Director David Fincher’s latest work pays tribute to the golden age of Hollywood and one of the greatest films of all time. Written by his late father Jack Fincher, “Mank” follows screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) through the world of the film industry in the 1930s as he is inspired to write Orson Welles’ masterpiece “Citizen Kane.” As dramatized in the film, Mankiewicz drew upon his experiences in the social circle of real-life newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), to create the fictional Charles Foster Kane. Click through our photo gallery below to see the true life people and stories behind the characters of Netflix’s latest awards contender.
As portrayed in the film, “Citizen Kane” was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture, but only won for Best Original Screenplay. Welles and Mankiewicz shared the writing credit and the award, though many debate the true degree of Welles’ contributions. Welles originally hired Mankiewicz as a script doctor who would receive no credit for his work, but towards the end of production the writer successfully lobbied to have his name on the picture. Though many have claimed that Mankiewicz deserved sole credit, most notably critic Pauline Kael and Mankiewicz himself, there is significant evidence that the final product was an equal collaboration between the two men.
Despite the filmmaker’s claims to the contrary, when “Kane” was released critics immediately noted the similarities between Kane and Hearst. Hearst banned all of his papers from reviewing or even mentioning the film, and many theaters wouldn’t show it out of fear of the tycoon’s newspaper empire. “Kane” was not an outright flop, but due to the pressure from Hearst it was not as successful as the studio had hoped. The film fell out of the public’s consciousness shortly after, but it began to regain critical status in the decades that followed. In 1962 the British magazine “Sight and Sound” ranked it as the best film of all time, cementing the classic in film history. For more of the fascinating true stories behind “Citizen Kane,” scroll through our gallery.
Photo : Netflix; Bain News Service, publisher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Upton Sinclair (Bill Nye)
Upton Sinclair only appears briefly in “Mank” (played, in a clever bit of stunt casting, by Bill Nye the Science Guy), but the outspoken socialist and writer is a hot topic of conversation throughout the film. Sinclair may be best known for writing “The Jungle,” an unflinching portrait of working conditions in the meatpacking industry, but his numerous other works such as “The Brass Check,” “King Coal,” and “Oil!” were all similar scathing exposes of inequality and corruption in America.
In 1934, Sinclair ran as a Democrat for Governor of California against conservative Republican Frank Merriam. The author emphasised his EPIC (End Poverty in California) Plan, which focused on a massive public works investment, tax reform, and guaranteed pensions. The major studio heads opposed Sinclair due to his plan to force them to allow unemployed workers to use their idle studio lots to make movies of their own, and they deducted money from their employees’ paychecks to fund Merriam’s campaign. Sinclair lost the election.
Photo : Netflix; Jewish Chronicle / Heritage Images/Newscom/The Mega Agency
David O. Selznick (Toby Leonard Moore)
David O. Selznick was a writer, producer, and studio executive best known for producing “Gone With The Wind,” still the highest grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation. Selznick won two Oscars for Best Picture in a row, first for “Gone With The Wind,” and then for “Rebecca,” director Alfred Hitchcock’s first Hollywood production.
Photo : Netflix; The Print Collector / Heritage Images/Newscom/The Mega Agency
Irving Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley)
Irving Thalberg was an American film producer who was instrumental in the creation of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. As head of production he helped MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood, even during the height of the Great Depression. Thalberg’s many innovations included story conferences, sneak previews and reshoots. His approach to filmmaking involved combining stars, a popular literary hit or Broadway play and high production values. Thalberg produced several anti-Sinclair newsreels, where actors were portrayed as real people opposing Sinclair’s plans. He famously died young, at age 37, of pneumonia.
Photo : Netflix; Courtesy Image
Joseph Mankiewicz (Tom Pelphrey)
Herman J. Mankiewicz’s brother Joseph was a prolific director, writer, and producer with a long career in Hollywood. The younger Mankiewicz brother was nominated for 9 Oscars; he won for both Best Director and Best Original Screenplay twice in a row, for “A Letter to Three Wives and then “All About Eve.” “Eve” was nominated for a record 14 Oscars, winning 6.
Photo : Netflix; Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance)
William Randolph Hearst was an American businessman, politician, and newspaper magnate. As a young man, Hearst was given control of a San Francisco newspaper by his wealthy father, and over the decades he grew his empire into the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst’s papers were known for their sensationalism, and many credit their reporting on starting the Spanish-American War. The newspaperman was elected twice to the US House of Representatives as a Democrat, and ran unsuccessfully for President, Mayor of New York City, and Governor of New York; he was initially known for progressive views, but became significantly more conservative in his later years. Hearst used his wealth to build a sprawling and lavish estate in San Simeon, California, where he hosted parties for the movers and shakers of Hollywood and housed his massive art collection.
Photo : Netflix; RKO Radio Pictures Inc./Photofest
Orson Welles (Tom Burke)
Orson Welles was an actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theater, radio, and film throughout his career. He began in theater, where he founded the Mercury Theater company with his partner John Houseman. Welles achieved notoriety during a radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” during which many listeners believed they were listening to a report of an actual alien invasion. RKO Pictures gave Welles an unprecedented contract stipulating that Welles would produce, write, direct, and star in two films, over which he would have complete creative control. Welles enlisted the help of veteran screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz to write what would eventually become “Citizen Kane,” arguably the filmmaker’s greatest work. Welles would release twelve feature films, including “The Magnificent Ambersons,” “The Lady of Shanghai,” and “Touch of Evil.” Despite his illustrious career, the only Oscar that Welles ever won was for co-writing “Kane.”
