Competing with Idiots
Page 39
NOTES
The two pillars of Mankiewicz biography while I was writing this book were Mank, written by Richard Meryman and published in 1977, and Pictures Will Talk, by Kenneth Geist, published the following year. Both men were extremely generous with me, and both shared all the original audio interviews they conducted for their work, including mountains of rich material that didn’t make it into their published books. Thus, while I conducted a variety of original interviews for this book during the past eighteen years, the bulk of my interviewees spoke to me from the early 1970s—many have passed away, but their voices imbue this project on every page.
ABBREVIATIONS:
CM Chris Mankiewicz
ER Erna Mankiewicz
FM Frank Mankiewicz
JM Joseph Mankiewicz
JMD Johanna Mankiewicz Davis
RM Rosemary Mankiewicz
SM Sara Mankiewicz
TM Tom Mankiewicz
Prologue
“than Meets the Eye”: Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema (1968), 161.
“as much fun as he wants”: Ben Hecht, A Child of the Century (1954), 479.
PART 1
“Your only competition is idiots”: Hecht, 466.
Chapter One: ROSEBUD
told a psychoanalyst: Richard Meryman interview with Fred Hacker.
“not good unless it’s your best”: Robert Coughlan, “15 Authors in Search of a Character Named Joseph L. Mankiewicz,” Life (March 12, 1951), 158–173; 163.
“just a characteristic”: ibid., 163.
“tremendously industrious”: ibid., 163.
“Promises, promises”: author interview with Peter Davis.
“for the grace of God, goes God”: Pauline Kael, The Citizen Kane Book, 31.
“is it ‘veeya’ or ‘veal’?”: author interview with Frank Mankiewicz.
“a round little woman”: Life, 163.
“too strong a word”: Meryman interview with Sara Mankiewicz.
“concentrated very hard”: Meryman, Mank (1978), 23.
need not worry: Meryman interview with Fred Hacker.
“Rosebud was pure Mank”: Peter Bogdanovich, “Interview with Orson Welles,” in James Naremore, ed., Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane”: A Casebook (2004), 25. (I remember vividly that as a boy, while first investigating Herman, I read something about Orson Welles using the memorable phrase “Rosebud was pure Mank” and have so quoted it in the text.)
“bulldog Herman”: Meryman, 25.
“terrifying and destructive”: ibid., 23.
promised him a bicycle: ibid., 20–21. The Rosebud-bicycle story is told many other times, including in Tom Mankiewicz’s droll but notoriously fact-averse (at least in the family) memoir, Growing Up Mankiewicz, as well as in Geist.
“going to the library”: Meryman interview with SM.
Chapter Two: GERTRUDE SLESCYNSKI
first memories: Geist interview with Joe Mankiewicz.
“Herman complex”: ibid.
“my idiot brother”: Kael (1971), 33.
“why I gamble”; “and I hate her”: Meryman, 199.
“fiercely ambitious”: Life, 163.
“is a real shit”: author interview with Peter Davis.
“never shouts”; “starts out”: Life, 160.
“well-nigh perfect”: Richard Burton, in Geist, Pictures Will Talk (1978), xiii.
“bloody marvelous”: Michael Caine, Acting in Film (1997), 121.
“Mankiewicz is a genius”: Sam Staggs, All About “All About Eve” (2000), 113.
“always adored him”: Geist interview with Erna Mankiewicz.
kidding and jokes: author interview with Tom Mankiewicz.
“very internal guy”: Geist, 1.
“Dad was so controlled”: author interview with TM.
“such a sweet child”: author interview with Chris Mankiewicz.
pride and hope: Geist interview with JM and Geist, 16.
“father figure I wanted”: Meryman, 142–143. Interestingly, Joe’s interviews with his brother’s biographer Meryman reveal a much warmer attitude toward Herman than those he conducted with his own, Geist.
loose change: Meryman interview with JM.
prevented him from attending: Meryman, 27.
“Are you related”: author interview with Frank Mankiewicz.
“what are you doing these days?”: the Cagney story is a Mankiewicz chestnut, related in my interview with FM and in Life, 163.
“no time for him”: ibid.
“to my hacienda”: Geist, 16–17.
“write that down”: Meryman interview with Mildred Jaffe.
“moving all the time”: Geist, 18.
“no contact today”: Life, 163.
“He had friends”: Geist interview with ER.
“When anybody blew”: Meryman, 31.
“they don’t drink”: Meryman interview with Fred Hacker.
would phone Franz: Meryman, 29.
“rained on or not”: ibid., 31.
“real contempt for money”: Life, 163.
“hip-pocket lending library”: Meryman, 31.
“darting into entryways”: ibid., 32.
“Show me a rule”: Meryman interview with Frank Perry.
“push his food on his fork”: Dorothy Kahn, in Meryman, 32.
“what England seems”: Meryman, 29.
“almost professional”: Richard Rodgers, Musical Stages (1975), 35.
“particularly clever”: “Columbia’s Review a Bright Satire,” New York Times, April 13, 1916.
“very famous doctor”: Geist, 18.
