Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1909 and died in 1993, Joseph L. Mankiewicz came from a family of writers; his brother Herman co-wrote Citizen Kane. After a career as a screenwriter and producer, he won both the director and writer Oscars two years in a row, for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950). His films are known for their verbal wit, literary structure and ironic view of ambition and betrayal. His Cleopatra (1963) was a famous box-office disaster, though he later made Sleuth (1972).
Filmography
- Dragonwyck (1946)
- The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
- A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
- All About Eve (1950)
- Five Fingers (1952)
- Julius Caesar (1953)
- The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
- Guys and Dolls (1955)
- Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
- Cleopatra (1963)
- There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)
- Sleuth (1972)