Biography
Though once the highest paid screenwriter working in Hollywood, Herman J. Mankiewicz struggled later in his career, only to be resurrected by wunderkind Orson Welles, who hired him to write one of the greatest movies ever made, "Citizen Kane" (1941). Mankiewicz made a go of Hollywood in the mid-1920s after a career as a reporter and theater critic, becoming the head of the script department at Paramount Pictures. He wrote or collaborated on dozens of pictures during the silent era, and with the advent of sound, produced early Marx Brothers classics like "Monkey Business" (1930), "Horse Feathers" (1932) and "Duck Soup" (1933). He also worked frequently with W.C. Fields, including on "Million Dollar Legs" (1932), and was at the peak of his career in the early 1930s. Following this, he had some years of struggle, and Mankiewicz was on the outs with Hollywood for a time, until Welles brought him on to write "Citizen Kane." Despite controversy from its unflattering portrayal of William Randolph Hearst and a dispute about writing credit, Mankiewicz won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He went on to write another Oscar-nominated film, "The Pride of the Yankees" (1942), and did enough acclaimed work that he left behind a lasting legacy as one of classic Hollywood's most gifted writers.
