Competing with Idiots

by Nick Davis

  Herman had made, not for the first or last time, a bad deal. Desperately needing the money and the work, he had quite clearly understood that he wouldn’t be getting credit for the film—but it was a decision that rankled. Rita Alexander told Richard Meryman that at some point in Victorville, Herman remarked casually that it was too bad he wouldn’t be getting any credit because the script was actually going to be pretty good. (The secretary, unfamiliar with the depths of Herman’s self-defeating ways, was shocked that he had agreed not to be credited on-screen.)

  And Herman, once he had turned his mind on a target, was fierce and single-minded in his attacks. As the rushes started to come in and word of the footage’s qualities began to spread, Herman knew the movie was going to be something to be genuinely proud of, that it would be a highlight of everyone’s career. He also knew that the town loathed the young would-be genius, and the industry’s hatred for Welles would only be magnified if people thought he was trying to deny credit to one of their own. The irony in Herman appealing to Hollywood to be thought of as one of their own cannot have been lost on him. So it was that the Hollywood Reporter gleefully claimed on October 3, 1940, that “the writer credit won’t be solo for Welles, if Herman Mankiewicz can keep talking.” He could, and it wasn’t.

  Whatever Welles’s true feelings about the matter—and in later years his magnanimity in acknowledging my grandfather’s “contributions to the screenplay” almost define condescension: “I didn’t come in,” he told Richard Meryman, “like some more talented writer and save Mankiewicz from disaster.”*9 Orson Welles now perpetrated a gesture that was both generous and indicative of just how much he had himself contributed to the making of the film, and the making of its central character. He decided to grant Herman coauthorship and so end the battle for good, and also to put Herman’s name first. Thus the final credit reads:

  Original Screenplay

  HERMAN J. MANKIEWICZ

  ORSON WELLES

  Granting Herman this credit did several things. First, and most important, it was probably more than fair. Herman laid down the basic structure and shape of the film and had written if not, as he later claimed to Alexander Woollcott, 99 percent of the dialogue, or, as he later testified in court,*10 98 percent, at least 51 percent of the film. So it made sense for his name to go first. But it also made sense for Welles’s name to be included, for too many of the film’s literary inventions—let alone his countless directorial flourishes—were his. But also, most crucially and strategically, Welles’s public magnanimity prevented Herman from taking the ultimate step, and there’s no evidence that he ever really considered it at the time, though in later years it may have haunted him that he hadn’t—namely, to actually try to gain sole credit for the screenplay.

  Interestingly, the move echoes a change Welles had insisted on in the screenplay itself, and which Herman fought him strenuously over. One of Herman’s cherished stories from his days as a newspaperman in New York was of passing out after writing one sentence of a review of an execrable performance delivered by magnate Samuel Insull’s wife in a performance of The School for Scandal, and it struck him as wonderful grist for the Citizen Kane mill, a perfect way to show how Kane’s friend Jedediah Leland would respond to the impossible task of having to review Susan Alexander’s operatic debut in Chicago. Welles, too, loved it—and then added to it, with something that Herman felt would destroy the scene: Kane sitting down at the typewriter to complete the immolating review. “Why would he do such a thing?” Herman argued. No one would finish such a review! It made no sense! But in fact Kane’s completing the nasty review of Susan’s performance gives more insight into the depth of Kane’s character—Charles Foster Kane always had to prove he was better than everyone else—and by finishing the review, he demonstrated that in fact he wasn’t deluded about Susan’s talent, he knew better than anyone what she really was—but of course he also knew that he had to fire Jedediah. He had his cake and his review too—Charles Foster Kane, and Orson Welles as well, in putting Herman’s name first on the credits. It was masterful.

