by Nick Davis
“frumpy English secretary”: Meryman interview with SM.
“needlessly extravagant”: letter, Sara to Herman, late 1930s. (I found this undated letter slipped mysteriously into a folder containing transcripts of Richard Meryman’s interviews with Sara.)
“smart about those things”: Meryman interview with SM.
“listening to a baseball game”: Meryman interview with Don Mankiewicz.
“picture of a moonbeam”: Meryman, 202.
“never got over”: Meryman interview with SM.
“Get in here!”: Meryman interview with Johanna Mankiewicz Davis.
butterfly kisses: Johanna Davis, Life Signs (1973).
“you knew that he loved you”: Meryman interview with JMD.
“white wine came up with the fish”: Meryman, 15.
the European memories: author interview with Alex Mankiewicz.
considerable amount of alimony: Geist, 85.
portrait of a gangster: Meryman, 172.
“wishing I was back in New York”: ibid., 289.
less than a week: ibid., 173.
relief came at last: ibid., 174–175.
black-and-white to color: Kenneth Von Gunden, Flights of Fancy (1989), 216.
PART 3
Chapter Eight: AMERICAN
“take good care”: Meryman, 239.
never to return: ibid., 236.
left the lunch feeling: Meryman interview with Houseman.
Welles started a thriller: Callow, 477.
$200 a pop: Meryman, 241.
no grandson should ever: Sara’s interview contains phrases like “magnetic, absolutely” and she describes how Welles would tell her “move over” as he climbed into bed with her.
took credit for everything: Carringer, 16; Meryman, 241.
great work at last: Carringer, 17–18; Meryman, 248–251.
long film script: Carringer, 18; Meryman, 257.
blamed on Kane: Carringer, 19–21.
uncredited work: ibid., 24.
unofficial cast gatherings: Meryman, 259.
“shall be deemed the author”: Carringer, 32.
“completely without film!”: Meryman, 263.
pretty good: Meryman interview with Rita Alexander.
“save Mankiewicz from disaster”: Meryman, 258.
had to fire Jedediah: Meryman interview with Welles.
beachheads for lawsuits: Meryman, 269.
spent the nickel: ibid., 247; author interview with FM.
“do something drastic”: Meryman interview with SM.
The phrase “resident loser-genius” is a terrific one that I am stealing from Pauline Kael. Pauline Kael, “Raising Kane,” The New Yorker, February12, 1971.
hobbled around: Meryman, 277.
“written in Mr. Welles’s absence”: ibid., 273.
“I don’t think I’ll ever”: Geist, 109.
“producer at Metro”: ibid.
Flashback: FRATRICIDE
the movie version: Geist, 100–106.
classic comedic tableau: Cavell, 133–160.
“cut you down to size”: Geist, 105; Tom Mankiewicz, 20. This is a story Joe told, characteristically, different ways at different times.
“a cup of coffee”: Geist, 106.
“worst bunch of shit”: ibid., 107.
“couldn’t change it fundamentally”: Ring Lardner interview, Archive of American Television (2000), https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ring-lardner-jr
Chapter Nine: A NEW HEART
“doesn’t your stomach turn”: Meryman interview with JM.
“let loose a colossal belch”: Meryman interviews with JM and SM.
“what can I bring you”: Meryman interview with SM.
“part of the chemistry”: Geist, 97.
“only thing I could say”: author interview with TM.
“all the ladies at M-G-M”: Geist, 89.
“absolutely irresistible”: Geist, 89.
“part of anything”: Geist interview with JM.
“an intellectual game”: author interview with CM.
“marvelous girl”: Geist interview with JM.
“When you’re Judy Garland”: Carey and Mankiewicz, More About All About Eve, 23.
“most remarkably bright”: Geist, 110.
“close the book on Judy”: Clarke, 181.
“enjoyed being myself”: Clarke, 134.
harboring unconscious hostility: Geist, 111.
same renowned Freudian: ibid., 111.
