duties

Joe's handling of Elizabeth Taylor's medical emergency showcased his resilience and dedication. While the production of Cleopatra was on hold, Joe grappled with his uncle's personal loss and the project's precarious status.

Emotional Fortitude:

"Elizabeth's life had all the twists and turns of a great soap opera plot, but it was bigger and more complicated. And it was real." – Joe Mankiewicz [53:22]

This period was a testament to Joe's ability to maintain composure amidst personal and professional upheavals, a recurring theme throughout his career.

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7. Joe's Directorial Philosophy and Legacy

Joe Mankiewicz was renowned for his sophisticated storytelling, particularly his ability to craft compelling female characters. His films, such as A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve, are celebrated for their sharp wit, strong female leads, and intricate character dynamics.

Creative Passion:

"Anybody will ever write a foil film or a book about a remarkable woman in which everything will be known. I think you do it about a man, but you can't do it about a woman." – Joe Mankiewicz [32:01]

Joe's commitment to authentic storytelling and character development not only earned him multiple Academy Awards but also left an indelible mark on Hollywood's cinematic landscape.

Critical Acclaim:

"All About Eve became an immediate hit. It earned a record breaking 14 Oscar nominations." – Narrator [33:09]

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8. Conclusion and Reflections

Joe Mankiewicz's life was a blend of artistic brilliance and personal tribulations. From his meteoric rise in Hollywood to his struggles with personal relationships and the catastrophic Cleopatra production, Joe's story is a poignant reflection of the complexities faced by those behind the silver screen. His legacy endures through his acclaimed films and the indomitable spirit he exhibited in both triumph and adversity.

Final Thoughts:

"Joe was absolutely wonderful. He sat when I was in this coma, he sat in my room. Evidently, day after day, he just sat there." – Ben Mankiewicz [51:27]

As The Plot Thickens continues to unravel the layers of Cleopatra's production, the intricate tapestry of Joe Mankiewicz's life serves as a compelling narrative of passion, resilience, and the relentless pursuit of cinematic excellence.

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Upcoming in "The Plot Thickens"

In the next segments of the episode, listeners will explore the further complexities of Cleopatra's production, Joe Mankiewicz's casting decisions, and the intertwining personal lives that ultimately contributed to the film's infamous legacy.

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Notable Quotes and Attributions:

• "Der Tag. It means the day Joe was fluent in German..." – Joe Mankiewicz [04:07]
• "And I knew what I had to do. I just didn't know how to do it." – Joe Mankiewicz [02:02]
• "He was always the person who saw all of his work first, the scripts." – Joe Mankiewicz [41:48]
• "My husband. Joe is insane." – Ben Mankiewicz [48:35]
• "A Letter to Three Wives. Joe won two Oscars that night, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director." – Narrator [28:46]

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the essence of the "Joe" episode, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of Joe Mankiewicz's multifaceted life and his pivotal role in one of Hollywood's most notorious film productions.

Transcript

[Scott Iman]

The McDonald's Snack Wrap is back.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

You brought it back.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Ranch snack wrap.

[Narrator]

Spicy snack wrap.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

You broke the Internet for a snack?

[Narrator]

Snack wrap is back.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Ba ba ba ba ba.

[Narrator]

On March 4, 1961, the most famous actress in the world slipped into a coma. Elizabeth Taylor had been sick on and off since she'd arrived in London to lead the cast of Cleopatra. Her latest illness turned into a serious case of pneumonia. She and her husband, Eddie Fisher, were staying at a historic London hotel, the Dorchester. Eddie called an ambulance.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

It seemed like it took a long time for the ambulance to arrive. There was only a few minutes.

[Narrator]

Eddie is reading from his own memoir, Been There, Done that.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

They strapped Elizabeth on a stretcher and took her downstairs to the ambulance. As we raced through the streets of London at about 100 miles an hour, the doctor stuck a rubber tube down Elizabeth's throat.

[Narrator]

As they pulled up to the London clinic, reporters were everywhere.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I pushed them out of the way. I tried to stop them from taking pictures. It was absurd. My wife was dying and I was protecting her from the media. They rushed her directly into the operating room. Somebody, I have no idea who, brought me into a little waiting room and left me there. The first person to arrive at the hospital was Joe Mankiewicz.

[Narrator]

Joe Mankiewicz is my dad's uncle, so he's my great uncle. Joe was one of the top writer directors in Hollywood. He was in London to begin work on Cleopatra. But instead of making a movie, Joe was sitting in a hospital waiting room with Eddie Fisher. Soon, a doctor appeared and told Eddie that Elizabeth's condition was critical. They needed his signature to operate.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Without the operation, she would be dead within an hour. I knew what I had to do. I just didn't know how to do it. I was nearly hysterical. I was sure she was dying. Mankiewicz said firmly, go ahead and sign it, Eddie.

[Narrator]

Eddie paced during the surgery. I imagine my uncle smoking his pipe nearby, trying to hide his own anxiety.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Mankiewicz stayed with me through the night, constantly reassuring me that Elizabeth would be fine. Finally, the doctor walked into the waiting room. I was ready for him to tell me she was dead. Instead, he told me she had survived the operation.

