Like his older brother Herman J. Mankiewicz, American producer/ director/ writer Joseph Mankiewicz displayed a streak of brilliance from an early age. Before he was 20, the younger Mankiewicz was the assistant Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and an English translator for the subtitles of German-made films. Brother Herman, already ensconced in Hollywood as a high-priced screenwriter, invited Joseph to try his luck in Tinseltown in 1929.

Mankiewicz's first assignment at Paramount was composing subtitles for the silent versions of the studio's sound pictures. He also concocted special comedy material for Jack Oakie movies, which led to several years of employment on such nonsensical film farces as Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey's Diplomaniacs (1933) and W.C. Fields' Million Dollar Legs in 1932. (Fields paid Joseph 50 dollars for the lifetime rights to the phrase "My little chickadee.") Mankiewicz moved to MGM in 1934, where he expressed a desire to direct; MGM head Louis B. Mayer…  » Read more