Photo : Netflix
Charles Lederer (Joseph Cross)
Screenwriter and director Charles Lederer was born into Hollywood royalty. After his parents split up, he was raised by his aunt, actress Marion Davies. Davies was the mistress of William Randolph Hearst, and Lederer got to know Hearst well, spending much of his youth at Hearst’s massive San Simeon estate. The young man befriended fellow screenwriters Ben Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz; the three of them were major contributors to the screwball comedy genre. It was through Lederer that Mankiewicz found his way into Hearst’s social circle. Mankiewicz gave the finished script of “Citizen Kane” to Lederer, to see if Davies would be offended; Lederer would later state in an interview that he never showed the script to Davies, and he didn’t see the resemblance to her or Hearst. The writer would later marry Orson Welles’ ex-wife, and through that he began an unlikely friendship with Welles himself.
Photo : Netflix; Courtesy Image
John Houseman (Sam Troughton)
John Houseman was an actor, a producer, and an early collaborator with Orson Welles. After working together on Broadway, Welles and Houseman founded the Mercury Theater company together, though their relationship became strained after Welles had trouble materializing a script for his RKO deal. Welles enlisted Houseman to babysit Herman J. Mankiewicz as he wrote the script for “Citizen Kane” on an historic ranch in Victorville, California. Houseman was one of the first to assert that credit for “Kane’s” screenplay belonged solely to Mankiewicz, which finally ended his friendship with Welles. Houseman worked as a successful producer of film, radio, and television for many years afterward; in 1975 he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in “The Paper Chase,” which kickstarted his career as a character actor late in his life.
Photo : Netflix; Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard)
Louis Bert Mayer was one of the founders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, and working with Irving Thalberg he accumulated the largest collection of major writers, directors, and stars in Hollywood. The studio head was one of the founders of AMPAS, which hosts the Oscars every year, and the staunch conservative was a one-time head of California’s Republican Party. Mayer was friends with William Randolph Hearst, who funded several MGM pictures and affectionately referred to Mayer as his “son.”
Photo : Netflix
Rita Alexander (Lily Collins)
During Herman J. Mankiewicz’s stay at his ranch in Victorville, he dictated the script of “Citizen Kane” to his secretary Rita Alexander. Mankiewicz named Charles Foster Kane’s second wife, Susan Alexander, after her. Her husband was a recently arrived European refugee, not an RAF pilot. Alexander would later tell Pauline Kael in an interview that Orson Welles didn’t write one line of the script for “Kane.”
Photo : Netflix; The Print Collector / Heritage Images/Newscom/The Mega Agency
Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried)
Actress Marion Davies began her career in show business as a chorus girl after fleeing the religious convent she grew up in. She was discovered by William Randolph Hearst while performing in the “Ziegfeld Follies,” and she became his mistress as he took over management of her film career. Hearst financed her films, and by 1923 Davies was the #1 female box office star in Hollywood. She fell into alcoholism as her career declined due to the Great Depression, and shifted her focus to philanthropic work. She stayed with Hearst until his death in 1951.
Davies’ career was overshadowed by “Citizen Kane,” and the assumption that Kane’s second wife Susan Alexander was based on her. Charles Lederer believed that Alexander’s unflattering comparisons to Davies fueled his vendetta towards Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz more than anything else in the film. Welles himself has argued extensively that the character was not based on Davies, and was instead inspired by a combination of several other wives and mistresses of powerful businessmen; unlike the untalented Alexander, Welles maintained that Davies was a gifted actress and comedienne.
Photo : Netflix; Everett Collection
Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman)
Herman J. Mankiewicz started out as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune and worked his way through the east coast newspaper industry as a highly sought after writer known for his wit. Hollywood took notice and Mankiewicz began his prolific screenwriting career just as sound as introduced to the film industry. The screenwriter contributed to dozens of films throughout the ‘30s, mostly uncredited, including as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Man of the World,” and “Pride of the Yankees.” Mankiewicz’s writing was known for its slick, satirical, and witty sense of humor, and his scripts were highly dialogue driven, perfect for an artform that was incorporating sound for the first time. He was also a famous drunk and compulsive gambler.
Mankiewicz met William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies through Davies’ nephew, fellow screenwriter Charles Lederer. Hearst appreciated the writer’s frank sense of humor and invited him and his wife to the extravagant parties thrown at his California mansion. He met Orson Welles after a car accident shattered his leg in 3 places, and afterwards Welles hired the writer to work on his Mercury Theater radio show, and then to collaborate on a script for RKO. They brainstormed for weeks, until they decided to base the script on Hearst himself, as well as several other American industrialists. Mank initially agreed not to accept credit, then later fought for sole credit, and eventually settled on a co-credit with Welles.
Neither Welles nor Mankiewicz attended the Oscar ceremony during which they both won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Mank later told Welles that his acceptance speech would have been “I am very happy to accept this award in Mr. Welles’ absence because the script was written in Mr. Welles’ absence.”
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