[Narrator]

Eddie collapsed into his chair. Liz was alive, but not out of the woods. She was still in critical condition. Fans gathered outside. Cleopatra's producer, Walter Wanger, was glued to the radio because the hospital issued updates on Liz. Every 15 minutes, Wanger said, baskets of mail arrived for Elizabeth.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

60,000 of your friends are praying.

[Narrator]

We're with you, Liz.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

And outside the street, there were people praying and singing.

[Narrator]

The doctors watched Elizabeth closely over the next couple of days. When her breathing slowed again, they ordered a special ventilator from a county 60 miles away. It arrived under police escort. My uncle had been working on Cleopatra for just a month now. His leading lady was fighting for her life. I suspect, Joe thought, it can't get any worse than this. Whatever he thought, he had no idea what was coming.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Foreign.

[Narrator]

From Turner Classic Movies, I'm your host, Ben Mankiewicz. This is season six of the Plot Thickens, a podcast about the movies and the people who make them. This season, Cleopatra. How an epic production pushed my uncle Joe Mankiewicz to his breaking point. This is episode two, Joe. The weeks leading up to Elizabeth's operation were a whirlwind for Joe Mankiewicz. On January 26, 1961, he signed a contract with 20th Century Fox, a contract that made him a millionaire at 52 years old. It also made him the director of Cleopatra. You win some, you lose some. The day the deal was done, Joe wrote in his diary, in all capital letters, der Tag. It means the day Joe was fluent in German. Der Tag is a popular German toast given before battle. So in Joe's mind, he was going to war. One of his first calls was to his assistant, Adelaide Wallace.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

And I said, when do they want to start?

[Narrator]

And he told me some weird thing like May or June.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

And he went to England and couldn't.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Understand how they ever got the idea.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

In the beginning to do it in England.

[Narrator]

Joe flew from New York to London on February 1, a Wednesday. That night he had drinks at the hotel bar at Claridge's with Walter Wanger and with the man who had made him rich, the head of 20th Century Fox, Spiros Skouros.

[Scott Iman]

He was a round little bald headed Greek guy.

[Narrator]

That's Scott Iman. He wrote a book on The History of 20th Century Fox. Spyro Skuros had a thick Greek accent and often rubbed the worry beads he kept in his pocket. 1961 was a tough time to be running a major motion picture studio. During the 1950s, movies lost roughly half their audience to television. TV was free and you didn't have to leave your house. Iman says Skouros was betting on Cleopatra to lure audiences back to theaters.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Skouros, with the water basically at his.

[Scott Iman]

Chin, decides to roll the dice and.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Go for a make or break production.

[Scott Iman]

That would show the industry and the.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Public at large the that Fox was.

[Narrator]

Still in the game.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

It was basically a guy in Vegas down to his last $20,000, betting everything.

[Scott Iman]

On the last roll of the Dice.

[Narrator]

The following day, Joe went to a theater to screen the Cleopatra footage Reuben Mamoulian had shot. Mamoulian was the director who had just resigned. The screening didn't take long because there was barely any footage. Somewhere between seven and 12 minutes, depending on who you're talking to. This is my uncle Joe in 1972.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I had no idea what I was going to do with Cleopatra. I couldn't use any. Anything that had been shot.

[Narrator]

It's a little hard to hear at the end, but Joe says he couldn't use anything that had been shot. Next, Joe went to London's Pinewood Studios to look at the massive sets in John de Cure had designed for Cleopatra.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

And John de Cure couldn't even tell me what the sets were for. He had one that was for underwater shooting. I said, what was Ruben going to do here? What was this for, John? And he said it was an underwater ballet. One of the things he shot was a kind of a mating dance between two horses, a stallion and a mare with two doubles. One was supposed to be Cleopatra riding a mare and one was Anthony riding a stallion.

[Narrator]

That night, Joe wrote in his diary that the sets were, quote, blood curdling. Joe didn't blame John to Cure. He knew the Cure was a talented set designer. But it was all a mess.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

And I knew that none of the wardrobe and none of the sets could be used and none of the film that was shot to be used.

[Narrator]

On top of all that, the original script was, in Joe's words, dreadful. An opera without music, which sounds exactly like something Joe would say. After two weeks in London, Joe decided there was only one way to solve this. But he had to convince Spiros Skuros.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I said, spiros, we're going to have to get up for a complete new start on this thing and told us to scour us. And he took it with extremely good grace.

[Narrator]

It is hard to believe Skuros took it with good grace. He'd already spent at least $5 million on Cleopatra. But either way, he gave in to Joe.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

You're the second director who's been on this phone.

[Narrator]

And days later, Fox set up a press conference for Joe to talk about the new plan.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

It isn't like having a general replaced in the midst of a losing battle. I'm starting a film called Cleopatra. And we start. We're starting from scratch.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Starting all over again.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Yes, we're starting all over again.

[Narrator]

Joe got what he wanted, a clean slate. But he and Scurris disagreed about how to handle the script. Joe wanted time to rewrite it. Scourus wanted him to start shooting immediately, which meant Joe would have to write and direct at the same time. Here's Joe's agent and good friend, Robbie Lance.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Now, Joe, somehow in his bones, must have known from the first day that he had sold out to the devil. None of this was right. Joe, secondly, knew and every in his blood that you don't begin a picture without the script.

