Word: mankiewicz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...speaker was Herman J. Mankiewicz, ornament and outrage of many a dinner table in Bel Air--and also at Hearst's San Simeon, where he was a favorite of Marion Davies, keeping her giggling as they went outside for a swig. A former New Yorker drama critic and a full-time gambler, drinker and wit, Mank was the missing link between Hearst and Welles. Befriending the new kid, he proposed they write a life of a newspaper tycoon...
Hearst and Welles--did Mankiewicz know how right, and how wrong, the two men were for each other? Both thrived on sensation: one journalistic, the other theatrical. They brought art and news to the masses, showed it in images an immigrant could understand; some said they lowered standards to become rich or famous. The arc of Hearst's career--early innovation and influence followed by fruitless runs for office, by the ebbing of his empire--would be Welles' too. And there were the famous liaisons with actresses: Welles wed three, Hearst one. For decades, while his papers denounced Hollywood morals...
Welles, thrilled by Mankiewicz's idea for a Hearst film, was also desperate. His first RKO project--Heart of Darkness, which would be told with a subjective camera and would star Welles as Marlow and Kurtz--was deemed too pricey. Now, with Mank's unbilled help (the deal specified no screen credit for his script), Welles hoped to turn a jolly plutocrat into a tragic figure, swathe the San Simeon Sun King in the menacing shadows of movie melodrama. Kane would be Welles' Hearst of Darkness...
...yawn from the public. At the following year's Oscar party, having earned nine nominations, the film was booed every time it was mentioned. Callow says that by today's counting methods, Kane would have won for Best Film. In fact, the only statuette went to Welles and Mankiewicz, for Best Screenplay. Mank, who did not attend the ceremony, told Welles he would have said, "I am very happy to accept this award in Mr. Welles' absence because the script was written in Mr. Welles' absence...
...also extremely tough about keeping her private life resolutely just that. And, according to Mankiewicz, when Manchester wanted to renege on the agreement giving her final approval of the manuscript of Death of a President, Jackie fought him. "When my children grow up, I don't want them to read all the gruesome stuff about his brain and the way he looked," she said, according to Mankiewicz. "She wanted those passages out, and by God she got them...