007 Screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz dead at 68

Another James Bond legend is gone. This is sad news as his scripts were genuinely funny and his voice really fit the Bond and Superman films of their eras.

From M16: The Home of James Bond:

Thomas Francis Mankiewicz was born into a successful cinematic family on 1st June 1942, in Los Angeles, California. His father, Joseph (of German descent), was the successful screenwriter behind “All About Eve” and was already an Oscar winner by the time Tom was born.

Joseph moved his family to New York on the birth of his son. The young Tom Mankiewicz attended Phillips Exeter School in New Hampshire and later, the prestigious Yale University in Connecticut, where he majored in Drama. Whilst studying he found work on a few token productions, including “Comancheros”, the 1961 John Wayne western. By 1963 (aged 21), Tom entered the workforce full time as assistant to Lawrence Turman, the would-be producer of “American History X”.

Mankiewicz quickly made his name in the film industry as a jack-of-all-trades – his first credit coming as Production Assistant onboard the screen adaptation of Gore Vidal’s theatre production “The Best Man” (1964). The film found favour with the critics and received an Oscar nod.Whilst the young assistant served his producer Turman well, his real passion and skill would be found as a writer. In the late 1960s, Mankiewicz began to work in his own time on a screenplay entitled “Please”. The story of Tom’s first screenplay was almost as tragic as the story it related – that of tormented, and ultimately suicidal actress – as his first draft was shopped around but never optioned….

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