[Narrator]

Joe knew this because he'd been making movies for more than 30 years. He understood the stakes. At one point, he sent a telegram to scour us Spiros. I have taken the most gigantic, the most difficult, the most, in many ways the most frightening undertaking of my career, he wrote. I am only too well aware that it involves not only the creation of a great film, but also the very existence of a great studio. Talk about pressure. We'll be back after the break. This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

[Scott Iman]

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[Narrator]

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[Scott Iman]

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[Ben Mankiewicz]

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[Scott Iman]

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[Ben Mankiewicz]

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[Scott Iman]

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[Narrator]

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[Scott Iman]

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[Joe Mankiewicz]

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[Scott Iman]

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[Joe Mankiewicz]

Sold.

[Scott Iman]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Narrator]

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[Ben Mankiewicz]

Busy taxes and fees extra.

[Narrator]

See mintmobile.com In 1929, decades before Cleopatra, Joe Mankiewicz was fresh out of college and working in Europe. He graduated early. He was only 19. But my cousin Nick Davis says he was depressed.

[Scott Iman]

He completely ran out of money. He didn't know what he was doing.

[Narrator]

Joe wrote a letter to his brother Herman, my grandfather who was working as a screenwriter in Hollywood at the time.

[Scott Iman]

And Herman sent a telegram to Joe that said, for Christ's sake, come to Hollywood. And so Joe did.

[Narrator]

Herman was 11 years older than Joe. Nick wrote a book about Herman and Joe called Competing With Idiots.

[Scott Iman]

Joe worshiped Harmon because Herman was larger than life, a fantastic, swirling, wonderful figure of warmth and brilliance and powerful, violent outbursts. He was the only person who stood up to their father, who was domineering and terrifying.

[Narrator]

Their father was Franz Mankiewicz. He died before I was born, but I've heard a lot about Franz over the years. He was my great grandfather. I'm now the custodian, in fact, of a large portrait of Franz that hung above the fireplace in Joe's study. He looks stern in the painting, more like disapproving, which I guess is true to life. Franz was tough on his kids, but he was the toughest on Hermann. Sidney Stern wrote a biography called the Brothers Mankiewicz.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

The father that Herman had for the first few years of his life was a relatively recent immigrant who was very frustrated with his lot in life. And he was educated and smart and drank too much.

[Narrator]

When Herman got a 92 on a test, Franz would ask, what happened to the other eight points?

[Ben Mankiewicz]

He was very hard on Herman, always.

[Narrator]

By the time Herman left home, Franz was working regularly and was a little less bitter. There is no doubt Joe experienced a different version of their father.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Joe was a beneficiary, we would say now, of benign neglect. Right. His father was gone. His father didn't pay that much attention to him. Another feature of his childhood was that to save money, the family was always moving around New York, sometimes one step ahead of the rent collector.

[Narrator]

Joe withdrew. Years later, he wrote a description of his childhood. I was a midget in a family of giants, all highly articulate, opinionated, extroverted, argumentative and given to much bellowing. Every time I hear that description, it reminds me of me. My brother Josh, my only sibling, is 12 years older than I am. As a young kid, I was incredibly shy. My mom and dad were so smart and opinionated, and so was my brother. I hardly said a word at home. Anyway, I hear that and I immediately identify with Joe. At an early age, Joe became an observer, watching the adult world. Sometimes he was terrified by it, like the time his mother, in a rage, threw Franz's books all around the apartment. This is Joe in a 1983 documentary called All About Mankiewicz.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Arguments went on, thundered over my head, and I would. I wouldn't have to cope with them. And I lived with a great many fantasies, a tremendous number of fantasies as a child. And one of them, I imagined, was that of being a psychiatrist and solving everybody's problems.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Joe was an amateur therapist. At college. He imagined he would become a psychiatrist, but he was so bad in science that his physics teacher gave him an F minus. But he remained a student not only of humans, but of psychiatry. He loved psychiatrists, and psychiatrists loved him back because he spoke their language in a very Freudian way.

[Narrator]

Joe's father, Franz, eventually got his PhD and became a professor. He wanted, even expected, his sons to become teachers, too.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Everything Herman and Joe did professionally, they felt, fell short of what their father envisioned.

[Narrator]

When Herman invited Joe to come to Hollywood in 1929, Herman was on top of the world. He was writing scripts for Paramount Pictures. He was good at it, and he was making a lot of money.

[Scott Iman]

Herman was, as we know, the first of the great Eastern writers to come out to Hollywood and make a fortune.

[Narrator]

Herman thought he'd struck gold, so he sent word back to a friend, another writer in New York.

[Scott Iman]

And that's when he sent back the famous telegram to Ben Hecht. There are millions to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around.

[Narrator]

Herman believed he could write circles around the schmucks in Hollywood, and he often did. However, his writing talent was eventually surpassed by his love for alcohol and gambling. Producer Sam Marks was a contemporary of Herman's Anjos.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Herman's reputation at times was of a wild drinker, a wild gambler, and a guy who came around to writing the script only when he had nothing else to bet on.

[Narrator]

In 1929, Herman owed Paramount a script. He leveraged that to help his little brother.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Herman convinced Paramount to give Joe a job, which was at a very low level of maybe $65 a week in exchange for his promise to stay sober enough to finish a screenplay he had promised them.

