Author Talk: The Brothers Mankiewicz
Run Time: 90 min.
June 23, 2022 at 7pm
Tickets: $14 Adult, $12 Senior
Members: $11.90 Adult, $10.20 Senior
Theater: Clive
A great event for movie buffs! Author Sydney Ladensohn Stern discusses her book The Brothers Mankiewicz, her in-depth biography of two brothers who played outsized roles in Hollywood history. Herman J. (1897–1953) and former Bedford resident Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture’s only Academy Award. Joe earned the second pair of his four Oscars for writing and directing All About Eve, which also won Best Picture. Despite triumphs as diverse as Monkey Business and Cleopatra, and Pride of the Yankees and Guys and Dolls, the witty, intellectual brothers spent their Hollywood years deeply discontented and yearning for what they did not have—a career in New York theater. While Herman drifted downward, Joe rose to become a critical and financial success as a writer, producer, and director, though his constant philandering with prominent stars like Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Gene Tierney distressed his emotionally fragile wife who eventually committed suicide. For this award-winning dual portrait of the Mankiewicz brothers, Stern draws on interviews, letters, diaries, and other documents still in private hands to provide a uniquely intimate behind-the-scenes chronicle of the lives, loves, work, and relationship between these complex men.
Special appearance by Alex Mankiewicz who will share memories of her father Joe.