“willing to negotiate”: author interview with Peter Davis.
stormed out: Geist, 112–113.
“love an animal”: Clarke, 181.
“so, so sorry”: author interview with TM.
“a little happy, a little sad”: Clarke, 191.
glittering in triumph: ibid., 213.
“dimmer and dimmer”: ibid., 212.
“remember an emotion”: ibid., 212.
“only one role is available”: Carey, 32.
if she stepped aside: Geist, 118.
pleaded with the studio: Geist interview with Nunnally Johnson.
“failed in all things”: The Keys of the Kingdom, trailer copy.
arm in arm: Geist, 120.
“wouldn’t have lasted”: Geist interview with Johnny Green.
“sit there sobbing”: Geist, 120.
Chapter Ten: SHIPS IN THE NIGHT
“strike two, you’re out!”: author interview with FM.
“He should drink”: Meryman, 280.
“a loathsome person”: ibid., 279.
“here comes crazy Mank”: ibid., 235.
“something marvelous”: Geist interview with JMD.
“impressed and depressed”: Meryman, 177.
“seen the year before”: ibid., 178.
“What’s the matter, kid?”: Meryman interview with EM.
“surrender gesture”: Meryman interview with Fred Hacker.
“warning to their children”: Life, 164.
“so embarrassing”: Meryman interview with JM.
“Dwight Taylor sober”: Meryman, 282; “the little boy in me”: Meryman, 281.
“monitor ass”: Meryman, 15.
“admit what I’m writing”: ibid., 287.
“why would you go”: Meryman interview with Houseman.
“write me out of it”: ibid., 287.
“all worthwhile contributions”: Meryman, 284.
“wasting the best years”: ibid., 285.
“at your disposal”: Geist interview with Arthur Miller.
“what I was thinking”: Geist, 121.
“earned your wings”: ibid., 132.
“shall be the last”: ibid., 136.
“take my chances”; “one wife too many”: Geist, 138.
“without even trying”: Time (January 17, 1949), 86.
Chapter Eleven: EVE
a mean cut: Meryman, 282.
drunkenly plowed into; “so we have hopes”: Meryman, 283.
“on his way home”: ibid., 284.
“quirks and frailties”: Carey, 8.
“marriage of writer and material”: Geist, 161.
“goldmining camp and ivory ghetto”: Carey, 11.
“oldest whore on the beat”: among many sources, Andrew Sarris, “Mankiewicz of the Movies” (1970), in Dauth, 27.
“love letter to Thespis”: Geist interview with Celeste Holm.
went off, alone: Geist, 167.
“where God goes on vacation”: author conversation with John Mankiewicz, 2003.
“t
he world is full of Eves”: Carey and Mankiewicz, More About All About Eve, 98.
“servicing a bottomless pit”: Carey, 29.
keep the deep voice: All About Mankiewicz.
“I’ve been there”: Carey, 29.
“because I am bored”: “George Sanders, Film Villain, A Suicide,” New York Times, April 26, 1972.
“predictable, conforming”: Carey, 41.
“Waldo Lydecker School”: Les Fabian Brathwaite, “Hays’d: Decoding the Classics—‘All About Eve,’ IndieWire, April 25, 2014.
“done as a short”: Geist, 168; “really going on”: author interview with CM.
“boy was she provoked!”: Geist interview with JMD.
“propensities of creative talents”: Carey, 51.
“nothing to do with”: Geist, 161; “it doesn’t get to him”: Geist interview with JMD.
“Absurd”: author interview with Rosemary Mankiewicz.
most sparked: Meryman, 313–314.
“every top star”: ibid., 313.
“layman and fathead”: ibid., 313.
“pushed me aside”: Sam Staggs, Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard (2003), 183; Staggs quotes a letter from Chris Mankiewicz.