  * * *

  —

  Herman, on the other hand, had hardly been masterful in coping with the success now in his grasp. With news of the movie’s revolutionary merits spreading through Hollywood, it soon became clear that only one man stood in the way of the film’s triumphant release: William Randolph Hearst, the man on whom Charles Foster Kane was more or less loosely based. Embarassed and outraged by what he was sure would be a wildly unflattering portrait (and reportedly incensed by the film’s treatment of Marion Davies, who was in fact a gifted comic actress and nothing at all like the untalented opera singer Susan Alexander Kane), Hearst did everything in his considerable power to bury the film, igniting a campaign against the film in his papers, and even offering RKO one million dollars to burn the film without ever displaying it to the public. But well before the public had its chance to see the movie, Herman had made his move. Perhaps because he couldn’t tolerate the good fortune that was now so close, he had inexplicably sent the script of the film to his pal Charlie Lederer, Marion Davies’s nephew, before shooting began. It’s possible that Herman was merely trying to demonstrate to Lederer—and by extension Davies and Hearst—that they had nothing to worry about, for the script had fictionalized so very much. But it’s also possible it was an act both of braggadocio—look how good this damn thing is!—and uncontrollable self-destructiveness; indeed, when Lederer returned the script (without comment), it was covered with pencil markings that had all the hallmark of Hearst lawyers pointing out possible beachheads for lawsuits.

  Luckily, Hearst’s campaign to destroy the film failed, RKO stood firm, and the movie’s release went on as planned. Herman’s self-destructiveness had, for the moment at least, been defeated.

  In later years, Herman’s children adopted a curious metaphor to describe their father’s greatest success. His years in the newspaper business, and in particular his time spent observing William Randolph Hearst, they said, was like a nickel Herman had been carrying around in his pocket for years. With Citizen Kane, finally, Pop had spent the nickel.

  * * *

  —

  On the night of Thursday, February 26, 1942, Hollywood was in a state of high alert. Three nights before, on Monday night, the Japanese submarine I-17 had surfaced less than a half mile from shore not far from Santa Barbara, just ninety miles up the coast from Los Angeles, and fired seventeen shells at some oil tanks behind the beach. News of the attack triggered reports of an impending Japanese “invasion” throughout the state, and the following night, air raid sirens pierced the air throughout Los Angeles County. Thousands of air raid wardens scampered into position, and finally, just after three in the morning, the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing 12.8-pound anti-aircraft shells into the air at reported Japanese airplanes. For nearly an hour, the sound of the guns rocked Los Angeles, and by the time the all clear sounded, guns had hurled 1,440 rounds of ammunition into the night sky. Nearly ten tons of shrapnel and unexploded ammunition rained back on the city. Now, on Thursday, on a small island in Los Angeles Harbor called Terminal Island, the FBI began rounding up and arresting the first Japanese-Americans and sending them to internment camps.*11

  So as the Academy Awards ceremony got under way in the Biltmore Hotel that night, few could be blamed for having their minds elsewhere. And fewer still could blame those who, for one reason or another, stayed away that night. Orson Welles, whose Citizen Kane had been nominated for nine awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director for Welles alone, as well as for screenplay, was in Rio de Janeiro, working on a film for the war effort called Carnival. But missing from the ceremony, as well, was Herman Mankiewicz. Part of the reason Herman gave for avoiding the awards banquet was the same reason he gave for getting into Kane in the first place: his busted leg. He had finally gotten his cast off a few months earlier and celebrated with an impromp
tu party at Hollywood’s famed Chasen’s, at which, of course, he had slipped and rebroken his leg. Now, hobbling on his left leg, Herman, convinced he was going to lose, knew that he would not respond well to a defeat and so decided to skip the ceremony. “He did not want to be humiliated,” Goma said. “He thought he’d get mad and do something drastic when he didn’t win.”*12 So he stayed home and listened on the radio in his bathrobe and slippers, though he made a show of pretending to nod off periodically in his chair as the ceremony dragged on. As expected, despite all the nominations, it was not Citizen Kane’s night. The voters were all Hollywood insiders and they weren’t about to reward Welles for his efforts. Kane lost out in virtually every major award—save one.

