Born in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumenau,
Jewish immigrants from
Germany, Mankiewicz moved with his family to
New York City where he graduated in 1924 from
Stuyvesant High School. In 1928, he obtained a
bachelor's degree from
Columbia University. For a time he worked in
Berlin, Germany, as a foreign correspondent for the
Chicago Tribune newspaper before being lured into the
motion picture business.
During his long career in Hollywood, Mankiewicz wrote forty-eight screenplays, including
All About Eve, for which he won an
Academy Award. He also produced more than twenty films including
The Philadelphia Story which was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Picture in 1941. However, he is best known for the films he directed, twice winning the
Academy Award for Directing. In 1944, he produced
The Keys of the Kingdom, which starred his wife, Rose Stradner, and
Gregory Peck.
In 1958, Mankiewicz directed
The Quiet American an adaptation of
Graham Greene's 1955
novel about the seed of American military involvement in what would become the
Vietnam War. Mankiewicz, under career pressure from the climate of
anti-Communism and the
Hollywood blacklist, distorted the message of Greene's book, changing major parts of the story to appeal to a
national audience. A cautionary tale about America's blind support for "anti-Communists" was turned into, according to Greene, a "propaganda film for America."
He was the younger brother of
Herman J. Mankiewicz. His son is
Tom Mankiewicz.
On his passing in 1993, Joseph Mankiewicz was interred in Saint Matthew's Episcopal Churchyard cemetery,
Bedford, New York.
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