[Narrator]

Joe took a train called the Apache from New York to Los Angeles. He soon realized it was running late, so he wired ahead to Herman.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I sent my brother a telegram saying, horses eaten by wolves. Gold safe. However, Joe and he thought that was terribly funny. And with my passport to Hollywood, he met me at the train. He said, I'm taking you to a very big party tonight.

[Narrator]

Joe wore one of Herman's dinner jackets to the party and used shoe polish to make his brown shoes black. Joe walked into a room to find stars like Gary Cooper, Clara Bow and Kay Francis.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I mean, it was like being alone in a candy store. Nobody's watching. What did I look at? But how do I dare go to anyone to talk to?

[Narrator]

Joe was starstruck, but once work started, he was eager to learn.

[Scott Iman]

He Makes a great impression. He takes all the work seriously. He loves the make believe. He loves the costumes, he loves the wardrobe. He loves the wardrobe girls. He loves the sets being carted back and forth on the lot. He loves everything about it.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I remember when we used to shoot movies. We would start at 5 o' clock in the afternoon. We used the old silent stages and we hung them with carpets, many carpets we could find to keep out traffic noise. And we started shooting because that's when the traffic would go less and the shooting dates went from 5 o' clock in the afternoon to about 4:30 or 5 the following morning.

[Narrator]

As Nick said, my uncle loved those early days in Hollywood. And for the most part, Hollywood loved Joe back.

[Scott Iman]

He was good looking, he was appealing and dare I say this of a great uncle, sexy.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

He had a magnetism about him. People wanted to be with him. Women were certainly attracted to him and he had a lot of friends. He was fun to be around. His most salient characteristic was his intelligence. And the second, I would say, was his wit.

[Narrator]

Joe's first job in Hollywood was writing title cards for silent films. But that didn't last long. Title card writers were being phased out as silent movies changed to sound. Producers needed writers who could create lines for the actors to actually say. Joe decided to prove his worth by writing six versions of a single script and sending them all to his boss. His boss hated Joe's stories but liked the dialogue he was in. Then in 1931, Joe Co wrote a movie called Skippy.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

This kid ain't big enough to fight me. We gotta get someone his own way.

[Narrator]

What's your weight, kid?

[Ben Mankiewicz]

55 pounds.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

What do you weigh, Sydney?

[Ben Mankiewicz]

130 pounds.

[Narrator]

What? It was nominated for an Academy Award for best Screenplay. Joe had been in Hollywood for two years. He was only 22.

[Scott Iman]

I mean it's sort of a meteoric rise. And it has nothing to do with the fact that he's Herman's brother. It's just because he's good, he's smart, he's industrious, he's really terrific at the game. He plays the politics of Hollywood very well.

[Narrator]

Joe's success failed to impress his father, Franz, back home in New York.

[Scott Iman]

Franz had so little regard for Hollywood and for the movies and just thought the movies were ridiculous and absurd and, and beneath him and, and probably beneath his sons too.

[Narrator]

Joe spent the next three years writing as many screenplays as he could. My cousin Alex Bankowitz is Joe's daughter. She says her dad was able to write so much because he was Taking Benzedrine, an enormously popular amphetamine in showbiz often provided by the Hollywood studios.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

And they basically said, we've got this amazing new drug. And her dad was young and fit, and he took it and he said, and I didn't write two pages that day. I wrote 20 pages. And I didn't play, you know, one set of tennis. You know, I played four, five sets of tennis. And this was just amazing.

[Narrator]

It was so amazing. Joe would keep Benzedrine around for years to come. It wasn't long before Joe realized the only way to protect his writing was to direct as well. He didn't like how other directors messed with his scripts. He moved to a competing studio, Metro Goldwyn Mayer. And after five years in the business, Joe requested a meeting with MGM's powerful studio boss, Louis B. Mayer.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I said, Mr. Mayer, please, I want to direct what I write. And he said, absolutely out of the question. I have great plans for you. And he said, you'll like producing, but remember, if your goal is directing, you have to learn to crow before you walk.

[Narrator]

Mayor made Joe a producer tough to swallow, as producers were often the laughing stock of writers rooms back then. They were the suits, the money people. But good producers had real skill and were critical to making sure a movie stayed on track and on budget.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Snob.

[Narrator]

What do you mean, snob?

[Ben Mankiewicz]

You're the worst kind there is, an intellectual snob. You made up your mind awfully young.

[Narrator]

It seems to me.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Well, 30 is about time to make up your mind.

[Narrator]

Joe produced 17 movies at MGM, many of them classics, including the Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

You're quite a girl, aren't you?

[Narrator]

You think?

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Yeah, I know.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Thank you, professor. I don't think I'm exceptional. I know any number like me. You ought to get around more.

[Narrator]

Joe was a good producer, but biographer Sidney Stern says he was miserable.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

That is absolutely not what Joe wanted to do. Joe was a creative person. He wanted to write and secondarily to direct. But he did the best he could by being as creative a producer as he could be.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I wrote an enormous amount when I was a producer. One of the things that made me very unhappy was the fact that I did as much writing and, you know, I'm still introduced as the producer Joe Mankiewicz. I'm still referred to too often as the producer.