“I miss the boys”: Meryman interview with SM.
life has moved on: Johanna Davis, Life Signs, 47–49.
“It won’t be long”: Davis, 49.
PART 4
“belong to herself”: Davis, 182.
Chapter Twelve: NO WAY OUT
“stop dreaming”: Hollywood Round Table, 1963. Motion Picture 306–1757; Records of the U.S. Information Agency, Record Group 306; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u27coFlGXg
“house of Edwin Knopf”: Geist, 175.
“put in concentration camps”: Greg Mitchell, “Winning a Battle but Losing the War Over the Blacklist,” New York Times, January 25, 1998.
“least politically minded”: Geist, 174.
“slandered, libeled, persecuted”: ibid., 180.
“nobody appointed DeMille”: Mitchell, New York Times, January 25, 1998.
“Mankiewicz Will Not Sign Oath”: Daily Variety, October 11, 1950.
“ballot to recall”: Geist, 183.
“impeached, my boy”: James Ulmer, “A Guild Divided,” DGA Quarterly, Spring 2011. www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1101-Spring-2011/Feature-Loyalty-Oath.aspx
“out of the water”: Geist, 189.
“act of contrition”: Mitchell, New York Times, January 25, 1998.
“rather soiled linen”: Geist, 194.
“only one that got wet”; “Fleddie Zinnemann”; “or how big”: Mitchell, New York Times, January 25, 1998.
“a thing you stand for”: Ulmer, DGA Quarterly.
Chapter Thirteen: HOORAY FOR THE BULLDOG
“see my husband”: Meryman interview with SM.
“how lucky Sara was”: ibid.
“Italian, of course”: Meryman, 321.
didn’t want to be interrupted: ibid., 322.
“What the hell am I doing”; “an absolute vision”: Meryman interview with SM.
what time it is: Tom Mankiewicz interview with JM; didn’t get the part: Geist, 118.
“it can never be the play”: ibid., 148.
“murderous fights”: ibid., 167.
whatever he was now: author interview with CM.
frankly crazy behavior: author interview with TM.
“Get the butler”: author interview with Robbie Lantz.
Chapter Fourteen: MAN-ABOUT-TOWN
thinking of his own boys: author interview with RM.
“Hollywood bullshit”: author interview with CM.
“You think you’re Leonard Bernstein”: author interview with Peter Davis.
“nobody wants to listen”: author interview with CM.
predicting precisely how: Tom Mankiewicz, 6.
“I don’t like Jeanne Crain”: Geist, 209n3.
“very pleasant, very shy”: Carey, 69–70.
“going to be difficult”: author interview with CM.
“great character comedienne”: Carey, 70.
“wrapped for a gift”: Life (March 12, 1951), 160.
“as a fiddler would a Stradivarius”: Carey, 70.
“as if the theater were the one woman”: All About Mankiewicz (1983), film.
“appeared to be well directed”: Geist, 219.
“remnants of many broads”: Geist, 225.
“taken his set back”: Tom Mankiewicz, 43.
“brilliant” and “electrifying”: Bosley Crowther, “ ‘Julius Caesar’ and Two Other Arrivals,” New York Times, June 5, 1953.
“with an astonishing lack of subtlety”: Klinowski, Jacek; Garbicz, Adam, Feature Cinema in the 20th Century: Volume One: 1913–1950: a Comprehensive Guide. (2012).
“Angry at too many things”: Derek Conrad, “Joseph Mankiewicz, Putting on the Style,” in Dauth, Joseph L. Mankiewicz: Interviews (2008), 25.
“hate each other worse than”: author interview with TM.
“He’s drunk”: Tom Mankiewicz, 29.
“kind of a pig”: Geist interview with JMD.
“Mother yelling”: ibid., 28.
“neither have I”: Carey, 94.
“When Mumbles is through rehearsing”: Geist, 258n8; James Bacon, Hollywood Is a Four-Letter Town (1976), 203.