  When they announced the winner of Best Screenplay as “Herman J. Mankiewicz…” Herman jumped out of his chair, grabbed Sara, and danced a limping jig. Screams and cheers for Hollywood’s resident loser-genius filled the Biltmore ballroom, and Herman and Sara could hear “Where is he? Mank! Mank!” from the radio as they hobbled around Herman’s bedroom. A few blocks away, Sara’s sister Mattie let out a yelp and grabbed her cousin Olga, and the two women, still in their nightgowns, drove straight to Tower Road for a spontaneous celebration: everyone jumping around, and the phone ringing, and even little Johanna, just four, twirling and sashaying…In a flash it hit Herman what he would have said had he attended the ceremony: “I am very happy to accept this award in Mr. Welles’s absence, because the script was written in Mr. Welles’s absence.”

  Somehow, maybe because the industry hated Orson Welles so much, Herman had become a sentimental favorite, and despite his many peccadilloes, he had become something of a beloved figure in Hollywood. Now, at last, the town was his. If he so wanted, he could begin afresh, with new confidence gained from the triumph of Citizen Kane, and to conquer the field as never before. The town wanted it. It seemed that everyone was joining in.

  A letter from Moss Hart congratulating Herman on Citizen Kane, April 11, 1941

  Not everyone, of course. Across town, listening on his radio, was an M-G-M producer with an uncanny physical resemblance to the screenwriter. The producer had also decided not to attend the ceremony, though several of the pictures he’d worked on had been nominated for various awards. Still, he felt a strong connection to the ceremony, and to Citizen Kane in particular. For one thing, he would later tell interviewers that he had been the source for one of the movie’s great inventions, for he had owned a sled called Rosebud in his youth and he was sure Herman had gotten the idea from him. But he really didn’t want to go to the ceremony because, like Herman, he didn’t want to be humiliated.

  Now, when the moment came and his brother’s name was announced, Joe looked over at his wife, who was listening with him, and said, “I don’t think I’ll ever win an Oscar.” He stood up from his chair, went to the wet bar, and poured himself a drink, just because it was something to do. Years later, long after the moment had served as inspiration for his own greatest work and the coveted Oscar had been transformed in All About Eve into the fictional Sarah Siddons Award, Joe could still remember the awful feeling in his stomach, and the thought that went with it: “He’s got the Oscar, and I’m a producer at Metro, goddamn it!”

  Skip Notes

  *1 Itself a trick question of course; the men are one and the same.

  *2 A group of writers from M-G-M who brought Herman a silver cigarette box engraved with the words “From Manky’s pals” did not help; Herman wept when the men left the room, convinced it was like a man receiving a gold watch upon retirement.

  *3 Orson, Herman, Herman, Herman, Orson, unclear, Herman (though Welles added the brilliant touch of Kane finishing the thing), Herman, Herman, and on and on and yes the score, in this rigged unfinished game gives Herman a lead of six to two (or six to three if you give them both credit for the review).

  *4 And her surname—to Susan Alexander Kane.

  *5 To be sure, Pauline Kael loved the film, and loved B movies, but it’s sometimes hard not to feel that her conviction that the film is the perfect B movie was a backhanded compliment.

  *6 In addition to its overtones in Herman’s life and the fact that it was modeled on a memorably traumatic moment with his own father, the word itself was a deliberate thumb in the eye of another authority figure, for it was rumored to be William Randolph Hearst’s pet name for Marion Davies’s private parts.

  *7 Technically, all the people who worked on Citizen Kane were employed by the Mercury Theatre company, which was paid by RKO.

  *8 The vastness of Welles’s ego is hard to overstate. Decades later, in the late 1970s, my cousin John, Don’s son, was eating at Lucy’s El Adobe, a Mexican restaurant across the street from the Paramount lot. John was sitting in the front booth, right next to the cashier’s station, when he realized that “Orson Welles was sitting in the next booth, holding forth with some enraptured film students, voice booming, almost a caricature of himself.” When the students were paying the check, John says, “Welles stood behind them, right next to me, for a long time. I thought about it, and finally introduced myself. ‘Mr. Welles? I’m John Mankiewicz. You worked with my grandfather.’ He looked down at me for a moment, and said, ‘Did I?’ ”

  *9 Gee, thanks, Orson.