[Narrator]

Joe may have been unhappy, but producing advanced his career. In 1943, when he was 34 years old, Joe left MGM for 20th Century Fox, a rival studio run by Darrell F. Zanuck. Who was willing to let Joe direct. Zanuck gave Joe a bungalow on the Fox lot and paid him $175,000 a year. In 1946, Joe directed his first movie, Dragon Wick. Three films later, he directed the Ghost and Mrs. Muir, starring a British stage actor named Rex Harrison. Joe and Rex became friends. Many actors, not just Rex Harrison, liked how Joe ran a set as a director.

[Scott Iman]

He didn't like march around in jodhpurs and a megaphone, insisting that it's his way or the highway. And he wouldn't say action. You know, he would say kind of action or whenever you're ready. And they loved him for it. Like the actors and actresses who worked for Joe Mankiewicz, to a person absolutely loved him. Gave him so much credit.

[Narrator]

Joe's interest in psychology meant he could dig deep with actors on why a character would behave a certain way. This was like catnip for actors. Plus, according to my cousin Tom, Joe's youngest son, his dad was fun on set.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

He had a great sense of humor.

[Narrator]

Never about himself, but a great sense of humor. He was very funny.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

He had that Mankiewicz witness and more people laughed on. On his sets. I mean, there was a lot of. There were kidding and jokes going on and so on.

[Narrator]

Directing suited Joe, but he still wanted to write, wanted to do both. That finally happened on A Letter to Three Wives. He'd worked on the script for nine weeks. Sequestered in a rented house in Malibu, Joe wrote in longhand on yellow legal pats. He would eventually switch to notebooks. His close friend, the actor Hume Cronin, says Joe took his writing very seriously.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I think that the. Joe is so in love with language and so. So beguiled by his own happy turn.

[Scott Iman]

Of phrase that he overwrites almost everything.

[Narrator]

If there is a criticism of Joe as a writer, it's that he sometimes made his scripts too literary. He loved voiceover narration and flashbacks. His films were often described as stagey, too much like a play. And his oldest son, Chris, said Joe was not a visual filmmaker.

[Scott Iman]

This is unfortunately an aspect of my father's directing style. And great director though he was. I used to say jokingly that my father's idea of action was somebody coming in and slamming the door when he comes into a room.

[Narrator]

But Joe's movies were sophisticated. Biographer Sidney Stern describes them as high comedies.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

It's a genre that's not really done much anymore, but that was his humor. He used humor in every way, as a rapier as well as an observation and for attention as well.

[Narrator]

A Letter to Three Wives opened at Radio City Music hall in January of 1949 to rave reviews.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

The winner is Joseph L. Mankiewicz for.

[Narrator]

A Letter to Three Wives. Joe won two Oscars that night, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

This is something for which nobody, in all honesty, can be prepared. I am not prepared. This is a great honor, and I am deeply appreciative.

[Narrator]

After the big night, Joe said, all of those years cotton picking under this damn sun, my coming to Fox, my analysis, my growing up. I guess things are working out. That is what passed as optimism for Joe Mankiewicz.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

That's why I don't understand all these plays about love.

[Narrator]

The same year he won those Oscars for A Letter to Three Wives, Joe wrote and directed All About Eve, starring Bette Davis.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Lloyd, honey, be a playwright with guts. Write me one about a nice, normal woman who just shoots her husband.

[Scott Iman]

All About Eve is arguably Joe Manowitz's masterpiece. It is a film set in the theater world about an aging star played by Betty Davis, Margot Channing, who hires as a sort of personal assistant a woman named Eve Harrington. And Eve Harrington wheedles her way into Margot Channing's life, trying to take from Margot everything that is hers, both professionally and personally.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Margot, this is Eve Harrington. How do you do, my dear?

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Oh, brother.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Hello, Miss Channing.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

My husband.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Hello, Miss Harrington.

[Narrator]

Bette Davis had been queen of the Warner Brothers lot for better than a decade. She left the studio because she committed an unpardonable sin in Hollywood. She was a woman who had the audacity to turn 40. Davis needed a role like Margot Channing. But when word got out about the casting, directors and producers, all men called Joe and warned him that Bette Davis would be difficult. Here's Joe from a 1983 documentary.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Edmund Goulding called me and said, dear boy, you're out of your mind. This woman will annihilate you. She'll grunt you to a fine powder and blow you away. She will come on the set with a large yellow pad and sharp pencils, and she will write. And having written, she will then direct.

[Narrator]

But Davis had nothing to rewrite. She loved the script, and she especially loved the note Jo gave her about her character, Margot. He said, margot was, quote, the kind of dame who would treat her mink coat like a poncho.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

You knew when you came in that the audition was over, that Eve was your understudy, playing that childish little game of cat and mouse. Not mouse.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Never mouse, if anything, Right?

[Narrator]

Years later, in an AMC documentary, Bette Davis said all about Eve changed her life. It was the greatest break at that.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Point in my career that ever happened, there's no question about it.

[Narrator]

As I told Mankiewicz, he resurrected me from the dead. Joe Mankiewicz was a rarity in Hollywood. A man able to write well for women. My uncle often talked about why he liked writing female characters like the ones in All About Eve.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Anybody will ever write a foil film or a book about a remarkable woman in which everything will be known. I think you do it about a man, but you can't do it about a woman. And that's why the female roles, writing females, directing females, has always been infinitely more exciting, infinitely more rewarding and infinitely easier than men.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

He really saw the situation of women as. He would not like this word, but as an oppressed group. They were equals of men, but they did not have the opportunities and so they had to find ways of negotiating the world for themselves. And he understood that.

