Herman J. Mankiewicz, 1987-1953

Today marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of screnwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, brother of director Joseph and grandfather of TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

Herman is probably best remembered for his work on the screenplay to Citizen Kane, which won him an Oscar although Orson Welles might have begged to differ over how much of the work on that screenplay was done by various people. Among Herman's other screen credits are adapting the play Dinner At Eight for the movie version. He also wrote the original story for It's a Wonderful World, which is going to air tomorrow at 12:15 PM as part of James Stewart's turn as TCM Star of the Month.

Herman also did a lot of screenwriting for which, according to IMDb, he doesn't actually have on-screen credit, and intertitles for a whole bunch of silent films.

And in an odd coincidence, Herman Mankiewicz died the same day as Joseph Stalin.