  *10 In 1944, there was a lawsuit in which RKO was accused of plagiarizing a book that was found in Herman’s library, Imperial Hearst, by W. A. Swanberg.

  *11 The “Great Lost Angeles Air Raid,” as the incident came to be known, later served as the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s 1979 film 1941.

  *12 Another possible reason for staying home: by now, Herman had had over four decades of never measuring up to his father’s expectations. When we consider what happened after that night—Herman’s inability to leverage Citizen Kane’s success into a sustained, thriving career—it’s hard to avoid the conjecture that Herman stayed away from the Oscar ceremonies not because he was afraid to lose, but because he was afraid to win.

  FLASHBACK

  FRATRICIDE

  Stop behaving as if fear were something to be ashamed of. Stop being such a pompous know-it-all!

  —People Will Talk

  Joe Mankiewicz had another reason to avoid the 1942 Academy Awards ceremony—namely, the 1941 ceremony. Joe had attended that banquet with full confidence, proud that one of his productions had been nominated for no fewer than six awards. True, he was still itching to direct, but with The Philadelphia Story, Joe had had a tremendous success—his first blowout hit for Metro, grossing $1.3 million for the company—and on the night of the ceremony, he’d soaked up the night’s glamour. While he hadn’t really expected to win the top prize—he knew the town had fallen in love with The Grapes of Wrath, and on the off-chance John Ford’s homage to the simple people suffering in the Dust Bowl didn’t win, everyone loved this roly-poly Alfred Hitchcock now, and Joe told friends not to be surprised if Hitch’s Rebecca took the cake—what he hadn’t counted on was an actual snub in the speeches. For in the end, his film had taken home two prizes, one of which was for Best Screenplay, by Donald Ogden Stewart, who had, in accepting the award, tossed off a thank-you that cut Joe to the quick. The line had been a throwaway really, what Stewart told the crowd gathered at the Biltmore that evening, and was clearly a joke: “I have no one to thank but myself”—everyone knew the movie had been based on a play by Philip Barry (the film won not for Best Original Screenplay but for Best Adapted Screenplay). But to Joe, smiling through his clenched pipe as the laughs ricocheted around the ballroom, the line stung. Did no one know what he had done? Dammit to hell, there wouldn’t be any movie at all without Joe. Would he never get to direct?!

  Joe at an awards ceremony in Hollywood, c. 1940

  By that point, it had already been six years—six years of playing the game and doing it well, producing the crowd-pleasers Mayer expected, and making
’em laugh. But it still wasn’t enough. Joe’s drive for excellence had come practically with his first words, with Pop’s demand for perfection, and while he had nothing to be ashamed of from his years as a producer, producing no less than twenty movies for M-G-M, the whole thing still galled him. And here was Stewart, an alleged friend, and all but forgotten was that Metro had Joe’s unrelenting ambition to thank for the acquisition of The Philadelphia Story in the first place. When Philip Barry’s production starring Katharine Hepburn as the witty but chilly heiress, Tracy Lord, beautiful but seemingly as unfeeling as stone, became the biggest Broadway hit of 1939, Joe had known instantly that he had to produce the movie version.

  Hepburn, who had famously been deemed “box office poison” in a survey of movie exhibitors in 1938 after several unsuccessful films,*1 had cleverly acquired the rights to the film, enabling her to recreate Lord on the silver screen, a role that turned her career around. But her lover at the time, no less a tycoon than Howard Hughes, had thrown a stumbling block into any agreement, requiring that all screen versions of the play have two men with significant star power acting opposite Hepburn. Unfortunately, the play had only one substantial male part that would attract a star—an antagonistic reporter with small town origins who ultimately falls in love with Lord.