“most intelligent man”: Vincent Canby, “40 Years of Cinematic Magic,” New York Times, November 20, 1992.
“always needed a villain”: Meryman, 260.
all very psychosomatic: author interview with Robbie Lantz.
“Johanna took the answer”: Bettman, “Einstein’s Answer to Student’s Geometry Question,” May 17, 1952, photograph. Getty Images, www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/may-17-1952-when-15-year-old-johanna-mankiewicz-solved-her-news-photo/517257104
“I turned it down”: Meryman, 319–320.
“never had a bad one”: Meryman interview with JM.
“closer to loving Herman”: Meryman, 322.
has a play on Broadway: my phrasing comes from anecdotal Broadway history. Geist quotes Kaufman slightly differently: “I intend to live until Joe Mankiewicz has done his first play on Broadway”; Geist, 291. Or “Don’t worry, I’m not going to die until Joe Mankiewicz writes his first play”: Tom Mankiewicz, 37.
still but not too still: Geist interview with JMD.
an orchestration: author interview with CM.
“desperately insecure”: Geist interview with JMD.
“dillydallied”: author interview with CM.
Bennett Cerf’s limousine: Geist interview with JMD.
“You fucking phony”: author interview with CM.
The note: “Mrs. Mankiewicz Is Found Dead,” New York Times, September 28, 1958.
“first honest sentiment”: author interview with CM.
“betray true emotion”; “it was over”: Geist interview with JMD.
“paying for her grave”: author interview with TM.
“split the double-header”: author conversation with John Mankiewicz.
expanded and sanitized: Geist, 293.
“best screen performance”: ibid., 299.
having an affair: Tom Mankiewicz, 46.
“sorry to have missed you”: Tom Mankiewicz, 46.
unforgiving toward Clift: William J. Mann, Kate (2006), 409; Geist, 294.
“what I was doing”: Geist, 298.
“Am I really done?”: A. Scott Berg, Kate Remembered (2003), 238; Geist, 298.
“literal study”: Tennessee Williams, “Five Fiery Ladies,” Life (Febr
uary 3, 1961), 88.
“elementary Freudian psychology”: Geist, 293.
Chapter Fifteen: A RIVER IN EGYPT
“wonderful to me”: Geist interview with JMD.
former fiancé: author conversation with Peter Davis.
“needs to be reminded”: Geist interview with JMD.
“had a neck”: ibid.
“not looking for credit”; “the real facts”; “great hostility”: ibid.
barked at the rabbi: author conversation with Peter Davis.
“perfectly nice guy”: Geist interview with JMD.
“never thought anybody”: Jeff Laffel, “Joseph L. Mankiewicz,” Films in Review (July-August 1991, September-October 1991); Dauth, Interviews, 199.
story of the making: this chapter relies on Geist, 302-345; David Kamp, “When Liz Met Dick,” Vanity Fair (April 1998); and the AMC documentary Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood (2001).
“wouldn’t even go see”: Peter Stone, “All About Joe,” Interview (August 1989); Dauth, Interviews, 183.
“you like yachts”: Dauth, Interviews, 183.
an actual check: author interview with John Mankiewicz.
“Hold your nose”: Geist, 310.
“conceived in a state of emergency”: David Lewin, “It All Depends on Cleo,” Daily Mail (10 June 1963); in Lower and Palmer, Critical Essays (2001), 211.
“erotic vagrancy”; “back of my Cadillac”: Kamp, Vanity Fair (April 1998).
“real story”: Kamp, Vanity Fair (April 1998).
“he will die”: Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood (2001), video.
“on Cleopatra’s cost report”: author interview with RM.
“the easiest thing”: author interview with TM.
“big guns”: Kamp, Vanity Fair (April 1998).
“natural proclivity for larceny”: author interview with TM.
three or four periods: author interview with TM.
“cut her balls off”; “well-deserved rest”: Vanity Fair (April 1998).
