The Stage

Tom Mankiewicz

Published Monday 16 August 2010 at 17:41 by Richard Anthony Baker

The American screenwriter, Tom Mankiewicz, contributed to a large part of the popularity of the James Bond and Superman films.

Studios frequently hired him to be a “script doctor,” breathing life into another writer’s work. It was often a thankless task. “If the film flops, you’re accused of messing up someone else’s script,” he once said. “If it succeeds, somebody else walks away with the Oscar.”

Cinema was in the family blood. Mankiewicz’s father, Joseph, won four Oscars, two of them for writing and directing the Bette Davis classic, All About Eve. His uncle, Herman, worked with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane.

After studying drama at university, Tom Mankiewicz briefly considered becoming an actor, but was dissuaded by his father, who told him: “For God’s sake, marry them, divorce them, sleep with them, talk to them, write for them, direct them, go without them, ignore them, but please, don’t be one.”

So, instead, Mankiewicz turned to writing, earning great acclaim for his script of a television special, Movin’ With Nancy [1967], starring Nancy Sinatra, then at the height of her popularity.

He was later asked to write the book for a musical, Georgy [1970], based on the hit film, Georgy Girl. Although it ran for only a few nights, he came to the attention of United Artists.

Cubby Broccoli wanted a complete rewrite of the seventh Bond adventure, Diamonds Are Forever [1979]. Mankiewicz was initially booked for two weeks’ work at $1,250 a week. But he stayed on and eventually shared the writing credit with Richard Maibaum.

He went on to write the screenplays of Live and Let Die [1973] and The Man With the Golden Gun [1974]. He also worked on The Spy Who Loved Me [1977] and sketched out the plot of Moonraker [1979].

Roger Moore, who succeeded Sean Connery as Bond, was a fan of Mankiewicz: “He was without doubt one of the most innovative, clever and inspirational writers of the Bond films.”

The screenplays of Superman [1979] and Superman II [1980] had already been rewritten several times before Mankiewicz became involved. Together, they ran for 400 pages, about seven hours of screen time, but the main complaint of their director, Richard Donner, was that they were too bloated and too camp. After the Mankiewicz treatment, the first Superman became the most successful film of 1979.

Returning to television, he was asked to adapt a pilot for a series called Double Take and was told that, if he was successful, he could fulfil an ambition by directing the new pilot himself.

He changed the title of the show to Hart to Hart, which was sold to ABC Television. Starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers as a pair of glamorous and wealthy amateur detectives, it ran from 1979 to 1984, notching up, in all, 110 episodes.

Tom Manciewicz, who was born on June 1, 1942, died on July 31, aged 68.