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Book

Competing with idiots : Herman and Joe Mankiewicz, a dual portrait

Call Number

  • 791.430233 D2634 (CEN)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.

Physical Description

xv, 362 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Summary

"A dual biography of brothers Herman and Joseph Mankiewicz, each a Hollywood legend"--

Herman Mankiewicz went to Hollywood in 1926, was almost immediately successful, and became one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood. His brother Joe, eleven years younger, focused, organized, a disciplined writer, produced, wrote and directed Oscar winning films before seeing his career upended by the spectacular fiasco of Cleopatra. Davis-- grandson of Herman, great-nephew of Joe, shows us their dreams and desires, fears and feuds, struggles to free themselves from their dark past; and the driving forces that kept them bound to a system they loved and hated. -- adapted from jacket

Contents

  • Prologue
  • Rosebud
  • Gertrude Slescynski
  • The New Yorker
  • Yes, the New Yorker
  • Hollywood
  • Trapped
  • Monkeybitch
  • American
  • Fratricide
  • A new heart
  • Ships in the night
  • Eve
  • No way out
  • Hooray for the Bulldog
  • Man-about-town
  • A river in Egypt
  • Legacy.

Subjects