[Narrator]

Another feature of a Joe Mankiewicz film. Women often get the best lines.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Fasten your seat belts, it's going to.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Be a bumpy night.

[Scott Iman]

Joe's wit is always on display in his screenplays. He couldn't help but write witty, quotable dialogue.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Nice speech, Eve, but I wouldn't worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.

[Narrator]

All About Eve became an immediate hit. It earned a record breaking 14 Oscar nominations. And a year after winning twice for A Letter to Three Wives, Joe won two more Academy Awards again for Best Director and Best Screenplay. That hadn't happened before and hasn't happened since. I'll wager it will never happen again. If you were to draw a graph of my uncle's career from his arrival in Hollywood in 1929 to the 1950s, it would show a solid upward climb. He started out writing title cards for silent movies. Two decades later, he was a four time Oscar winning filmmaker who could choose the movies he wanted to make. There is a second graph I could draw of Joe's life in Hollywood. But this one would look different with extreme peaks and valleys. That's what a chart of Joe's relationships with women would look like. That's coming up after the break. Learning through play starts with Lego Duplo. With Lego Duplo, toddlers can develop real life skills while having fun with colorful bricks made just for them. Large, easy to grip and safe to explore. When children express themselves with Lego Duplo, they they build patience, problem solving and empathy.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

See your child learn perseverance and self.

[Narrator]

Expression with everything they imagine and create. Visit lego.com preschool to learn more.

[Scott Iman]

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[Joe Mankiewicz]

Been on hold to make a doctor's.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Appointment for 23 minutes now.

[Narrator]

The automated voice has told me 47 times that my call is very important.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Important to them. I'm starting to think that they don't.

[Narrator]

Think my call is important at all.

[Scott Iman]

With Amazon One Medical 24.

[Narrator]

7 Virtual Care, you'll get help fast.

[Scott Iman]

Without having to remain on the line to make an appointment. Amazon One Medical Healthcare just got less painful.

[Narrator]

Not only did Joe know how to write and direct women, he was intent on seducing them. It didn't matter if they were married, and it certainly didn't matter if he was.

[Scott Iman]

Joe was quite a ladies man, both as a bachelor and his ladies man ness never really stopped.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

He definitely had a lot of affairs with a lot of star actresses. That was appealing to him. And they were younger. It goes without saying that they were less intelligent because not many people were as smart as Joe was. But he loved being in this Pygmalion role of molding both the actress and the person.

[Narrator]

The list of names is a who's who of Hollywood actresses in the 1930s and 40s. Loretta Young, Linda Darnell, Gene Tierney, Judy Garland. During an interview with A biographer in 1972, Joe talked about his reputation.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I mean, is this part of the. The legend that Joe Mack's every leading lady of every movie that I'm sure you heard that over and over? Not every, but the most. There were many, apparently. Well, this was an accepted bit of social legend that I never bothered to correct much because it was very flattering but not nearly as true as legend has it.

[Narrator]

Let's be clear here. It was true enough. Joe had plenty of affairs while he was married to his first wife. He began an affair with Joan Crawford. She was a powerful MGM star and Joe was a young writer working on a screenplay.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

So he went to her house with a huge white living room and sat on the couch to read her his screenplay. She came swooping down in some outfit, and so he was terrified. And then as time went on and she began to get into the jokes and the power of the screenplay. And when he gave his line, I start a fire by rubbing two Boy Scouts together, she threw up her hands. That was so funny. And one of her red nails flew off. And that so disconcerted him because he'd never seen fake nails that he was stunned at first.

[Narrator]

Joan Crawford admitted to a biographer that she'd been in love with Joe. This is Joe's oldest Son, my cousin, Chris Mankiewicz.

[Scott Iman]

She confessed not only to her affair with my father, a long affair with.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

My father, but said, which I will again give you an example of how.

[Scott Iman]

Interestingly manipulative he was, that his way.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Of getting girls in the sack was.

[Scott Iman]

Not to say, oh, Jesus, have you got great tits?

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Or do I love your legs?

[Scott Iman]

He would talk to them about their.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Mothers, about psychiatry, and about how difficult it must be to have grown up with your mother.

[Scott Iman]

And she said, it was just so wonderful that a man in those days.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Was treating you other than as a piece of meat. I mean, that he would seem to.

[Scott Iman]

Be interested in who you really were and what your real feelings were.

[Narrator]

In 1937, Joe divorced. He soon began dating an Austrian actress named Rosa Stradner.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

She was beautiful. She had beautiful skin and beautiful carriage, evidently very elegant. And she was more femme fatale than ingenue. There was this danger about her.

[Narrator]

Rosa had been a stage actress in Vienna, which drew Joe in. He loved the theater. Rosa wanted to become a Hollywood star.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Her career did not take off. She started with one somewhat decent role, and it went downhill from there. At some point, they moved in together, and when she was so unstable, Joe tried to leave her.

[Narrator]

Sometimes Rosa would throw things and become physically violent. When Joe threatened to leave, Rosa attempted suicide.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

And in response, instead of heeding the red flags, Joe married her. Big mistake.