“some thwarted violence”: Meryman, 18.
Chapter Three: THE NEW YORKER
“one day you wake up”: Meryman, 315.
“too competitive”: Simon Louvish, Monkey Business: The Lives and Legends of the Marx Brothers (1999), 165–166.
“wanted me to be funny”: Meryman, 120–122; Meryman interview with SM.
“in a dream world”: Meryman, 35.
an X through the rest: ibid., 37.
“zero flying aptitude”; “if need be, die”: ibid., 38.
“fanciful lies”: ibid., 39.
“too pure for words”: ibid., 40.
“never live up”: Life, 163.
then leave the theater: author interviews with FM and TM.
“The sun will be shining”: Meryman, 44–45.
“Which one is the bride?”: ibid., 45.
“a nice, noisy wedding”: Meryman interview with SM.
“slept in another bed”: ibid.
“an old marriage”: Meryman, 45-46.
“no nothing”; “more than okay!”: ibid., 46.
“has his faults”: ibid., 43.
“with my money”: ibid., 47.
almost lascivious: ibid., 48.
“boy whores”: Meryman interview with SM.
had to find a job: Meryman, 51.
life in Berlin: ibid., 51–53.
“no illusions”: Meryman interview with Rebecca Drucker.
“if you picket”: Meryman, 54; “a way of looking”: Meryman, 55.
lock him inside: Meryman interview with Sigrid Schultz.
poker buddies: Meryman, 65.
“partly for his wife”: ibid., 55; “Your stuff is great”: ibid., 58.
“carried off the honors”: Meryman interview with SM.
“Schnooks, where are you?”: Meryman, 56.
“to a tiny baby?”: ibid., 61.
“an expressioniste of beauty”: Andrew Hewitt, Social Choreography: Ideology as Performance in Dance and Everyday
Movement (2005), 273.
“surprised at Yesenin”: Meryman, 62.
“laughed boisterously”; “checks in Russia”: ibid., 63.
“impossible to keep up”; “railed at him”: ibid., 64.
“prospective return”; close enough: ibid., 65.
Chapter Four: YES, THE NEW YORKER
“liveliest and most amusing”: Stanley Walker, City Editor (1961), 41.
“Where is it written”: Meryman, 98.
“what do you know!”: ibid., 98.
“until you are Swopen to”: ibid., 68.
“seldom makes literature”: Hecht, 393.
“first real exposure”: Meryman, 70–71, and Meryman interview with SM.
“Even his enemies laughed”: Hecht, 393.
“life of every party”: Meryman interview with SM.
“acted obeisant”: James R. Gaines, Wit’s End (1977), 28.
“do this every day?”: Margaret Case Harriman, The Vicious Circle (1951), 7.
“collection of unsalable wit”: ibid., 20; Marion Meade, Dorothy Parker (1988), 74.
“Who’s in a hurry?”: Nathaniel Benchley, Robert Benchley (1955), 3.
“Why so it does”: Gaines, 30; Meade, 85.
“So do you”: Harriman, 145; Meade, 76.
“people telling jokes”: Alden Whitman, “Dorothy Parker, 73, Literary Wit, Dies,” New York Times, June 8, 1967.
“used piece of soap”: Meryman, 84.
“every other writer”: Meryman interview with SM.
script dragged on: Meryman, 126.
“sixteen bottles of Scotch”: Kael, Raising Kane and Other Essays, 191.
“sit in a box seat”: Meryman, 125.
“like a saloon brawler”: Hecht, Charlie (1957), 141.
“mad about”: Meryman interview with SM.
“new theatrical year”: The New Yorker (August 15, 1925), 13.
“who has never been there”: The New Yorker (January 16, 1926), 19.
“let her prepare”: The New Yorker (August 8, 1925), 15.
“not among his worst”: The New Yorker (July 18, 1925), 15.
“read a bad book”: The New Yorker (January 2, 1926), 20.
“one of the greatest joys”: The New Yorker (October 24, 1925), 20.
“one-tenth ability”: The New Yorker (June 20, 1925), 15.
“filled with trash”: The New Yorker (February 6, 1926), 16.
“The Big Game”: The New Yorker (November, 14, 1925), 11-12.
“saturated with the theatre”: Meryman, 91.
“for women and fairies”: ibid., 123.
lost all the money: ibid., 124.
“colored, pretty bungalows”: ibid.
whacked Ross’s desk: ibid., 125.
PART 2
“whole equation of pictures in their heads”: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon (1994), 3.
Chapter Five: HOLLYWOOD
“course in neoclassicism”: Geist, 19.
“ragpickers”; “pissants”; “Jew tailors”; “blintze brains”: Meryman, 161.
little German one-act: Geist, 20.
“in the money”: Meryman, 129.
“wash in private”: ibid., 131.
“fragrant mystery”: Intolerance (1916).
“supposed to be Russian?”: The Last Command (1928).
they were gambling: Meryman, 137.
“a badge of honor”: Meryman interview with Ben Schulberg.
“On football wagers”: Meryman, 136.
