Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics

Herman J. (1897-1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. 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. Herman, who never reconciled himself to screenwriting, gambled away his prodigious earnings and drank himself to death at fifty-f...