[Narrator]

The marriage came in 1939. A year later, my cousin Chris was born. Two years after that, Tom. After Tom's birth, Rosa's mental health deteriorated.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

She went into a state described as catatonic, I believe now we would imagine it might have been a very severe postpartum depression. And Joe did the best thing he could think of, which was send her to Menninger's clinic. This was considered the best psychiatric help west of the Mississippi.

[Narrator]

Rosa was 30 years old when she went to the clinic. She spent nine months there. When she returned home, she stayed medicated and she drank on top of her meds. Both Tom and Chris were just kids. Here's Tom.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

She was very sick. She was schizophrenic. I mean, in the sense that with a couple of drinks, which was usually the trigger, she became a totally different human being and one that was at times violent and could be cruel. And yet she was a loving, wonderful mother.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

She was under psychiatric care on and off for the rest of her life. And I don't think it was what we would call good psychiatric care. It was very Freudian. It was very. Adjust yourself to your lot in life.

[Narrator]

Joe and Rose's marriage wasn't always bad. They were known to be great party hosts. They loved word games and charades. Joe's friend Robbie Lance said Rosa had a strong sense of social justice and that influenced Joe.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

She had enormous character and enormous strength and an enormous amount of what the Germans called civil courage. You know, Seville courage is a kind of personal individual guts.

[Narrator]

She was also a smart editor for Joe.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

She was always the person who saw all of his work first, the scripts. And we always knew that when Joe said, well, Addie has finished typing, you know, I'm now going to show it to Rosa.

[Narrator]

But when things were bad, which was often, Joe escaped off to movie sets and movie actresses. Here's Tom again.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

We knew, or it was common knowledge that he had many, many affairs while he was married to Mother and we were kids.

[Narrator]

Many affairs.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

And it must have been very punishing to Mother because she must have known.

[Narrator]

At one point. During his marriage, Joe became involved with Judy Garland, who was one of MGM's most carefully managed stars. Many of you know she played Dorothy in the wizard of Oz. Joe and Judy fell hard for each other. They met regularly at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. They even went to parties together.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Judy Garland was sort of the ultimate example of an affair with Joe. She was an extreme version of what he was drawn to, which was widely revered and very damaged. She was both of those things in extreme. He saw her as a Stradivarius like instrument who was being brutalized by the system, by the studio, given drugs for her to keep her performing and so forth, and tried to help her.

[Narrator]

Sidney Stern says he and Judy stayed in touch for the rest of their lives.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Joe fell in love with these women. He genuinely loved them. He wasn't going to leave his wife, but he was very romantic.

[Narrator]

Joe's marriage to Rosa lasted 19 years. It survived the affairs and a move from Hollywood back to New York. It lasted through their sons at Border boarding school and Joe's rise to become one of the best filmmakers in Hollywood. Then On a Saturday, September 27, 1958, Rosa Stradner was alone at their home outside New York City. She overdosed on sedatives. She was 45 years old.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

When she committed suicide. He was utterly lost and devastated and shocked. It was shocking to me to see his reaction because I would have thought it would be great relief. But he was stunned and confused.

[Narrator]

My uncle was private about many things and whatever grief he felt, he was private about that too. But we have some clues as to how he was feeling. After the funeral, Joe acted rashly which was definitely not like him. For starters, he sold his apartment in.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

New York on a spur of the moment one time, bought a Jaguar. That was weird. Then he went off to Europe for about six weeks to recover, leaving his sons, which I thought was not the kindest thing for a father to do. But it was about Joe healing, apparently. And he kept a diary.

[Narrator]

Joe's diary entries from when he sailed to Europe reflect his melancholy. November 20th. That was Joe's first day at sea. He wrote, I find myself curiously unable to relax properly. None, literally, not one of the passengers seemed to provide any area of mutual conversation, much less intimacy. Three days later, he wrote, we sit around like a group of removed appendixes some sun today, and greeted it as if it were Winston Churchill. That same day, he also wrote this. Should the ship sink, I can think of no one aboard this dreary vessel who will leave the world emptier. Joe returned home just before the Christmas holidays, which he spent spent with his sons. He seemed less depressed by then. He played bridge and listened to football on the radio. On December 20, he wrote where to live, what to work on. Eight months after Rose's death, Joe walked onto a London set to direct Suddenly Last Summer, based on the play by Tennessee Williams. The film starred Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth's third husband, Mike Todd, had been killed in a plane crash just months before Rosa died. Joe and Elizabeth were both grieving, both trying to find some way forward. Joe was basically an emotional fortress, Elizabeth an open wound. She was taking pills, drinking, and rushed into marriage with Eddie Fisher. The two got off to what sounds like a rocky start. Elizabeth Taylor described it at an awards ceremony for my uncle.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

The first scene we shot, you know, I was 29 years old and not bad looking. No, really. And I wasn't fat or anything. I was in pretty good shape. And Joe kind of looked at me in this dreadful outfit and said, are you planning on losing any weight? And I said, well, I hadn't actually sort of thought about it. And he said, I think maybe you should do a little toning up or something. And he's holding my arm up, he said, because this part. And he went flobble, flobble. Looks like a bag of dead mice.

[Narrator]

Certainly not one of Joe's finer moments. But at other times, Joe was more gentle. Like the way he handled Elizabeth showing up late to set.