“or it doesn’t”: This particular gambling story was told many times, by every family member who traffics in such tales, each time with slight variations. One good recent print source is Tom Mankiewicz, My Life as a Mankiewicz (2012), 9.
“Look! No hands!”: Meryman, 129.
“he stops learning”; “Send Your Boy to an Eastern College”: ibid., 153.
“can’t fire me”: ibid., 137.
“seldom written”: Hecht, 478.
“half the women”; “tricky essentials”: Meryman, 131.
“Tell them to repaint it!”: ibid., 153.
“only competition is idiots”: Hecht, 466.
“for a few days”: Meryman, 134.
setbacks of his plays: ibid., 132.
“Fresh Air Fund”: ibid., 138.
Graduation day: Geist, 21.
“horrified and nauseated me”; “total failure”: Life, 164.
joined a fraternity: Geist, 19.
“Lie down with idiots”: author interview with FM.
“Eckstein in lights”; “you’re in it”: Geist, 20.
“my brother’s name”: Geist, 20.
“fistfight with Zeppo”; “perhaps develop”: Geist, 21.
“succumb to the blandishments”: Geist, 21.
“intoxication of theater”: ibid., 22.
“Everything that Paris was described as”: All About Mankiewicz, dir. Luc Béraud (1983). www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aTNbVyI2Gc
“come out to Hollywood!”: Geist, 23.
“discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb”; “I knew that back”: Joe told the story of his first night in Hollywood many times in many different ways, the best two in Béraud’s film and at Geist, 23.
“an illusion shattered”; “one Hollywood pro”: Geist, 24.
Chapter Six: TRAPPED
establish the jeopardy: Geist interview with JM; Geist, 25-28.
“strongly impressed”: Geist, 37.
“very apologetically”: ibid., 37.
“the kind of guy”: Meryman, 140.
“bachelor’s table”: ibid., 131.
“eaten by wolves”: ibid., 142.
“never lasts”: ibid., 144.
“patronized him”: Life, 164.
“everything he has”: Meryman, 144.
“ruins you for anyone else”: Geist, 39.
“the big ham bit”: Geist, 41.
“all clowns”: author interview with FM.
limousine on Halloween: Mom told my brother and me about her chauffeur-driven Halloweens, a lightly fictionalized version of which appears in her novel Life Signs.
“literate people”: author interview with FM.
“what has he got to say”: author interview with FM.
“give up this crap”: Geist, 37.
“Napier”: Meryman, 176.
“zoomed away”: Geist, 51.
“fuck a star”: author correspondence with Peter Davis.
reattach his foreskin: Meryman interview with JM.
become his bride: Geist, 70.
parting on good terms: ibid., 85.
“wrote a syllable”: ibid., 49.
“my little chickadee”: All About Mankiewicz (1983), film.
“asbestos pants”: Meryman, 145.
“bedlams of shouted ideas”: ibid., 145.
“picks up spit”; “punctured his pretensions”: ibid., 148.
“make your dinner party”: ibid., 207.
“How much can a gun eat?”: ibid., 212.
“wonderful times”: Meryman, 175.
“more respectable version”: Meryman interview with Marion Spitzer; Meryman, 143.
“More regimented”: Meryman interview with John Lee Mahin.
“color of my environment”: Geist, 18.
“infantile regression”: Meryman interview with Fred Hacker.
“terrified of Herman”: Meryman, 177.
“Here lies Herm”: Life, 164.
Adolf Mitler: “The Mad Dog of Europe,” screenplay by Lynn Root.
jeopardize their German business: Ben Urwand, The C
ollaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler (2013), excerpted in The Hollywood Reporter (August 9, 2013). www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-hollywood-helped-hitler-595684
Chapter Seven: MONKEYBITCH
“pictures smell of rotten bananas”: Fitzgerald, 140.
“whole equation in his head”: ibid., 3.
“learn to crawl”: Geist, 73.
“women’s picture”: ibid., 92.
“carry light and music”: Hamilton, Writers in Hollywood (1990), 149; Matthew J. Bruccoli, ed., Three Comrades: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Screenplay (1978), 44.
“tired of the best scenes”: Hamilton, 150; The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, ed. Andrew Turnbull (1963), 563.
“spat on the American flag”: Hamilton, 148; Jacques Bontemps and Richard Overstreet, “ ‘Measure for Measure’: Interviews with Joseph Mankiewicz,” Cahiers du Cinema in English 18 (February 1967), 31.
“doesn’t he know”: Hamilton, 152; Sheila Graham, Beloved Infidel (1959), 197.
“My only hope”: Hamilton, 150.
“ever be wrong?”: ibid.
“collaborator’s typewriter”: Meryman, 158.
“you just left”: ibid., 152.
“neurotic inertia”: ibid., 154.
“allowed alone in a room”: Wilk, The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood (1971), 144.
“a loafer is a loafer”: Meryman, 154.
“stands where they are sitting”: ibid., 163.
“twelfth drink”: Meryman interview with Gottfried Reinhardt.
follow her out: Meryman, 167.
“poor Sara”: ibid., 136.
“never came close to her”: Meryman interview with Fred Hacker.