Joseph L. Mankiewicz(1909-1993)

Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on February 11, 1909, Joseph Leo Mankiewicz first worked for the movies as a translator of intertitles, employed by Paramount in Berlin, the UFA's American distributor at the time (1928). He became a dialoguist, then a screenwriter on numerous Paramount productions in Hollywood, most of them Jack Oakie vehicles. Still in his 20s, he produced first-class MGM films, including Skandaalihäät (1940). Having left Metro after a dispute with studio chief Louis B. Mayer over Judy Garland, he then worked for Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century-Fox, producing Taivasten valtakunnan avaimet (1944), when Ernst Lubitsch's illness first brought him to the director's chair for Turha oli unelmani (1946). Mankiewicz directed 20 films in a 26-year period, successfully attempted every kind of movie from Shakespeare adaptation to western, from urban sociological drama to musical, from epic film with thousands of extras to a two-character picture. Minun mieheni - vai sinun? (1949) and Kaikki Eevasta (1950) brought him wide recognition along with two Academy Awards for each as a writer and a director, seven years after his elder brother Herman J. Mankiewicz won Best Screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). His more intimate films like Kummitus ja rouva Muir (1947), Paljasjalkakreivitär (1954)--his only original screenplay--and Minä ja kolme leskeäni (1967) are major artistic achievements as well, showing Mankiewicz as a witty dialoguist, a master in the use of flashback and a talented actors' director (he favored English actors and had in Rex Harrison a kind of alter-ego on the screen).