[Scott Iman]

I think she was late a couple of times. And it's bad when you're late to a film shoot that's got, you know, people standing around waiting, all of whom are getting paid. And one morning she showed up, I think at 11:30 and it was 9 o' clock call and the set was completely empty. And she walked around and she saw on the camera there was a note tacked to the camera. And the note said, dear Elizabeth, we were all here at 9, so sorry to have missed you. Love, Joe. She was never late again.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

After all. I'm insane. It's the sort of thing an insane woman would do.

[Narrator]

Liz played Catherine, a troubled woman getting some seriously outdated therapy. The script would have been challenging for any actor. Liz's character gives a long speech at the end and. And Joe knew it would be difficult to pull off after four takes. Joe suggested they take a break. Liz hadn't nailed it yet and he wanted her to rest. Shortly after, a crew member took Joe behind the set to find Elizabeth on the ground sobbing from exhaustion. She was convinced she was letting everyone down. Joe made a suggestion, one he knew would make her angry. He said, let's wrap for the day and go at it fresh tomorrow. Elizabeth turned to him in a fury and said, tomorrow my ass. She got up and they shot the fifth take. That was the print police.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

People ran out of buildings, back up to work to wech cousin Sebastian. He. He was lying naked on the broken stone. And this you won't believe. Nobody, nobody, nobody could believe it.

[Narrator]

Suddenly Last Summer came out in 1959 to mixed reviews. Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn were nominated for the Best Actress Oscar Wilde. Elizabeth won the Golden Globe. She thought Joe had drawn out the best performance of her career.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

It was wonderful doing the film and it was great working with him. And we really got to know each other very well and became enormously good and close friends.

[Narrator]

Author Nancy Schoenberger wrote a book about Elizabeth Taylor's love life.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

She knew she was the kind of actress who needed a good director to bring a good performance out of her. He definitely respected her as an actress and he knew how to bring out her talent.

[Narrator]

So Elizabeth Taylor knew exactly who she wanted to direct Cleopatra after Reuven Mamoulian left. Especially after she learned how Jo showed up for her and Eddie during those stressful weeks in March of 1961 when Liz fell into a coma and needed surgery. Not only did they put her on a ventilator, they had to cool her body down because her temperature was so high.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Joe was absolutely wonderful. He sat when I was in this coma, he sat in my room. Evidently, day after day, he just sat there. As a matter of fact, I think Joe is perhaps the only man I know who has seen me stark naked, unconscious, lying on a slab of ice.

[Narrator]

Eventually, Elizabeth came off the ventilator and was breathing on her own. One night in her hospital room, Eddie saw a hopeful sign.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

I knew for certain she was going to be fine when she started demanding Chile from Chasens and Don Paranon Champagne. She could barely speak and she was drinking champagne.

[Narrator]

Meanwhile, the press had mistakenly reported Liz's death, a fact that always amused her.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

Reading the tabloids saying Liz dead that people had saved for me. And that was a strange feeling because they were the best reviews I've ever had.

[Narrator]

Liz's recovery was good news, but Cleopatra remained on hold. Liz needed time to get healthy again. Liz and Eddie and her toy poodle flew to California to rest. Joe went back to New York. The sets in London were packed up. The crew was told to stand by. Once again, everyone involved with Cleopatra was waiting for Elizabeth Taylor.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Elizabeth's life had all the twists and turns of a great soap opera plot, but it was bigger and more complicated. And it was real.

[Narrator]

My Uncle Joe was about to find out how real. Coming up, when the plot thickens, Joe writes in his diary, the situation cannot be cured. Taylor deeply wants disaster, particularly to herself. Where is Anthony?

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Where is Mark Anthony?

[Narrator]

And Joe casts a new Mark Antony.

[Joe Mankiewicz]

Anthony the Great, the Divine Anthony, which.

[Narrator]

Upends the production along with Elizabeth Taylor's love Life. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone in crisis. To speak with a trained listener, call 988. For more information, visit 988lifeline.org Angela Caron is our director of podcasts. Story editor is Rob Rosenthal. Yaakov Friedman is our senior producer. Script writing by Yaakov Friedman, Natalia Winkelman and Angela Caron. Research and fact checking by the indispensable James Sheridan. Audio editing and sound design by Mike Vulgaris. Mixing by Glenn Matullo. Production support from Liz Winter, Allison Fire, Matthew Ownby, Julie Bettone, Emma Morris, Jordan Chips, Nicole Hill and David Corwin at Patches. Thanks to our legal team, Jon Renaud and Kristin Hassell. The following TCM staffers help us get the word out about our podcast. So thank you to Alina Novik, Katie Daniels, David Byrne, Diana Bosch, Caroline Wigmore, Michelle Height and Stephanie Tames. Our executive producer is Charlie Tabish. And a special thank you to the archivists at the American Film Institute, the Wisconsin center for Film and Theater Research, and Boston University. We could not make these podcasts without the work of archivists around the country. Special thanks to my family, especially my cousins, Alex Mankiewicz and Nick Davis. I regret that I never got to interview my cousins, Tom and Chris Mankiewicz. They died before we started production. Thomas Avery of Tune Welders composed our theme music. I'm your host, Ben Mankiewicz. Thanks for listening. See you next time.